
Today is the end of sheloshim for my beloved husband - dknecht
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155617891025177&set=a.404308695176.365039.717545176&type=1&theater
======
GuiA
Paul Buchheit wrote a wonderful post, after similar circumstances, that I
often re-read:

 _> On a more practical level, what matters most in our day-to-day lives is
that we're good to ourselves and to each other. It's actually not possible to
only do one or the other -- we must do both or neither, but that's a topic for
another time. Sometimes, when I write about startups or other interests of
mine, I worry that perhaps I'm communicating the wrong priorities. Investing
money, creating new products, and all the other things we do are wonderful
games and can be a lot of fun, but it's important to remember that it's all
just a game. What's most important is that we are good too each other, and
ourselves. If we "win", but have failed to do that, then we have lost. Winning
is nothing._

[http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/03/eight-years-
today.h...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2012/03/eight-years-
today.html?m=1)

May Sheryl and her family be free of suffering.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_Investing money, creating new products, and all the other things we do are
wonderful games and can be a lot of fun, but it 's important to remember that
it's all just a game._

I feel like this sentiment is very common, but is implicitly stating that all
of the other things, family, friends, personal health etc... are not games -
when I don't see why that would be the case. Nothing distinguishes those
things for me.

Creating new products, like software that gives people better productivity, or
hardware that helps people achieve physical fitness goals, or systems that
make getting clean water cheaper - those are life changing to a lot of people,
sometimes even millions. The typical response to this is "yea but most people
make junk" to which I say, telling junk from non-junk is an exercise in
futility.

We wouldn't be quoting Paul Buchheit or talking about Dave Sandberg if they
hadn't sacrificed some of those relationships, or health for the products and
platforms that we know them for. And that's the real point - legacy. Someone's
legacy is not the relationships they had personally, just look at the
miserable relationship failures of Steve Jobs, but their impact on bringing
their vision and impact on groups _outside_ of their circle.

Winning in my opinion then, is having an (hopefully positive) impact on those
outside of your inner circle, not within it. And the larger the impact, the
bigger the win.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
What are the things that—on your deathbed—you expect to regret?

Will it be that you didn't spend as much time as you could've with your
parents before they died? How about with your siblings? Maybe it was all of
the times that you didn't make it to your kids' soccer games, piano recitals,
school plays, or graduations?

Or will it be that you didn't spend nearly enough nights at the office fixing
your social media startup's bugs?

I don't remember the exact genesis of this, and I really wish I did, because
it has literally reshaped my life, but a few years ago, I started asking
myself the question 'If I were to die tomorrow, would I regret the way I have
lived my life?' And I was somewhat surprised and horrified to discover that
the answer was absolutely, categorically "yes."

I dropped out of the startup rat-race, took a good-paying 9-5 job working with
people who I (still) really like, and started focusing on the other 128 hours
in the week that I wasn't working.

I would hate to die tomorrow, but, if that's what happened, I would be
satisfied with how I spend each day of my life. My quality of life and
happiness have increased significantly since I first started asking myself
that question.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_What are the things that—on your deathbed—you expect to regret?_

Always found these philosophical shortcut tropes (eg. if you had just one day
left...) amusing, but not particularly illuminating because they over-simplify
life long achievements to mere regret-avoidance. If you are asking yourself
that, then 1. You are privileged to be at that level on the Maslow hierarchy
and 2. you already know the answer.

Embedded in your statements though are a lot of, in my opinion unfounded
presuppositions. One, that through force of will, the relationships that you
describe can be made positive - something forcefully unfounded in my
experience. Two, that someone's startup, social or otherwise, is a trivial
farce and there is no real added value - again see my previous statement about
common misguided arguments.

