I want to recommend another one, specifically about male depression, called I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real [1].

It's known that more men than women commit suicide, although more women are diagnosed with depression. The book argues that it's because male depression is often not overt, but it's nevertheless there.

Men often end up being enclosed in their bubble, trying to fix things on their own, not willing or not knowing how to connect with others. But this connection is so important, because humans are a social species.

[1]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/236765

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Technologies: Humanistic psychotherapy and counseling

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I offer online psychological counseling to people in STEM.

I've recently finished BSc in Psychology and I am an officially registered psychologist in Spain, I also work internationally. As my main occupation I work in web dev since 2015, mostly worked as a backend developer, and also as an engineering manager and director. Before that I did a PhD in physics and briefly worked in automotive industry.

See more information on my page https://dariashubina.com

I liked very much the observations in the first half of the post, however I don't agree with the conclusions. For me the reason for the state of software engineering (and well, many other industries really) is the problem with leadership. We as society often choose wrong leaders[1] and these leaders have very detrimental effects on processes and quality. However, it doesn't mean that what we do in software engineering is intrinsically meaningless, it's just very inefficient. The majority of web and mobile applications do solve a problem people have, because people do need to eat, shop, dress, play, organise their documentation, learn, do sports, connect to other people, share things with each other, etc. More often than not these applications are developed not because of great leadership but despite of terrible one, because the people who write code still manage to do their job despite of it. And the same thing happens in hospitals, you don't think that hospitals' management is much better, do you?

So, basically, the problem with the first approach (Gratitude) is that it ignores the problem. Often ignoring the problem is contributing to it. And the problem with the second approach (Cynicism) is that it exacerbates it, because it essentially promotes the lack of integrity and the same problematic egocentric attitude that's responsible for this problem in the first place.

Being angry is a very natural reaction to this problem, and I do agree it's necessary to a degree. However I don't think it's the solution. I guess the solution is to accept the current situation for what it is, and do your part to change it. You don't need to be angry to do that, but you do need to ditch the wrong expectations about our society and how it works.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Oab42VZRE

I also noticed that your previous blog's name (stormrider) is somehow similar to mine (cyclinginthewind) haha.

> Unfortunately, it's very difficult to convince suffering patients that they have some control over their situation without also implying personal blame for their problems

I also see it as a big part of the problem, that it's difficult to convince people that they do have control over their lives. In many psychotherapy books, when therapists describe various cases, this is a corner stone of a therapy success: a patient understanding that they do have control over their situation. That it's not the outer world that is so demanding that it leaves them no choice, but them choosing to cope in a particular way, and that there are other ways to react and cope.

Once the fusion energy isn't enough to counteract the gravity, the star collapses into a white dwarf (or a super-nova later).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_sequence

I think it's related to aesthetics of seeing how things are connected into a "bigger picture". It gives you an immense sense of beauty, once you are able to see that things, that you thought are not related, are connected into a bigger picture, and are actually very much related.

In Haskell a lot of things are about this "bigger picture", while in many popular languages the things are just a bunch of practical tools, that have nothing to do with each other.

However, I also once faced with a case, when manager didn't want to hire an engineer, because she thought he wasn't 'culture fit', although he was a great engineer. Technical members of hiring committee managed to convince her otherwise and then this person became in a sense the heart of the team, everybody liking him more than anybody else.

So, in my opinion 'culture fit' should always come from within the team a person works in and it should be a collective opinion, not an opinion of a single manager.

Does anyone here work (worked) in a research center as a full-time programmer? Could you tell about your experience there?

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16953478

Points: 4

# Comments: 3

This is a very good idea! Thank you very much.

But thank you so much for the links! I learned quite a lot from them and now I at least know that the reason I feel German is more similar to Russian, than English, is the thing called "analytic vs. inflected" languages.

It seems that you don't actually want to become enlightened as much as you just simply want to be helpful to other people and teach them a valuable skill.

I personally think that enlightenment and teaching others about it are quite different things that maybe don't have in common as much as one thinks they have.

As I see it, you might reach a state of mind you are very content with, and it makes you see the world "as it is" and because of it, you don't need to teach anybody anything, since it's already "as it is" and "as it should be". So, maybe it's just enough to be aware of it.