

30 - mthwl
http://thew.me/writing/30

======
drostie
I like this idea of modern proverbs, and look forward to finding more in the
HN Comments. Here's what I'll provide:

No story survives contact with the players: they will always outsmart you and
come up with a novel solution to your best-designed traps. You must learn to
be gracious when this happens and improvise a satisfactory result. Characters
on a page are a little easier to control, but will also push back when you
write them.

My parents adopted two of my brothers. People refer to adoption by saying
they're "not really your" kids: I am not sure why. They really and truly are
my brothers.

You cannot choose your immediate emotional responses but you can choose your
overall outlook. Your overall outlook colors those emotional responses; a
peaceful mind handles stresses and uncertainties much better than an anxious
one. Thus, don't assume that there exists only one perspective on truth, but
search for the perspectives that make life easier.

The now is all there is. You can't daydream your life away in the past or the
future. In that sense: really experience this moment. However, all of your
ideas have been done better by geniuses in days long past, in histories which
did not become our particular present. In that sense, the present is
overwhelming you with details which are not essential. So don't forget to
practice history and have an outlook on the future. Just don't live in those
places.

If I ever find myself frustrated with someone else, it's usually because they
are doing something which I myself am guilty of doing. I think we often get
mad at our own sins seen in other peoples' acts. Adopt this stranger as your
brother, and that stranger as your sister.

You have a thousand bad _____ which must come out before the good work will
start coming out. Fill that blank in with paintings, songs, poems, programs,
thrown frisbees, approaches to management, whatever. Be skeptical when anyone
speaks of talent.

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jonstjohn
I take serious issue with this: "Placing a ripe, soft avocado in a
refrigerator will extend its life by two days, give or take." I've actually
found that it can extend the life of an avocado for a week or more, depending
on the avocado and when it is placed in the fridge :)

~~~
mhowland
Fun fact. Placing a halved avocado in a bag of water will save it from
oxidation overnight, as will face down on a plate with oil (olive, veggie,
etc) creating a seal. #AvocadoHacking

~~~
jonstjohn
Nice tip! I only learned about refrigerating avocados recently and it's
awesome to not have to consume a whole bag of avocados within a couple of days
:) I'll definitely try the avocado in water trick.

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sutterbomb
> Every photograph and video you take at a concert or other live event will
> probably be terrible. Just enjoy the moments, don’t feel pressured to
> document them.

I've changed my mind about this one because of a service called Timehop. Every
day it grabs any photos, social media updates etc. from 1 year prior and
stuffs them in an email (or push notification in the app). It's a great way to
remember, and appreciate, what you've been doing and where you've been. A
shitty little photo from a concert will take 15 seconds from "the moment" but
give me that enjoyment back down the line, sometimes tenfold. (Since the
additional marginal enjoyment of those 15 seconds is small, but the marginal
enjoyment of reliving that experience a year later is much larger.)

Overall though I really liked the post.

~~~
jimray
And the aggregate affect of a crowd full of people instagramming just about
every moment of a concert means I basically watch live shows through the
screens of other people's phones these days. Throw in a dozen crummy LED
flashes going off for most of the show and the experience is pretty much
killed for me.

If there's one development in concert-going over the past decade that I really
loathe, more than the consolidation of ticket sellers, the subsequent rise in
ticket prices, the steady increase in the cost of beer, my own age and sore
back after 4 hours, everyone else's insistence that they _need_ to photograph
(or worse, VIDEO) a show has got to be the top of the list.

And while I appreciate your edge case here that Timehop provides, most of
those photographs are just being uploaded to Facebook to show off how vastly
interesting they are to everyone who's not there. Cultivating other people's
FOMO.

Ok, enough of my old man kvetching. I genuinely do think it's cool that
Timehop let's you relive those little moments as much as I genuinely regret
the loss of my enjoyment of living those moments at the time they are
happening.

~~~
sutterbomb
> most of those photographs are just being uploaded to Facebook to show off
> how vastly interesting they are to everyone who's not there. Cultivating
> other people's FOMO.

