

Ask HN: What have you recently learned about yourself? - namenotrequired


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tempBadPerson
I am capable of domestic violence, despite a lot of evidence in my life that
suggested I would never do such a thing or even need to worry about that side
of myself.

~~~
ElongatedTowel
Similar. In my case not violence and not necessarily targeted at other people,
but I surprised myself how twisted my morals can get.

I even contemplated suicide about it. Of course people come rushing and tell
you that you have a mental illness because no one in his right mind would
think of killing himself for something that might as well not happened as no
one took notice of it. But it is in my mind and I have to life with my mind.

Then again, centuries ago people raped and murdered and yet aspired to become
great people. And some did. Certainly they never thought about ending their
lifes merely because a million other people hoped they would die in a ditch.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Whatever it is you've done, or thought about, you should remember you always
have choices, and one of the points that's crucial to making the best choices
is... your past does not have to determine your future. Regardless of our
past, we can change our future. Our ability to do so is governed by how
intrinsic our past has become in shaping our current identity, how much we
need to hold onto that past to feel like we know ourselves. Ask yourself this,
if you could start life afresh, what would you want to do with it that you're
not doing now?

~~~
ElongatedTowel
An often repeated thought. Yet at some point (usually when children or rape is
involved) people tend to suddenly forget about tolerance or sympathy and throw
around death sentences, castration or torture. There are certain mistakes one
can not do even once in most societies. And in some cases, or rather in some
countries you won't have a life to return to (or you're dead in the first
place).

~~~
3rd3
I think, one should carefully choose the thoughts to derive one’s actual moral
standards from. We have constant access to all kinds of information with
vastly varying moral standards and that certainly lowers the inhibition
threshold quite a bit. In a traditional social setting it’s much more
difficult to think about anything you want, because there are fewer
stimulating responses.

~~~
ElongatedTowel
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. Do you mean that it's
easier to do something bad because we are surrounded by bad things happening?
Or that it's easier to get rotten thoughts because we know so much about
things that happened, are happening, or that were justified in ancient times?

~~~
ZenoArrow
I think what 3rd3 was saying is that we can choose the morals we live by, but
without being limited by societal norms the range of choice we have for
defining our morals is too broad.

I'm not sure which of your comments that 3rd3 was picking up on, but that's
what 3rd3's comment seemed to say.

~~~
3rd3
That captures exactly what I was trying to describe.

------
chewxy
That I should actually give myself some credit and that I'm not that bad. I
gave a talk on Javascript[0] recently when I went to Malaysia. I thought I did
an extremely terrible hatchet job. The audience thought otherwise, and I took
quite a long time (like a few days) to adjust to the fact that I did okay.

edit:

[0] slides if you're interested: [https://speakerdeck.com/chewxy/underhanded-
javascript-how-to...](https://speakerdeck.com/chewxy/underhanded-javascript-
how-to-be-a-complete-arsehole-with-bad-javascript)

------
pmiller2
I turn into a bumbling idiot when asked to code in front of anyone. Since I'm
out of work, this is a bit of a problem. :P

------
innertracks
I've not been valuing myself. Being good with people and social situations as
well as engineering and problem solving is valuable. At least that's what I'm
having to remind myself. And I'm starting to believe it!

The only real problem is when I'm programming or furthering my tech skills I
feel like I'm short changing the social side. Same thing going the other
direction. As I'm getting more comfortable with the tension between the two
modes I'm feeling good about my potential as a consultant.

------
yarou
That I spend an unhealthy amount of time on HN. In my defense, my day job is
as dead end as it gets.

------
2014OC00000XXX
That I thrive in relatively structured work environments (as frustrating as
they can be), but fall into apathy and depression in more
horizontal/adhoc/Valve style places. This doesn't bode well for my potential
move to SF/SV...

------
namenotrequired
\- I find it very hard to relax over the weekend. But when I manage to do so,
it helps my productivity for the week a lot.

\- I can't stop something I don't like about myself merely by being aware of
it.

------
meerita
That, every year, I'm becoming more and more cynical.

------
NAFV_P
I worry a lot about others thinking I'm a retard.

I have practically no chance of getting a job in software development or
something similar.

I'm prone to being misquoted, which is probably worse than being misunderstood
(I learnt I was prone to being misunderstood when I was about six).

I really enjoy hideous data structures.

~~~
S4M
Why would you think people would view you as a retard? From your example
below, you can do FizzBuzz, and I am sure at least writing some basic program.

There, if you have difficulties to express yourself, it's just a matter of
interview training. I am sure you will do well.

~~~
NAFV_P
> _Why would you think people would view you as a retard?_

In the past, I have been classed as dumb by many different people. The term
"intelligence" is hard to define, especially these days with lumps of silicon
and metal being used to predict the weather up to five days in advance and
simulating nuclear detonations. Because of this it is very open to
interpretation. The closest I've got to a reasonable definition is nicked off
Greg Chaitin, a researcher in information theory:

    
    
      Furnish an intelligence with a block of data, if the intelligence can compress the data, it has achieved some understanding of it.
    

When it comes to writing basic programs, I'm most experienced in C. Something
simple can easily turn into 600 lines of drunk double dutch.

> _There, if you have difficulties to express yourself, it 's just a matter of
> interview training. I am sure you will do well._

Unfortunately, I hardly ever get interviews. I have trouble getting a minimum
wage job. The last interview I attended I mentioned writing a C program to
determine the positive square root of two to fifteen decimal places without
resorting to the standard library. As soon as I started trying to explain how
it worked (just successive approximations then squaring the answer to check
it), I think I blew their fuses.

~~~
S4M
That sounds very odd to me, because you write proper sentences and express
yourself very clearly by writing. If that can help you, I can arrange with you
a mock interview on skype and tell you if I think there is something wrong
with the way you speak (please note that I am not a native English speaker and
have a strong French accent). Feel free to contact me on my email on my
profile.

------
visakanv
It's not a recent thing, but it gets clearer and clearer to me that I am far
less in control of myself than I like to think. I mean this in the "Power Of
Habit" sense- I run far more by routine than I'd like to think, and this leads
to some suboptimal outcomes across all spheres.

------
ZenoArrow
Plenty, but picking one lesson... aside from death, guilt is the biggest block
to building positive momentum.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Another lesson is that I seem to have picked up at least some narcissistic
tendencies.

------
bradleysmith
That I am not aware of some expectations I have of others until after they
have been broken.

------
nicholas73
It all goes back to childhood.

------
mcintyre1994
That while I can really easily and quickly get myself engaged with an idea I
come up with, I can't come up with an idea that doesn't suck...yet

~~~
NAFV_P
> _... I can 't come up with an idea that doesn't suck...yet_

Don't be hard on yourself, Sir James Dyson's invention of the bagless vacuum
cleaner sucked loads, yet he's made millions.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Ha :) I guess it beats spending ages on something that sucks

------
mattwritescode
I am not very good at badminton.

------
dfraser992
That I have to absolutely get out of IT, because it has become a soulless,
mind-breaking, and exhaustive way to be exploited by idiots. I suppose any job
is like that, given how Western society is organized these days. But I have no
other useful skills and though I have a work ethic, my CV is such that if I
even applying for a bar job, or busing tables, ... "why the hell are you
applying for this job?" I'm stuck and can't get over this reluctance to burn
all my savings trying to change my direction in life.

~~~
namenotrequired
Do you have to get out of IT entirely? I thought IT is a big enough field that
no matter what kind of job you have, you're able to find something almost
opposite of it. I'm sorry to see that I'm wrong. What is it that you need that
you can't find within the IT field?

