
The Bipolar Lisp Programmer (an oldie but a goodie) - acangiano
http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/bipolar.htm
======
kevbin
Wow. That's very close to home.

The author's other essays (<http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/index.htm>)
are interesting, too. I particularly like "Why I am Not a Professor". After
reading that one, I wonder if the BBM he rescued in "The Bipolar Lisp
Programmer" is not himself?

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tarkin2
He seems to argue the problem with BBMs is their success. Their success, that
is, at working alone. So much so that they seldom want to work with others,
for when you work alone you are not forced to yield to oft highly unpleasant
real-life situations, which dilute the purity and elegance of your original
solution.

And more or less refusal to exposure your system to real-life situations--PC
hardware via Lisp machines, the wants of the masses, etc--means you don't get
the critical mass of acceptance needed for mainstream success. Without this
mainstream success you don't get the cash, industry support or new developers
needed for growth.

Nice theory.

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MarkPNeyer
For those interested, I thought I'd provide an 'insider's view' of bipolar,
since I have it. I go through manic phases followed by depressive phases.
Sometimes mine are short (i.e. hours) but intense. Other times they last for
months. I am obsessed with the problem of P vs NP, and thinking about it too
much can lead me into manic phases, where I become convinced that I've solved
the problem, and that others (i.e. teachers and friends) are out to steal my
ideas. I become paranoid and write my name and the date on everything I write,
in case someone claims my notes as their own. I become convinced that I am the
reincarnation of Godel, Turing, John Nash, or other mathematicians. I converse
with my "former selves" and tell them about my ideas. They respond with
fascination and sometimes suggestions of their own. My mind spins and reels,
and it feels sometimes like it becomes completely detached from my body.

It's true that while I'm manic, I can get abnormal amounts of work done. I
also speak incredibly quickly, and develop a stutter because my mind moves too
fast for my mouth to keep up. I call them 'cache misses' because my brain has
to stop and go back to where it was just seconds ago, in order to 'fill in'
the missing words. Because I think so quickly while manic, I become frustrated
and irritated with anyone and anything that stops me from thinking as quickly
as I'd like to. I have trouble sleeping at night, and when I do sleep, I dream
of absurd mathematical problems that don't make any sense. Once I was skiing
with some friends, and I had a dream wherein each ski route was assigned an
integer value. It was up to me to make sure that the sum of the slopes
traversed by my group was exactly zero. I had to keep convincing people to do
different slopes in order to keep things balanced. When I have those dreams, I
have a hard time waking up because I want to solve the problem so badly that I
can't get out of bed. Additionally, when I'm manic, I drive more recklessly
and take risks that I shouldn't. I'm much more likely to go home from a bar
with a girl that I shouldn't. It seems like my sex appeal dramatically
increases while I'm manic. This could be because I'm just thinking more highly
of myself in general, but it could also be because i'm more aggressive, bold,
and confident, all of which are appealing to girls.

The flip side of the mania is depression. When a manic phase ends, it usually
leads to a depressive phase, when I realize i'm not a super genius capable of
anything, and that my conversations with past mathematical figures are
hallucinations. I think of myself as hopelessly stupid and doomed to live an
unhappy life. It's not just being sad. It's a state of total hopelessness and
despair. The only thing in the world that is remotely appealing is killing
myself, which I dream of constantly. I've attempted suicide three times, each
time getting closer to actually finishing the act. The last time I tried, I
was standing on the 28th floor of a building in downtown Seattle, trying to
work up the courage to jump off the ledge. If it weren't for some people who
happened to come up the elevator as I was sitting on the ledge, I probably
wouldn't be typing this today. I know that suicide is a terribly selfish thing
to do, but until you've experienced the despair and hopelessness associated
with bipolar depression, you can't begin to understand how much it makes
sense. After my second attempt, I was taken against my will to a mental
hospital, where I spent a few days. It was the worst experience of my life.
All it impressed upon me was that, if I ever feel like suicide again, I
shouldn't tell any medical professionals because they might take me back
there. Even when I'm perfectly happy and level(i.e. no longer in a depressive
or manic phase) I still occasionally think about killing myself. When I hear a
story in the news about a plane crash or a celebrity dying, my first thouhgt
is always to be envious of them. Just writing this post is making me want to
kill myself.

