Ok, listen up, HN. I love this community because you're smart and ambitious, but we need to have a talk.
The Winter Olympics (& World Cup) are coming up. If we're lucky and live beyond our life expectancy, it's one of maybe 20 we could possibly see. 20. That's how short life is.
A long time ago I was getting into film direction and saw a contest in town for 8mm film shorts. So I wrote a screenplay, gathered eight of my friends together, and in one long day, we shot it. Weeks later when it came back from the labs, I took it to a guy I knew (who was also involved in putting the contest on) who had a projector. I was so excited. I was so proud of what I had done. I began rehearsing, in my mind, answers to such questions as, "How did you achieve such genius with so little background in film?", "What was your inspiration?", etc. The projector spun the film; I held my breath. We couldn't see anything; I hadn't used enough light. (In all my books on film direction, lighting an 8mm didn't come up.) The guy said, as he walked me out, "But you had fun making it right?" I took it almost as a taunt. I thought, "Fuck fun. I didn't want fun. I wanted that fucking film to turn out."
So you're on Hacker News because you like technology? That technology is going to be obsolete in at most a few Winter Olympics from now. You're on HN because you have a startup? If you have a great idea and you execute well with a great team... the odds are not even remotely in your favor. Ask anyone in the business. Not even remotely.
Today when I think back, do you know what I remember from that 8mm film I made? How much fun my friends and I had making it. We had a blast. That day is a wonderful, glorious memory. Whether or not the film turned out was always irrelevant.
Everything you think and love and see and know has an expiration date on it. 20 Olympics -- at most -- if you're lucky. And when you're old and smoking that last cigar (because fuck it) and you close your eyes, what will you remember? Do you know? I'll tell you. Not the film. You won't even remember what the film was about. No, you'll remember the day you shot it. "But you had fun making it?" Did you? It can sound like a taunt, but it's not. It's everything. God, be ambitious. Be smart. Good for you. But have fun. Most of all, have fun.
Laugh, HN. Let your hair down. Have sex. Drink wine from the bottle. Dance like madman. Have fun. For the love of God. You have 20 and it's all you'll ever have. Have fun.
