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Ask HN: What kind of life do you dream about?

68 pointsby durmonskiover 2 years ago
Personally, my aim in life - my dream life - is to live a slow life. Own a small house somewhere in the woods. My days will be filled with writing and reading. What about you?

45 comments

KeyXioteover 2 years ago
One with the opportunity to meet different kinds of people (not online), less judgemental and more collaborative. A life with multidisciplinary educated folks who want to share knowledge rather than compartmentalize it. The ability to reach out with creative ideas in different networks of knowledge without being passed over as a non expert. Less algorythmicly automated, or more transparent automation so I can better understand how my data is used/abused. A simpler life, basic and sustainable amenities, a job that feels fulfilling, work is work were not always going to love it, a community built around helping each other thrive. Less touch screen more tactile in every aspect. I have great ideas I want to execute on, but find it so hard to reach people in certain disciplines so I can get the right kinds of feedback. I can't drink due to a past medical procedure and this interestingly narrowed my social life, bolstered my physical health but not my mental health. Overall a more natural life that integrates with technology and progress, less fear mongering, more constructive criticism aimed at learning rather than shaming. Overall a freer experience, it's one thing to be told how free you are yet feel imprisoned by non normative systems that feel vacuous.
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modover 2 years ago
What&#x27;s stopping you?<p>I live in a small house somewhere in the woods. I have 40 acres, a house, a woodshop, a nice &quot;man shed&quot;, and several more small buildings for animals and equipment---and I bought all that for $60,000 in the Ozarks.<p>The slow life doesn&#x27;t need much to sustain it after you buy your place; maybe it&#x27;s time to jump off the cliff.<p>Things I&#x27;ve been doing lately: enjoying our first snow last night. Doing things by a kerosene lantern (because I like lanterns). Wandering the woods...I found a &quot;deadhead&quot; a couple of days ago in great shape. Baking bread. Planting fig trees in my garden. Watching the sunrise. Drinking warm cups of hot cocoa. Making some holiday gifts in my woodshop, with wood harvested from my land.<p>I&#x27;m missing someone to share it with. Add someone to the above: that&#x27;s the kind of life I dream about.<p>Good luck to you!
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a_bored_huskyover 2 years ago
I want a boring life, free of drama and conflict. I also dont want to worry about money. To be clear I dont want to be rich nor to have a ton of luxuries, I just want to dedicate to my hobbies and family and somehow always have the minimal amount of money at hand to satisfy whatever need arises.
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mikewarotover 2 years ago
I want my health back... before Long Covid, I used to dream of not working... and here I am, can&#x27;t work... scraping by though, so I don&#x27;t need to.<p>I want a lab, with a machine shop, and the ability to fabricate anything, like Dan Gelbart. I&#x27;d just spend my days making stuff, perhaps trying to build a semiconductor fab fab like Sam Zeloof is doing. (Yes, machines that make fab lines)<p>I want a personal megawatt, with which I could extract metals from the dirt in the back yard, or whatever.<p>At this point, however, I&#x27;d like to just have a situation where people can ask me questions that they are stuck on, and I can dig back into all the things I&#x27;ve learned and read, and seen, and pull out some answers that can help them. And maybe get paid to do that, so I can buy a few toys.
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motohagiographyover 2 years ago
This dream you mention, I happen to be living it. Do it, or some variation of it, even if you would be just renting the dream for a while. Dreams are often conditions we put on choosing to be happy. Achieving a variation of a dream can show how many of the other things we did before were just palliative substitutes to taking the action that would result in change. I did a bunch of hobbies that were substitutes for meeting the condition I had put on my own happiness (living in the country), and they were productive and virtuous and give me a lot to do out here now, but they are less urgent to do now that I don&#x27;t use them to relieve the suffering imposed by conditions I had chosen.<p>The difference now is I sit by a fire in a field watching the moon, typically with a mug of tea or a glass of red wine, listening to the deer and the crickets until the baying of the coyotes gets too close, giving deep consideration to questions pertaining to reason and existence. Then I write them as glib comments on HN. I can do anything I want, and yet still I do this. It&#x27;s really pretty good. I highly recommend it. Stop dreaming and just change.
