alt Hacker NewsIt's death
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I don't really get it, but still kind of liked it?
I enjoyed the abstractness of the story and the disjointedness of the time aspects. I don't disagree with the salience of the point Death made but it kind of felt like an exposition dump in a movie.
Not that I'm a good writer (or reader tbh) but I think focusing more on the first kind of writing and less on the second would have connected more with me.
5 people, 4 seats in the cars. 7 hours deciding what to order on the delivery app. In the end we just walked the 4 miles and it was great.
This style of writing feels like the Minecraft Parkour Civilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pFwQiwRbcg
There's a perfect balance of absurdity and casualness that makes almost perfect sense that you can follow the show, and yet bizarre enough that you stick to know more.
Most people/groups are taught How to survive.
Many coast on just that knowledge and die without the WHY to survive question ever coming up.
But if it does come up for you at some point in life, know that different philosophies have different answers. These days you can find summaries of all of them neatly complied like a restaurant menu thanks to LLMs.
People are very diffefent so you find the philosophy that fits you. Also thanks to all those differences proving one is the best is a waste of time and energy. Different ones are useful for different situations.
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” - Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
I appreciate the Australian salty outlook on life, feels very much present in this story.
To my mind there is a Buddhist story hiding in here. The whole idea about an endless black void and that the protagonist considered sitting felt…allegorical? metaphorical?
The end is what drove it home for me. People generally speaking would prefer not to do any internalizing about death whatsoever and will take an endless wandering over the hard work of being human.
Gotta love those comments. Goes to show, you can be called out like that, and be on the HN front page at the same time. When you're young, you may not realize this. I never did when I judged my own stuff as (too) edgy.
Can a kind soul write down their interpretation of the story? I didn't quite get it.
[Edit]: Thanks for all the explanations!
These kind of write-ups always try to bring one into their real world senses.
Few interesting observations
>> Ten years gone for the sake of picking a Netflix show Thats just Netflix. With kids 18 years go by just like that.
>> Nobody gets it all right. You’re born, and then you go through life making the choices that you think are the best given the information
This is said numerous times but can give wrong interpretation. Choices are what make the life. Life and choices are not parallel tracks.
For some reason I imagined death from The Seventh Seal by Bergman here. Very calm and matter for fact kind of a character. Maybe once in a while he may decide to visit for a game of chess...
Winston Churchill once laid bricks as a means to outrun the black dog.
Fantastic, thanks for that!
It's a funny story if you look at the end of life from a materialistic viewpoint on the origin of consciousness, but that’s not the only perspective.
Reminds me of the cut number "The Hole" from the Beetlejuice stage musical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYa31LqxKc8
Great
Kafka pastiche.
if life didn't suck and there were not the time out of death there would be no drive to optimize the time we have.
This story has a strong "life sucks then you die" vibe going for it. And the afterlife also sucks apparently (although I don't personally believe in an afterlife).
Hopelessness and injustice seem to be the current zeitgeist - at least for anyone who spends a lot of time online. And I get it, there's plenty to be unhappy about.
But my counter-argument is that it's possible to do things in life that you're proud of. And find happiness in the simplest of places. And most people would do better to focus the majority of their attention on those things.
This story says "do yourself a favour and forgive yourself for any failings on your part, you’re only human after all" - which I agree with. But I'd go one step further and add "celebrate your successes" and try to align your life in such a way that you can have successes worthy of celebrating.
It makes me wonder: with everyone seemingly so unhappy, why aren't there more people pursuing alternative lifestyles? Similar to the 60s counterculture. You don't need the whole world to go along with you - just a handful (or less) of likeminded people. Or some people even manage to go it alone.
It seems a lot of people (perhaps a vocal minority?) actually enjoy being upset. Or maybe everyone is going through ups and downs but we just tend to be more vocal when we're upset.