
Ask HN: What stages of disillusionment have you been through in your life? - rblion
I know this is a very broad question but this is a very broad and interesting bunch. I lurk here a lot and learn a lot from a lot of you.<p>I&#x27;m 28 and feel like the last 8 years of my life have been a gradual disillusionment.<p>I used to want to be &#x27;someone&#x27; but now that everyone is &#x27;special&#x27;, I just want to be ordinary.<p>I admire a few people in history from cultures I resonate with, I don&#x27;t want to be any of them though.<p>I don&#x27;t care for being rich or famous, just building something that solves a practical problem affecting a lot of people at a fair price.<p>I used to want to &#x27;change the world&#x27; or even &#x27;save it&#x27;, then I realized that the Cosmos is much older and grander than I can imagine, that we can&#x27;t stop the sun from shining or the earth from spinning, we can disrupt things a little bit for an epoch at most but not forever. It&#x27;s actually a bit arrogant to think we are that powerful or important, it&#x27;s liberating to realize how free a person can be when they really, really look at the Cosmic Calendar.<p>I could go into religion, politics, social movements, family structures, probably everything but I won&#x27;t, these are all easy targets and most everyone has already heard enough about all these. Even science, as much as I love it, has it&#x27;s limits while many of it&#x27;s biggest &#x27;celebrity scientists&#x27; are famous for their views than their work.<p>I may sound morbidly depressed or cynical but I feel very human and honest right now. Like a person who has just had enough, who just wants to be free.
======
p0d
At 47 I have realised that many of life’s frustrations are the result of
misguided expectations.

The truth is you want to be famous and are trying to resign yourself to the
fact this isn’t happening. This may happen but probably won’t.

This is what I have grown to expect. My wife and kids to be by my side. One or
two close friends to be there for me. To work hard and not get too caught up
conparing my life to other people’s lives.

Get these things in place or you won’t like your 40s :-)

This is a bible passage which shaped my thinking,
[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%20...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%205:18-20&version=NIV)

------
badpun
Things I thought would happen for me when I was younger, but over time I found
out they are pretty unlikely (at least for me):

1\. Having a wide circle of friends.

2\. Finding a "love of my life".

3\. Finding enjoyment in software engineering career.

~~~
p0d
I’d go for two or three close friends rather than a wide circle. I would
describe close as those you spend time with and the contact is mutual i.e. you
are not the one always initiating the get togethers.

~~~
badpun
I ended up with one really close friend (we live close by, and talk almost
daily). As long as that friend is genuinely a great person, that's enough for
me. I don't know if I would have bandwidth for another friend.

------
happertiger
The system has values that aren’t very fulfilling (wealth, power,
consumerism). I think a lot of people feel like you do.

No advice really. It’s totally true. You are on the one hand a dynamic
individual with much to offer the world. Yet at the same time you are one of
six billion, floating on a spec of dust in one corner of an infinite universe.
Somewhere in the middle is the fulfillment your looking for. ;)

~~~
rblion
> Somewhere in the middle is the fulfillment your looking for. ;)

Funny you say that, I'm actually very much into this train of thought right
now. I see the unity in the duality. The Tao instead of yin-yang. The balance
of feminine and masculine in each of us. Ancient and modern. Eastern and
Western. Red and blue. Capitalism and socialism. APOLLO AND DIONYSUS!

One thing I am looking for is more people on this train of thought. Where
could I meet them?

~~~
happertiger
Lol. I find many of them work in tech in New York and San Francisco.

Go to burning man and see if that’s your tribe.

~~~
rblion
I'm working on getting there. I don't think I can this year but I'm gonna put
the intention out into the Universe.

------
amorphous
Plenty (at age 48). But you probably know this, the literal meaning of
disillusionment is "being freed from false beliefs or illusions". And that
makes life simpler and "truer", so I wish you many more.

------
HiroshiSan
Thinking I was a special snow flake but realizing I'm just average. A large
part of me hopes that's not the case but it's going to take more than hoping
to change that.

------
foobarbecue
"building something that solves a practical problem affecting a lot of people
at a fair price" sounds like an excellent goal! Reminds me of this song:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_zKjSIPd6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_zKjSIPd6U)
And... reality tends to hit pretty hard in late 20s, in my experience! Just
hang in there and try to keep doing things that feel fulfilling and
productive.

~~~
rblion
Thanks for the song, I like it. Family, travel, music, food, film make me
happy. Becoming a better designer, developer, copywriter, marketer too.

I think what I'm really experiencing is finding out how much mental illness
there is in the world and how much chaos there is as a result of it for every
other living thing. How does that make any sense if 'God loves us and wants to
be free'? I went through a major dive into Buddhism but it really is a
religion too, cult-like at times. There is truth in all of it but freedom is
beyond all ideologies and -isms, is it not?

------
throwaway413
I’m 25 and thought the woman I’d been married to for 5 years was the love of
my life. She was my whole life. I realize now that I had been falling for a
game she had been playing since we met.

The illusion wears a bit more each day. Things change. People change. Ideas
change. You’re forced to adapt and leave behind what you thought was reality.

“You already know what I been on, you know where I be at...men lie, women lie,
numbers don't, I see that" -Logic

