overkill-wtf-ehwcta.txt (9426B)
1 [1]Skip to content [2]overkill.wtf [3]Setup [4]Reading [5]Playing [6]About [7] 2 Now 3 | [8](Switch to dark mode) 4 5 A day is short, a life is long 6 7 I turn 35 today, which feels like an age where I should probably have some 8 things figured out. 9 10 Not everything. That would be ridiculous. Don't be ridiculous. But maybe a few 11 things. 12 13 So I spent an unreasonable amount of time recently trying to figure out what I 14 believe in. Not necessarily politically, or in the "which dead philosopher 15 should I make my entire personality" sense (looks at his Marcus Aurelius and 16 Buddha tattoos). More basic than that. 17 18 What do I think makes a good life? Turns out the answer is mostly: 19 20 Having a good life. 21 22 Wow. Very helpful. Thanks, Kevin! 23 24 But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I have spent quite a 25 lot of my thirties figuring out what that means by accident. 26 27 Take work. 28 29 I have been at the same company for 11 years now. Which sounds horrible when I 30 write it down. Not because the company is horrible, but because 11 years at the 31 same place sounds like I should have one of those little glass cubes on my desk 32 thanking me for my service. 33 34 I don't. (I did get 500€ after 10 years, though. Before taxes, which ate half. 35 So thanks, I guess.) 36 37 And I have changed what I do every two or three years anyway, so maybe that is 38 the trick. The place stayed the same. The work didn't. 39 40 More importantly, the job gives me something I only really started appreciating 41 once I thought about it. It pays enough. It is interesting enough. I work from 42 home three days a week. And when I close the laptop, there is still some brain 43 left. 44 45 That last bit might be worth more than another 1000€ a month. 46 47 Actually, probably much more. If somebody offered me another 5000€ every month 48 but wanted ten more hours of my week in exchange, I genuinely don't know what I 49 would do with the money. 50 51 What would I buy? I already buy too much shit. 52 53 I can travel. I can buy books. I can buy a stupidly expensive pair of 54 headphones because for three months I suddenly decide headphones are the most 55 interesting objects ever invented ([9]heh!). There is a mortgage, and it gets 56 paid. There is food in the fridge. I can save some money. I can invest some 57 money. 58 59 So what am I working ten more hours for? To watch big number go big? 60 61 I think this is one of the things I believe now but did not really understand 62 ten years ago: "more" needs a reason. 63 64 Same with health. 65 66 I am apparently very disciplined about some things and completely unwilling to 67 give up the things I enjoy. 68 69 I exercise. I track my food. I like sleeping. I barely drink. None of this 70 feels particularly sacrificial because, conveniently, I enjoy most of it. 71 72 But if you tell me I can die at 90 but have to refuse pizza for the next 55 73 years, or die at 85 (my predicted lifespan) while continuing to eat pizza, I am 74 picking pizza. Unless you put pineapple on it. Then I'll die at 35. 75 76 I would also take an immortality pill tomorrow if somebody made one, so this is 77 not me having some romantic idea that death gives life meaning. Fuck that. 78 Death seems like a pretty major design flaw. Somebody should fix it. I just 79 don't think living longer is useful if I spend the extra time making my life 80 worse. 81 82 Somewhere around here I think "optimization" breaks. 83 84 Optimizing things is not bad. I like it. Obviously! overkill exists because I 85 enjoy spending six hours solving problems nobody else knew they had. But you 86 can optimize one part so hard that you make the whole thing worse. 87 88 I did that with this website, actually. For about three years, overkill was a 89 company. There were invoices and taxes and revenue and all the boring things 90 that make something officially Serious Business™. 91 92 And suddenly I had to care much more about traffic. What gets clicks? What do I 93 need to publish? Should I write about this thing because I am interested in it, 94 or should I write about that other thing because people are searching for it? 95 Reddit really likes Steam sales posts. A lot of clicks, a lot of ad money. I 96 fucking hate them. 97 98 Turns out I do not enjoy thinking like that very much. 99 100 So I killed the company. Now overkill makes no money. I have no real idea how 101 many people read it. I have no clue how many email subscribers I have, but I 102 know they cost me 30€ a month. And I pay for it myself. 103 104 This sounds like a spectacular business failure because it is. I don't give a 105 shit. It made the website better for me. I write what I want again. 