My main distinction is that personal happiness is not a goal of mine, but
rather a side benefit from accomplishing something that has lasting tangible
value for more than just myself and the people I am immediately exposed to.

~~~
bad_user
You should be a little careful. The odd thing about creative professionals,
which includes most software developers, is that if you take Maslow's
hierarchy of needs as the truth for the general population, for creative
professionals this pyramid of needs is inverted.

You see, most creative professionals are profoundly unhappy people. This is
because the equation for happiness is usually easy - your expectations have to
be lower than your achievements. As a side note, this is why the renowned mid-
life crisis happens, because that's the point in your life when you realize
that many of your dreams are impossible.

But going back to creative professionals - our expectations are off the chart.
It's because we've been taught that we can achieve anything, with our
imagination being the limit and hard work being the currency. It's because
many of us come from families of high achievers. Yes, we are profoundly
unhappy because our expectations are usually much bigger than our
achievements. This is the reason for why many of us are idealists, for why we
want to change the world. Many of us are also atheists, but all of us want to
achieve some form of immortality, therefore that's the reason for why many of
us want to build things that are long lasting.

I used to say the same things as you did. You may not feel the above right
now, I'm going to make the assumption that you're in your twenties, which
means you've got the energy to be hopeful about the future. But take it from a
32 year old that is going through a mid-life crisis 10 years earlier (or maybe
it's just a burnout episode, I don't know), but this youthful energy is going
to dissipate and you're then going to feel the emptiness in your life. And I'm
lucky, because I have a wife and a 4-year old whom I love very much and which
represent my reason for getting up in the morning.

~~~
Dewie3
A 32 year old lecturing a (supposed) 20-something about life experience. I
guess cynicism is becoming younger and younger.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I was more cynical than he is at 32 when I was 14. On the one hand, I've
learned to be more idealistic, but on the other hand, with how things are
these days, what sort of worldview do you _expect_ kids to learn? Since when
should youth be so _flagrantly ignorant_ as to form a worldview of sunshine
and daisies while terrorism, corruption, and destructive climate change take
up most of the headline space?

~~~
jbattle
before that it was the threat of nuclear war, ecological collapse, and
economic stagnation. before that it was the draft, violent racial injustice,
and a nearly complete collapse of legitimacy of national leadership.
Idealistic youts have always had reasons to be cynical. (and sadly typing up
this list, I see how many of the reasons to be cynical remain powerful
generation after generation)

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Exactly my point! Cynicism is often well-warranted, _especially_ if you
_actually have_ high moral ideas. What people ought to be scared of are the
people who aren't cynical because they simply don't care.

~~~
chris_wot
You just described skepticism, not cynicism.

------
redmaverick
Joe Biden's speech in 2012 touches upon similar themes that Sheryl writes
about.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwZ6UfXm410&t=5m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwZ6UfXm410&t=5m10s)

 _" I have to tell you. I used to resent people. They'd come up to me and say,
'Joe, I know how you feel. I know, right? I knew they meant well. I knew they
were genuine. But you knew they didn't have any damn idea."_

 _" For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously
decide to commit suicide. I realized someone could go out — and I probably
shouldn't say this with the press here, but you're more important — I realized
how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were
deranged, not because they were nuts. Because they’d been to the top of the
mountain, and they just knew in their heart they’d never get there again, that
it was never going to get — never going to be that way ever again."_

~~~
peteretep

        > Because they’d been to the top of the mountain, and they 
        > just knew in their heart they’d never get there again,
        > that it was never going to get — never going to be that
        > way ever again
    

And Sheryl says:

    
    
        > I know I will never feel pure joy again. Those who have
        > said, “You will find a new normal, but it will never be
        > as good” comfort me more because they know and speak the
        > truth
    

Is this attitude ... normal? I guess in the near aftermath, it's sure going to
feel that way, but ten years later? 20 years later? 30 years later? I can
understand never forgetting, but never letting yourself feel as happy again?

I have no experience, but would love to hear from someone with experience >10
years after the fact...

~~~
sambeau
I can confirm this. It has been 15 years since my son died.

On a day-to-day basis there is a new normality in my life and the emotion
surrounding his loss is locked tightly in a box. There is plenty of happiness
and plenty of _new_ happiness in my life.

However, at all of the happiest moments in my life the box is opened and I am
reminded that we are missing the one thing that would make this moment
complete.

This is why old people cry at weddings.

~~~
chris_wot
I cannot even imagine your pain. I have two small children, and if either of
them were to die, I just don't know what I'd do.

Thank you for sharing this most terrible of experiences. I genuinely
appreciate it.

~~~
__abc
This is my greatest fear. This is the one thing that can paralyze me late at
night when my mind wanders and wonders about what can go wrong in regards to
my two daughters.

------
curun1r
Reading this took me back to the experience of grieving for my dad.