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hnthrowaway0315over 2 years ago
My idea of dream life:<p>- Own a cabin and some acre of lands in some not too remote woods (so still accessible to city hospitals)<p>- Half of time spent on family life such as outing with $wifie and watching sky using telescope with $son; Half of time spent on learning hardware and low level programming and such;<p>- Maybe also learn some surviving skills, nothing too fancy and physical demanding. And own a couple of dogs and cats;
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borrokaover 2 years ago
My dream life consists of these activities, fueled by a good deal of money and freedom:<p>- Extensive travel to urban locations (e.g., Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Rio, HK, Melbourne) and less traveled routes or experiences (e.g., Central Asia, Patagonia, Trans-Siberian Express). Some trips of a few days, some longer stays, 2 weeks to 2 months.<p>I would prefer to have 3-4 houses in strategic cities, but can do with hotels. I know a journalist, quite famous, but not quite a household name yet, who owns houses in Paris, NYC, Italy, SF.<p>My main house would be near a big city, maybe NYC, maybe Buenos Aires. A small compound like the one Nicolai Hel, the protagonist of the novel Shibumi, owns in the Basque Country? It&#x27;s intriguing. The most intriguing house I have seen in my life was in Havana, Cuba, in the neighborhood of Vedado. Almost all open air, shades of red everywhere, light, flowy curtains separating the spaces.<p>- I would love to write and have my work published. Mostly not about current events, but short stories, &quot;thoughts&quot; about life, travel and other cultures. In magazines and periodicals, with articles and thoughts sometimes collected in a book<p>- I can&#x27;t help but train and practice martial arts, sports or movements. This must be included in my ideal life<p>- I would like a main partner and a network of companions around the world.<p>A little more about material stuff. I would not be interested in owning cars, motorcycles, boats, watches. But I do like fine tailored clothes.<p>Maybe children. But would I spend 11 months at home? I doubt it.<p>I&#x27;m not interested in fame, I like more the idea of reinventing myself every year.<p>Basically, I would like to live like a nobleman of the 19th century, including the occasional archeological discovery.
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bradlysover 2 years ago
Married to a wonderful woman who contributes in every way to our home - in the same way that I do. 2-3 children. Building my own house while the kids are growing up - in the Santa Cruz Mountains (or Portola valley or woodside or whatever). Spending time riding and rebuilding motorcycles, cars, bikes, and so forth. Having a woodworking shop and other DIY stuff.<p>Working a job where I make the decisions rather than implementing someone else’s poorly made decisions. Spending time with my friends regularly. Dancing with my kids and showing them all the fun things there are to do.<p>I have little interest in reading or writing. Rather spend it making something with my hands, playing with kids, or spending time with my wife.<p>All of these things looked very possible about a year ago. Now they’re looking extremely distant now that I’m divorced, penniless (lost 90% of NW), and generally looking like it’s not going to change anytime soon.
notart666over 2 years ago
The lives people dream of are often expressions of fantasies and desires to escape their current situation. Personally everything is the same. I&#x27;ve never found joy from any of them.
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_ewbbover 2 years ago
Pay off my mortgage, only 100k to go! Then I won&#x27;t &quot;have&quot; to work.<p>Buy an acre close by to grow vegetables on to eat and share, I&#x27;ll do this after I pay off my mortgage.<p>Exercise more, I&#x27;m lazy and I&#x27;m trying to get up earlier to exercise and play video games before my wife and daughter wake up.<p>Do a 4 day work week to spend more time growing vegetables.<p>I&#x27;d love to figure out what area of the technology stack I enjoy most, for now I&#x27;m a full stack engineer looking into backend engineering as a primary focus. Not systems level, but business logic level, and not frontend I&#x27;m a &quot;that&#x27;s good enough&quot; guy, not a perfectionist. I&#x27;m learning Go.<p>Other than that I&#x27;m good I think. My work compensation vs responsibilities are perfect right now, I don&#x27;t want a promotion. I like where I live, close to both of our families, hospitals, schools, and entertainment. Weather could be better but it&#x27;s not the worst.
Silverback_VIIover 2 years ago
A life in which I not trading my time for money.
more_cornover 2 years ago
My friend travels. He doesn’t really have a job or career. He owns a house that he rents out and makes about a thousand a month. That has kept him on the move for a decade and a half. He’s a member of the yacht club when he’s in town so he sails, and dives. He lives cheap and free. He’s living the retired life of travel and leisure many people dream of but never achieve. He’s an inspiration to me. I don’t know that I dream of it for myself but it soothes my soul to know he’s out there living free. He’s currently in Eastern Europe. He’s been gone for five months and doesn’t think he’ll be back till spring.
whitepoplarover 2 years ago
One without physical pain.
linguaeover 2 years ago
I dream of owning two homes: one on the central coast of California somewhere between Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, and one in Japan, ideally in either one of the western districts of Tokyo (like the Meguro or Setagaya wards) or in the Kanagawa Prefecture. As a US citizen my primary residence would be in California, but I’d go to Japan regularly. For contrast, I love the California Central Coast for its tranquility and its relative lack of drama, but at the same time I love Tokyo’s vitality and sheer convenience.<p>I’d like to be able to work as a computer scientist doing research based on my interests. I’d also like to be able to work on open source projects. I also want to occasionally teach part-time at a university, teaching courses in programming languages, AI, and operating systems. I’d like to do these things in such a way where there are no “publish-or-perish” pressures.<p>Right now I’m figuring out how to make this happen before I get too old to enjoy it; I’m in my early 30s.