As if the hopelessness, despair, and suicidal idealization weren't bad enough,
I lose my attention span, ability to focus, and ability to enjoy things.
Activities that I once used to enjoy become boring. I don't enjoy hanging out
with my friends as much, and I don't want to do anything but sleep. I try to
read a book but I don't enjoy it. I try to watch some TV but it's boring. I
try to play a video game, but it doesn't hold any appeal to me. I go to a park
to take a walk in nature, but it's all boring and uninteresting.

Lately the past few months, I've been mostly good. I still live in fear of
entering another depressive episode. I regularly visit a psychiatrist and
therapist, and I take mood-stabilizing medication on a daily basis. If I go
off of my medication, (I once went to visit my parents for two weeks, and left
it at home) I become incredibly depressed. Alcohol, even in small amounts, can
make me suicidal.

Am I hopeful about the future? It all depends upon when you ask me. Some days
I feel like I've got the worst of it behind me, and as long as I follow my
medications, avoid alcohol, stick to routines, and don't make drastic changes
in my life, I'll be OK. Other days I realize that empirically, something like
20% of people with bipolar die of suicide, and your odds of dying of suicide
increase dramatically if you've already attempted it. I really have no clue as
to whether i'll die by natural means.

~~~
tarkin2
I experience something similar, but not to the same extent. Nevertheless,
hopefully this will be helpful.

I have a desire to succeed, to invent, to solve highly difficult problems,
much like you, and it becomes an obsession. And, too, this coincide with an
over-estimation of my ability to perform such. I believe this is so I will
continue to try to solve such lofty problems.

But eventually the steam which powered that over-estimation runs out. And then
I hate, because of my lack of success, myself to the same extent as I over-
estimated myself. And this is no way to live. And this whole process comes
down to one thing: my initial desire to succeed, to solve such difficult
problems.

The more I look at my thoughts, where they came from, I realise this desire to
succeed comes from my belief others will only value me if I succeed in such a
way. When I imagine solving such problems, I always imagine other people,
telling other people I've done this, and gaining their approval.

I have only a vague idea when I started to believe that I would only be a
valued human being if I solve these problems that no-one else has. But this is
where my bipolar cycle started. And it will only end when I remove this
pernicious idea from my mind, which will require a lot of introspection.

------
nopassrecover
Wow I feel like this is describing me verbatim, and then feel self-centred as
though I don't deserve this description.

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joe_the_user
One of the most touching things I've read in while..

The author evokes life's tragedies in simple but nuanced manner.

~~~
rbanffy
Touching, indeed.

I see this pattern all around me and a lot of it in myself - and, mind you, I
only use Lisp to teach Emacs new tricks. The fact worse is better in this
industry is a tragedy so huge we have not yet come to appreciate its
magnitude.

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coliveira
Very good article.

But learning from the past, I am already afraid of seeing lots of articles on
the HN front page devoted to discussing the BBM...

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rick2047
Umm...analyzing self...Beep...Beep...Beep...Panic...Panic...Panic...... I have
all the characteristics for a BBM, from top to bottom. Whats worse?I dont even
,know lisp!!!!!What do I do what do I do????!!!!!!!!1

~~~
acangiano
Start here: <http://clojure.org>

~~~
rick2047
I dont know but your advice does not appeal to me, I mean clojure just doesnt
cut it. And i dont wanna go into the hassel of anything java (it ate up my
master high school end project, I rewrote it in ruby then). What about haskell
I know its not totall Lisp but seems better than clojure

~~~
rick2047
If I got down voted so many times just for this comment clojure sure must be a
fine language.But I am still not going to learn it just because it targets the
JVM. But maybe some day I will forget the 3 sleep less nights I spent
rewriting the project in ruby or the A- I got where I had expected an A++, and
try to look into clojure.

~~~
rbanffy
I think the fact it adresses the JVM is a nice thing that allows you to get
away with writing Lisp code when your corporate overlords demand you to write
Java code. ;-)

Now, more seriously, it seems a rather useful Lisp that somewhat deals with
the problem of partial/buggy/worksforme library implementations by using the
huge Java class library.