The realization that it will never be okay, but that I can become more okay
with it never being okay. The bizarre feeling of grief so unbearable and yet
it being one of the few connections left to someone so important to me, and so
being unwilling to let go of it. Even to this day, I revel in that grief. I've
learned to look at it as consequence of so many wonderful experiences instead
of hurt of so many missed experiences. The feeling of that void inside me is
the same, but my reaction to that feeling is now to smile rather than to cry.

My heart goes out to her in this time when everything is so fresh and so
confusing. I know the feeling of having had someone taken from me long before
I even thought about the possibility and yet I'm sure her experience is
distinct from mine in so many ways. But in writing about her pain, she's
allowed me to tap back into mine in a way that I'm thankful for.

~~~
aaa667
As someone experiencing grief for the first time one and a half weeks ago, I'm
beginning to understand that bizarreness of grief - the ups and downs, that
void..

A lot of people I've spoken to who have experienced grief tell me the same
thing - that it will never be ok, but that you can become more ok with it -
that you will have moments where you briefly forget and that you get more of
these moments over time. I could never have understood this emotion before - I
thought it was like in the movies where you're constantly crying, but it's a
lot more complex and strange than that..

~~~
scott_s
_It’s not sobbing, collapsing, moaning grief. It’s phantom-limb pain. It
aches, it throbs, there’s nothing there, and yet you never want it to go
away._

Final lines from "The Day I Started Lying to Ruth: A cancer doctor on losing
his wife to cancer", [http://nymag.com/news/features/cancer-peter-
bach-2014-5/](http://nymag.com/news/features/cancer-peter-bach-2014-5/)

------
Fede_V
I have nothing but empathy for her grief - everything I've read about her
makes her seem like an amazing woman, but I am very deeply uncomfortable with
public displays of emotion like this.

I guess this is one of those dumb culturally ingrained traits, because
rationally I cannot really come up with any reason why it should make me feel
so uneasy, but I feel like I'm gawking when I read someone describing their
grief so publicly.

I wish her and her family the best. May they find the strength to go on.

~~~
ohitsdom
I have a really hard time with seeing grief on social media. It just comes
across as shallow to me. People changing their profile picture to the
deceased, posting tributes to them... it just seems fake.

I don't doubt their sincerity, I just think it's a really crappy medium for
that kind of thing.

------
Sven7
As a non user of Facebook it's incredibly weird to see like scores assigned to
every tribute or condolence comment.

~~~
omouse
Like = upvote; an echoing of the sentiment expressed. The word does cause some
cognitive dissonance.

------
themartorana
The prayer got me the most.

 _" Let me not die, while I am still alive..."_

That's powerful stuff. The idea of asking for more time like a kid in a
swimming pool - just 5 more minutes!

I hope I do die while I'm still alive though. Dying after I'm done living
sounds worse.

~~~
zak_mc_kracken
I feel the other way around.

I'd rather die while I'm alive (doing or living through something really
exciting) than completing something exciting, then entering the dawn of life
realizing that I'll never do something as exciting again, and then dying.

I wanna die in the middle of having fun, not in a retirement home.

~~~
tcfunk
That is not how I interpret that.

I think what that means is "Don't let me be caught up in grief and mourning so
much that I become the living dead." Hope that makes sense.

Basically just praying for the strength to carry on and learn from tragedy,
rather than to be consumed and defeated by it.

~~~
themartorana
That's awesome. Thanks! An interpretation I didn't consider.

------
joegaudet
Really great read, I recently lost a friend who was among many other great
things Jewish. As a "Gentile" I found the entire Shiva process both
historically / anthropologically interesting and very helpful with the
mourning process.

My thoughts go out to her and her family.

------
bitskits
Her thoughts on what makes mourning, and specifically the interaction with
other people so difficult, are really enlightening. It reminded me that each
person experiences life differently, even when we are all united by the same
feelings of satisfaction, love, frustration and grief.

My deepest condolences to Sheryl, as well as anyone else who reads this who
has lost a loved one. Life is both amazing and delicate, and I think we could
all focus a little more on the little things that make all the difference. I
know I could.

------
nerdy
It's easy to lose sight of what's truly important amid the fog of day-to-day
life.

------
DavidWanjiru
The way I see it, life is basically a long-winded effort to get loved. To get
loved by ourselves, by others and by our gods. Everything everybody does in
life boils down to this. From Hitler to Mother Teresa. From Osama bin Laden to
the Dalai Lama. You want to do things that matter, to change the world? Why?
How do you know they matter? Because those to whom they matter love you for
it. You love yourself for it, others love you for it and by your own spiritual
presumptions, your gods love you for it, or they will some day. And so, it is
not the big things or the small things that matter. It is not saving the lives
of millions or attending your kid's play that matters. The only thing that
matters is you finding love, however you find it. If there is no love feedback
for you, it doesn't matter. That's why nobody is trying to save the starving
children in the planets of the Andromeda galaxy, coz there's no feedback for
it. And if you think that's a poor analogy, well, there was nobody coming to
the slums of Africa to do the things people these days come to do.

------
esusatyo
My favourite part:

> "Celebrate your birthday, goddammit. You are lucky to have each one."