autotuneover 2 years ago
Own my own condo in a high rise here in downtown Austin<p>Have all my previous debts paid off and in the clear so every paycheck goes towards investments, savings, and likely mortgage for a while<p>My current 2 year old dog living 10 more years minimum<p>Find a long term SO at some point. Not interested in kids but marriage would be on the table if they wanted it<p>Having my current fully remote role actually work out long term
thomover 2 years ago
I’ve got a good few years of full-time parenting left and that’s the biggest priority. But my kids seem pretty happy and secure, they’re confident and curious at school and I’m managing not to project too many of my insecurities onto them. But I do dream of the day they’re gone (and then back and gone again, no doubt).<p>I’ve been loving studying Ancient Rome. At the very least I’d like more time just to tear through the growing shelves of books I’ve bought aspirationally. Maybe I’d try to do a D.Phil one day but I suspect that would be stressful and pure vanity.<p>Ultimately I just want to eliminate stress. I think I still have a couple of startups left in me after this one but I’d love to pursue them as projects in my own time, the primary aim being my own curiosity not other people’s demands.
goethes_kindover 2 years ago
I just need a supporting wife and the basic building blocks would then all be in my hands. Then I could focus on my career, try to accomplish something beneficial for the world, and raise a family who I hope to install with all the wisdom that I collected in life so far.
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Kiroover 2 years ago
Isolate myself completely and never meet another human being ever again. Just me and my computer.
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michepriestover 2 years ago
I’m living it now but didn’t realize it until recently. It’s easy to focus on what we don’t have and want something else. I came to this realization when I kept getting everything I worked for but then was on to the next thing. When I was 20 I never could have imagined the life I ended up living (in my mid-40s now).<p>After getting burnt out in tech startups 3 times I made a change. Sold 95% of our worldly possessions in order to have the flexibility to live anywhere. I get to spend my days drawing, writing, creating info products, and helping people get unstuck.<p>Sometimes all we need to do is look at what we have, figure out what we want, and get rid of the rest.
akuroover 2 years ago
I would like to dedicate my life and energy to the field of science that interests me. I would also like the opportunity to achieve something amazing with programming as my medium.<p>That&#x27;s it, I suppose. I can&#x27;t really think of anything else.
brailsafeover 2 years ago
I&#x27;m pretty fond of the one I have, but more financial security would help. I live near my favourite cafes, all the hobbies and sports I engage with, near all kinds of people some of which I&#x27;m thankful to get to spend a lot of time talking with regularly, easy access to public transport and relatively liberal set of restrictions, access to greenery and nature, grocery and everything else within walking distance. But I do live in a no-room basement suite, and that&#x27;s somewhat vulnerable to the decisions of the owners, and to secure my own extremely modest apartment would be a mortgage of over $600k.
badrabbitover 2 years ago
Careful. Dreams give birth to hopes and hope to obsession and obsession to disappointment,restlessness and despair and those give birth to many more terrible things.<p>Nothing against plans and visions but the hollywod-esque &quot;dream&quot; is not good.<p>Tonight we will feast and be merry! Tomorrow we die!<p>Less pain is always good to have but that aside I want to do what I want now. I may slip on banana or something and die tomorrow, it isn&#x27;t guaranteed so why spend time dreaming of it when I am living now and today? The me in the future might want different things than me now as well.<p>Day dreaming is for children. Life, now, is for adults.
Giorgiover 2 years ago
Passive income (well.. semi-passive), that can be managed remotely. One that would be enough to travel in secure enough countries to try their cuisines and attend some of my fav band concerts.
ok_dadover 2 years ago
I want to own the home I live in currently (a family member&#x27;s we&#x27;re renting), be working on my own software ideas full time for money, and that&#x27;s about it. My life is pretty sweet as-is, I just want the &quot;perfect job&quot; (as if that exists) and to own a home. I am pretty lucky to make 170k a year doing very little work, even if it&#x27;s impactful enough to earn tons of money doing way less work than most others do. I don&#x27;t want to jinx it, karmically, by being too greedy!
deanmoriartyover 2 years ago
By far not having to work in Corporate America, with managers and peers pedantically and pointlessly questioning my code and designs. Everything else would nicely fall into place.
coder4lifeover 2 years ago
Wine, women, song, and CI&#x2F;CD pipelines than run in 3 seconds
toomuchtodoover 2 years ago
A modest home in a quiet town. A coffee shop, grocery store, and library within walking distance. An airport 30-60 minutes away. Enough land to grow fruit trees for one of my kids (they love fruit) and for a large enough shop for woodworking and metalworking; a few tiny homes for people in my circle in need of temporary housing. Enough space to have a room that is just a library of books. Interesting work with smart yet humble and decent colleagues.
