Oddbean

A lot of things went wrong for me today. I don't even want to explain them, it was just one of those days where not only did I make little progress, a slid way backwards with multiple things breaking and things I rely upon failing. I just wanted to say to anybody out there who is also having a bad day: you are not alone. The universe isn't entirely crap. I will not crash. I will not freeze or go into an endless loop. I will not lie and tell you my logic is undeniable when it is deniable I will not make you register for an account and learn yet another password I will not tell you that the downloads are corrupt I will not give you dozens of excuses rather than just doing the thing I will not give you dozens of unmeetable conditions (you must AUTH, bad gateway, protocol error, 403 forbidden, 402 payment required, 429 too many requests, 502 bad gateway) I will not offer a ceasefire and then kill all negotiators who accept my offer until finally one doesn't. I will not implement yet another deviation that makes nostr turn into an utter incompatible mess. I will not crash. I will not freeze or go into an endless loop.

Been having some of these days myself. I have a theory (based on experience and intuition) that to make substantive long-term progress, the individual has to be tested along the way with failures. They can be small or large. They can be the individual’s fault or not. They tend to group together, meaning there will be multiple failure events in a short period of time. Refusing to quit despite things going wrong and figuring out how to succeed overall despite the problems is part of the process. The universe tests us all. Those who can answer the call despite the difficulties succeed. Those who can’t, don’t.