106 107 There is probably something irresponsible about spending your free time writing 108 thousands of words for an audience you cannot quantify and then paying the 109 server bill for the privilege, but I like doing it. That seems like enough of a 110 reason. (I also still feel happy feelings every time I get an email from one of 111 you.) Also, that is, quite literally, what hobbies are. 112 113 Same with my journal. Nobody except me will ever read it. I have thousands of 114 photos sitting in Immich. Nobody except me will ever see them. I started 115 putting photos and little observations into an orange notebook recently. Nobody 116 except me will ever leaf through it. 117 118 I think I used to have a stronger sense that things should eventually become 119 something. A hobby becomes a skill. A skill becomes expertise. Expertise 120 becomes a publication. A publication becomes a company. A company grows. 121 122 And then what? 123 124 There is always another rung on that particular ladder, which is useful if you 125 actually want to keep climbing. 126 127 Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I want to take photographs because taking 128 photographs is fun. Sometimes I want to read a book because reading it is fun. 129 Sometimes I want to spend a month learning far too much about coffee grinders 130 and then never think about burr geometry again. (I am looking for a grinder for 131 filter coffee, I'll take any recommendations.) 132 133 I am also increasingly okay with abandoning things. 134 135 If somebody depends on me finishing something, that obviously changes things. 136 But if I start a project because I am curious, spend three months on it, learn 137 everything I wanted to learn, and then stop caring before I reach whatever 138 arbitrary finish line I invented at the beginning... 139 140 Okay? What exactly would finishing achieve? I got what I wanted out of it. 141 Kthxbye. 142 143 Maybe that's the kind of change I need. My interests shift. I follow them. The 144 rest can stay pretty fucking stable. 145 146 I could live in the same house until I rot if it is the right house. I have 147 been with the same person for a long time. I have been at the same company for 148 11 years. 149 150 Same house, new obsession. Same partner, new shared interest. Same job, new 151 role. 152 153 And that is probably also why trying to fit everything I care about into every 154 day makes no sense. 155 156 My partner. Friends. Family. Reading. Writing. Games. Going to the gym. 157 Learning random shit. Time alone. Time where nothing is happening. 158 159 I want all of that in my life. But I don't need all of it today. 160 161 This is where I think I have accidentally found the most useful sentence in 162 this whole exercise: A day is short. A life is long. 163 164 I don't need to write today. I don't need to go to the gym today. I can spend 165 an entire Saturday playing Pokémon and drinking coffee and eating pains au 166 chocolat (I love pains au chocolat) and call it a successful Saturday because I 167 enjoyed Saturday. 168 169 It only becomes an issue when "not today" becomes "not this year." 170 171 If I haven't written anything in six months even though I still claim writing 172 is important to me, maybe something changed. Maybe I don't care about writing 173 anymore. Fine. 174 175 Or maybe something else ate all the time that used to belong to it. 176 177 A bad Tuesday does not matter. A weird month probably doesn't matter either. 178 179 And I think that is the closest thing I currently have to an answer to what 180 makes a good life. 181 182 Just one where, if I zoom out far enough, the whole thing still looks good. 183 184 I don't particularly care if it amounts to anything beyond that, either. I have 185 never understood the obsession with leaving a legacy. If people remember me in 186 100 years, cool. If they don't, I will be dead and therefore have no shits to 187 give. 188 189 I want to live for as long as possible. I would take the immortality pill from 190 earlier immediately. I just don't need to be remembered for as long as 191 possible. 192 193 Maybe that is all it is. 194 195 Every now and then, zoom out a little. 196 197 Does work still leave enough of me for everything else? Am I still curious? Has 198 something I used to enjoy turned into maintenance? Is this still a good life? 199 200 Right now, yeah. Pretty fucking good, actually. 201 202 I am 35. 203 204 I think I have figured out a few things. 205 206 Happy birthday to me! 207 208 [10]Friday 18th of September 2026 10:00 AM 209 [11][ ] [12]Send 210 Follow along 211 212 [13] [14] [15] 213 Email address [16][ ] [17][Subscribe] 214 [18]Newer Post [19]Archive [20]Older Post 215 216 References: 217 218 [1] https://overkill.wtf/posts/short-day-long-life#main-content 219 [2] https://overkill.wtf/ 220 [3] https://overkill.wtf/uses 221 [4] https://overkill.wtf/reading 222 [5] https://overkill.wtf/playing 223 [6] https://overkill.wtf/about 224 [7] https://overkill.wtf/now 225 [9] https://overkill.wtf/headphone-dilemma 226 [10] https://overkill.wtf/short-day-long-life 227 [13] https://overkill.wtf/feed 228 [14] https://bsky.app/profile/cliophate.wtf 229 [15] https://mastodon.social/@cliophate 230 [18] https://overkill.wtf/epomaker-rt82-review 231 [19] https://overkill.wtf/archive 232 [20] https://overkill.wtf/konkr-pocket-advance-review