Too true. I guess it's also a bit of a tragedy of the commons. I don't feel
like my 15 seconds of keeping a phone in the air is all that problematic for
those around me - but it quickly gets out of hand when the entire audience
feels the same way. (And doing it much longer/more frequently than just a
single snap once or twice a show.)

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btrautsc
Love posts like this that find their own way of delivering a broad spectrum of
advice from a unique life.

Something I've learned:

Everyone is the main character in their own story. Once you understand this,
peoples' motivations make a lot more sense. Let people be their story's hero.
Be your story's hero. But don't be other story's antagonist. Try to be the
ally in other stories. You will end up with a lot of trusty sidekicks.

------
eob
Not really a HN-worthy comment, but I just wanted to point out the humor in
his first piece of unsolicited advice to the internet at large: "Try not to
give unsolicited advice". :)

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obviouslygreen
This is nice despite being extremely subjective ("know" is not something I'd
apply to most of these things; "believe" is strong enough _and_ correct), but
some of them are questionable, and -- assuming the author didn't actually
follow them in his younger years -- could've resulted in things being worse.

Prime example: _If given the opportunity, people will surprise you. Leaving
yourself open to these surprises is a kind of risk. Taking that risk is how
you believe in people._

Yes, they certainly will, and yes, it's most definitely a risk. Unfortunately,
that surprise, when it does come, is rarely good. Also, taking that risk too
often can lead you to believe in people if you're lucky in your acquaintances;
it can just as easily (if not more so) lead to the exact opposite if you're
unlucky.

~~~
bryne
Your history of negative experiences is a nice anecdote, despite being
extremely subjective.

------
justanother
"If you drink beer, drink the absolute best beer available, even if that means
you can afford fewer beers."

A lot of good points in this post, but on this we must respectfully disagree.
Yours truly, an almost-36-year-old with Miller High Life by the gallon.

~~~
btrautsc
A man after my own heart! Good day, Sir!

------
blairbeckwith
Usually, posts like this make me gag a little on the cheesiness, but this was
well done. There's some really good advice in here. I especially like:

"Let people leave your life when they need to. Leave a light on for them in
case they ever decide to return. Collect those lights and regularly remember
why you keep them lit."

------
gerjomarty
In addition to

> Every photograph and video you take at a concert or other live event will
> probably be terrible. Just enjoy the moments, don’t feel pressured to
> document them.

I would also add that while singing along at concerts certainly has its time
and place, actually listening to the artist singing is better.

~~~
slg
I think it depends on why you are attending the concert. I don't attend as
many as I did in my teens, but back then it was more about community than
music. In hindsight, the music those bands played wasn't particularly good.
The real draw was getting together with a bunch of like minded people and just
"having a good time." That often included singing, dancing, and generally not
paying attention to what happened on the stage. If you truly want to enjoy the
music, odds are that it can be done easier and cheaper from the comfort of
your own home. The same applies for most other live events, whether they be
WWDC sessions or sporting events.

~~~
gerjomarty
That is very true, but there's something to be said for experiencing music
live rather than at home with a nice set of headphones.

Also, I was fairly miffed when I went to a concert a while back and had the
singer drowned out by five guys singing along really loudly right beside me.
(We were quite far back from the stage.) It's great that they're having a good
time, but they probably could have had just as good a time going to karaoke or
something. Although you would lose the feeling of "being there".

~~~
slg
That is a good point about interfering with other people's enjoyment of the
concert. I was generally referring to the audience as a collective unit. The
issue becomes more complicated when different groups in the audience want to
enjoy the event different.

------
MatthewPhillips
> If you drink beer, drink the absolute best beer available, even if that
> means you can afford fewer beers.

If you're thirty it's time to pick a dark liquor and drink it straight. You
can still drink beer, and yes you should have moved beyond beers that don't
advertise what type of beer they are by now, but when out with other adult
company drink a dark liquor (but no more than 2 or 3 drinks, "getting wasted"
is not something adults do).