~~~
trendroid
Same can be said about each day though. Not sure why birthdays are special.

------
xchip
Can anyone summarize that long text?

~~~
MrZongle2
A woman who is relatively famous in some technology circles lost her husband
(also famous in the tech community) suddenly due to a tragic accident. Her
post comes at the end of a religious mourning period and she reflects upon how
she has learned to accept help and work to move on after such a harrowing
experience.

It's a pretty good read, and I'm sure it's heartfelt. As others here have
mentioned, it's odd to see something intensely personal and thoughtful in a
social media post, and it's tempting to dismiss it as a trite attempt at
attention-seeking (given the medium) but I don't believe that to be the case.

For the segment of the HN community that hasn't followed the professional
activities of Sheryl Sandberg or Dave Goldberg, however, the post will have
little relevance other than perhaps some shared personal experiences and
sympathy for the loss of the family.

~~~
xchip
Thanks MrZongle2, much appreciated!

------
michaelsitver
If Facebook posts were eligible for Pulitzers, this would win. This is so
incredibly thought-provoking, well-written, and well-constructed.

------
rokhayakebe
“Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of option B.”

------
Dewie3
> Judaism calls for a period of intense mourning known as shiva that lasts
> seven days after a loved one is buried.

It's strange to me to prescribe how long people should mourn. Some people are
appalled when someone seems to _get over_ someone quickly after they've died.
But if they are truly not sad about it any more, I say good for them. What
does it help the deceased for the living to be sad over them?

~~~
swombat
Often people who have lost close ones feel overwhelmed by all sorts of
emotions, including guilt - whether over mourning too much or mourning too
little. "Is it ok that I'm still grieving? Should I still be expressing this
grief to people I meet? Do people expect that I should be moving on now? Am I
moving on too soon?"

By declaring the length of the mourning period, religion does there one of the
things it does best: give us a sense of ritual and assuage potential guilt at
those very important moments in life: yes, it's ok to still be mourning. Yes,
it's ok to move on now.

These are not mandates. They're not marching orders. They're a guideline so
you don't have to add guilt about mourning too much or too little to what is
already a crushing amount of sorrow.

~~~
Dewie3
So religion tries to reduce guilt. Well I guess I learn something totally new
every day...

Admittedly I'm not familiar with Judaism except through the limited view of
the Bible and comparing it to Christianity.

~~~
swombat
Religion is a pretty complex thing. I totally agree that christianity tends to
be, as Alan Watts described it, "institutionalised guilt"... but that's just
one dimension of it. Religion is a huge topic. It's many things to many
people. It's never helpful to intelligent conversation to reduce a big thing
to a single axis.

------
guelo
For those like me that are wondering what is going on, apparently some Silicon
Valley executive died recently.

~~~
swombat
A human being died and another human being went through grief and wrote a
moving post about her journey. Do you really need to apply (what I'm sensing
to be) pejorative labels to it?

Death may not be your typical HN fare, but it is a subject that touches all of
us eventually, so far with no exception. I am glad that she was willing to
write this and share it. My life is richer for having read it.

~~~
yarou
I don't think the parent was trying to apply pejorative labels or there was
any malicious intent behind their post. It was more along the lines of being
unable to parse the title, IMO.

It's also good practice to critically examine any written piece, regardless of
whom it may come from. While you may derive aesthetic and ostensibly emotional
value from it, not everybody may necessarily feel that way.

In fact, my life wasn't changed or impacted in any profound sense after
reading this. You should keep in mind that not everyone may think the same way
as you, or even share the same reality.