~~~
itsybitsycoder
_“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely
descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being
grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the
suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and
adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy
symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life
or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really
arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would
have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read
them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the
fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”_ ~ CS Lewis

My favorite drink is Diet Coke with peach schnapps.

~~~
glomph
Nice quote.

------
jelled
"Own fewer things..."

I turned 30 ten days ago and have thought about this one a lot recently. It's
an interesting transition, because when you enter your 20's you typically have
no stuff and thus everything is valuable. Your parents old couch, your
roommate's spatula he left behind when he moved out, ect. Getting out of that
mentality took me longer then it should.

~~~
jkmcf
My corollary to this is buying the best thing you can reasonably concieve of
affording.

My prime example is a guitar. Once you move from the starter knockoffs, you
should start investigating the more expensive models to find what you like.
Don't wander through life buying mediocre.

(This isn't to say you can't find more affordable quality or satisfaction, but
at some point may wish you had ponied up for that PRS or Gibson after having
purchased numerous used guitars whose sum exceeds the value of what you really
wanted :)

------
thebear
Several people have pointed out a possible irony in Item 1, "Try not to give
unsolicited advice." Be that as it may, I have a different issue with this
item. The vast majority of the unsolicited advice that I have received in my
life was useless and annoying. But then practically all of the truly valuable
advice that I have received was unsolicited.

------
egb
Fun list, but morning people do love to spread their belief like a gospel. :-)
Some of us quite enjoy staying up late.

~~~
run4yourlives
As a nighthawk myself, the thing about morning people that I've come to
realize in my 38 years is that they are 100% right. Life is much, much better
with an extra hour or two of time _before_ the day than an extra hour or two
_after_ the day.

I've tried, and tried and tired, but I can't do mornings. I hate them for it.

~~~
itsybitsycoder
I'm (usually) a night owl too but lately, for some unknown reason, I've been
waking up at 6-7 every morning feeling fine, and I agree. An hour or two of
time before the day is an hour or two when you're still fresh, so I find it
easier to use this time to work on a personal project, play music, or some
other productive/enriching thing. An extra hour or two at the end of the day
is usually just eaten up by pointless things (e.g., entertainment after I'm
already 'fully entertained').

------
xijuan
>Kindness, and the strength to display it in all situations, is the single
most admirable quality that people can possess.

I totally agree with this. The people I admire the most are the kindest people
I have ever met. I really aspire to be one of them.

------
jonmc12
"Other people cannot always see your intentions, they can see your actions." -
so true, so important to understand.

I would add exercise to the list for sure. The energy and cognitive boost
absolutely required to be at your best as you age.

------
ctdonath
Don't do anything you'll regret. Yes, you have that choice.

Don't regret anything you did. You did it in good faith (see above) with what
information & resources you had at the time.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Let me slightly correct this (I turned 30 in November).

The things you'll regret are the things you didn't do. I might not be proud of
some of the things I did do, but I don't regret them. Never regret something
you did; at one point its what you wanted.

~~~
gyardley
_Never regret something you did; at one point its what you wanted._

At times in my life I've behaved like a completely immoral asshole. Are you
seriously suggesting that I shouldn't regret these times, just because I
_wanted_ to be an immoral asshole at the time?

If you act like an evil bastard, you most certainly _should_ regret it. You
were bad, and you should feel bad. That feeling bad is part of what keeps you
from doing it again.

~~~
frenchy
This depends on your personality, I think. Bold people tend to be assholes and
timid people tend to avoid both the things they should have done, and the
things they shouldn't have. Some people, like me, have a little of both.

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xymostech
Seems fitting that #30 is the best advice on there.

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skizm
I'm assuming #1 is supposed to be a joke/irony?

~~~
dancole
> #31: Once in a while, when you feel strongly about it, break a rule.

Also, it's not unsolicited when people are voluntarily reading what he wrote.