~~~
swombat
> _It 's also good practice to critically examine any written piece,
> regardless of whom it may come from. While you may derive aesthetic and
> ostensibly emotional value from it, not everybody may necessarily feel that
> way._

That's an interesting assertion, and itself worth examining critically. Is it
generally good practice to critically examine any written piece? Possibly.
Probably even. Is it _always_ good practice? Perhaps even that is true. Is it
always good practice to state the outcome of your critical examination in
public? At this point, if your answer is still yes, we diverge. There's a time
for stating your critical analysis, and a time for keeping it to yourself.

Death is one of those topics where critical analysis is generally unwelcome.
To use a slightly extreme but actually fairly relevant analogy, if someone
very close to you died and you were mourning them at their funeral a few days
later, and someone there presents you with some kind of critical theory of the
chemical nature of grief, while it might appear to be some critical analysis
of the present moment it would nevertheless be most unwelcome.

Which brings me to your second point:

> _In fact, my life wasn 't changed or impacted in any profound sense after
> reading this. You should keep in mind that not everyone may think the same
> way as you, or even share the same reality._

There's nothing wrong with that, but I think you can tell fairly easily from
the comments that other people were moved by this post. In some, it has
brought up feelings of grief that they wished to share too. In effect, the
original post by Sheryl Sandberg has made this thread a place of grief for
many of the commenters here.

They will have come to it from many places, both real and imagined. For me it
is imagining how I would feel if my wife died, or how she might feel if I
died. For others it is remembering the death of a loved one. Either way, what
they express is real and deeply felt.

I think this "promotes" this thread to a place of grief, and as a human being
who respects other humans' right to such places, it is reasonable to keep your
critical evaluations to yourself in such a place. There are other places to
express your critical views of this. Yes, you have a right to express them
here if you wish, but you should also be aware of the implicit request to let
this space be what it is.

I know this is the internet and so expecting people to respect other people's
feelings is somewhat extraordinary here, but I guess I have a high opinion of
humanity in general.

~~~
drostie
I can understand how you feel that feelings (yours personally? others'?) were
not respected. Especially very short comments can sound terse to the point of
sarcastic. However, the tone that you're bringing here is not quite
appropriate. You seem to be raring for an internet argument: you're taking
offense at pejorative labels in posts which don't have pejorative labels, and
trying to go badass-philosopher on equivocations (they said "It's good
practice", you criticized "It's _always_ good practice").

So, I know who, roughly, the affected parties are here. But if you look close,
that's not actually contextually obvious. People who don't know who the
affected parties are click "Back" and then look at the comments, because
Sheryl Sandberg is very unlikely to tell Facebook exactly who she is, who her
husband was, and how he died. So they will come to our HN comments with a,
"not to diminish anybody's grief, but who is this and why do I care, again?"
approach. A simple comment of "her husband was a Silicon Valley executive" is
great there. I mean, maybe I'd have added "and she is the COO of Facebook"
too, since I've personally never heard of the companies he was a part of, but
I remember hearing about his death a while back.

It's just supremely ironic. Here you are, inappropriately critically analyzing
the appropriateness of critical analysis and disrespecting the real
expressions of others' feelings while decrying how the Internet disrespects
the real expressions of others' feelings.

I'm totally with you that there is a deep sympathetic response here where you
and I both imagine living without that love that we're presently consumed by,
or forcing someone else to live without that love. Yes, our feelings are real.
Their feelings are also real. It's not the time to perceive slights in terse
comments and expand short sentences into philosophical analyses. The phrase
"which brings me to your second point" should be barred from this context.
It's not just us and our sympathetic grief; they and their confusion are also
very valid responses to a totally-ambiguous out-of-nowhere post.

~~~
swombat
Interesting comment, and I'll think about it. Not to take away from your
comment as a whole, I will nitpick one particular thing. There is a big
difference in tone, imho, in saying "some Silicon Valley executive died
recently", which I believe to have a dismissive undertone, vs saying "a
Silicon Valley executive", which is fairly neutral. The "some" is probably
what triggered me there.

------
sambeau
If you can't understand why Sheryl Sandberg and David Goldberg are important
to the Hacker New community then I fear you have a misunderstanding of what
Hacker News is.