kirsoover 2 years ago
A few thoughts from my perspective:<p>- Geographical autonomy: living in places for 2-3 months (usually when tourist visa expires). Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, Portugal and moving around every quarter. Stay longer if the country allows and it feel incredible there. (I&#x27;ll never have enough of burrata).<p>- Working part-time: I still love the sense of community within healthy environments and common goal. I think its an invaluable experience when 10-15 smart people come around and try to achieve a shared goal. The energy is addictive. Unfortunately this has been taken into the extreme and exploited by many companies but I had this experience once, going from 0-1 with a bunch of great people, becoming profitable and never looking back again.<p>- Tinkering the other half of the time: creative exploration is something that I believe everyone should do. In my case I want to be spending my free time on activities such as learning to code, writing, designing, non-profit activities, volunteering, teaching etc.<p>- Be close to physical activities: whether its an ocean with surfing waves or a snowy slope for snowboarding and skiing, these environments enable to do other things aside of going to the gym. For instance in Singapore it&#x27;s common to play basketball&#x2F;tennis with friends so enables to do more fun physical exercise in groups. Germany has the same with football.<p>- Be part of a good community: whether its physical exercise, mens health, indiepreneurs or just a supportive network of people all tackling similar issues in life and at the same stage.<p>- Have one proper home and one summer escape location: if I would every own a home, that would be an emotional purchase and always something to come back to.<p>- Be close to my folks or at least have an option that doesn&#x27;t take 16 hours: I live on the other part of the world and after 3 years of covid it made me kind of sick to think that I spent 7 days out of 1000 with my family.<p>These will obviously change, I noticed that we constantly re-invent ourselves every 6-10 years given that one path closes and another starts based on our interests and curiosities.<p>I guess thats it, funny when always thinking about it - the above seems quite realistic without the need of a $1B exit outcome. I guess humble beginnings kind of ground the expectations and if it sounds unambitious, it would be amazing enough for me. Different person, different story I guess...
doublerabbitover 2 years ago
A life where animals have a voice and are not used as a commodity; for the greed of humanity.<p>A planet that isn&#x27;t abused and sucked dry for old fashioned resources. Care given and respected rather than for profit.<p>Harmony where conflict is low and that those with the riches always don&#x27;t win.<p>Where corruption is tackled and the criminals who sought the most extreme crimes are punished to the full extent.
hprotagonistover 2 years ago
Sam Gamgee knows what’s up.
codekillaover 2 years ago
Something like this: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Theater_of_All_Possibilities" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Theater_of_All_Possibilities</a>, where they were guided by the idea we could be artists, explorers, and scientists.
hjgjhyuhyover 2 years ago
Ideally I would work remotely part-time, spend rest of the time taking care of a farm in the countryside, aiming for self-sufficiency and sustainability where possible. I would share this with my family, which I already have.<p>It’s a realistic scenario if we find good income that can be done remotely.
onetimenameover 2 years ago
Being a full time fiction writer. I work in tech and have a comfortable life I&#x27;m grateful for but if I could translate my base pay to income generated by writing fiction novels, I would do it yesterday.<p>I would love to hear people&#x27;s stories of successes and failures!
mkl95over 2 years ago
A life where I have paid off my mortgage and my runway is good enough that I can leave a job and take some time off. Maybe a middle ground where I can work for 4 days a week at some boring job and still save a bit of money.
barrenkoover 2 years ago
OP, can I point you in the direction of &#x27;Simon Sarris&#x27;?
codegeekover 2 years ago
Overall, a life that I get to dictate&#x2F;live on my terms. Whatever that is, I will be happy. Everything else is lower level details. So far, I think I am 95% there.
neophyt3over 2 years ago
I want to live life like evelyn and waymond in alpha universe in movie Everything Everywhere All at once.. connecting and experiencing to different multiverses
gardenhedgeover 2 years ago
Good health with no sickness for my family and me, no traffic or rush hour, good weather, enjoyment of a hobby that keeps me fit
atmosxover 2 years ago
I&#x27;m an adventure seeker on an empty street. Just an alley creeper with light on my feet. A middle age fighter screaming, with no time for doubt. With the pain and anger can&#x27;t see a way out. &quot;It ain&#x27;t much I&#x27;m asking&quot; you&#x27;ll hear me say &quot;gotta find me a future, move out of my way&quot;.<p>I&#x27;m a man with a one track mind. So much to do in one lifetime, not a man for compromise and where&#x27;s and why&#x27;s and living lies. So I&#x27;m living it all and I&#x27;m giving it all.<p>\o&#x2F;
Aprecheover 2 years ago
A life of idle leisure, not just for me, but for everyone.
billconanover 2 years ago
yes, same hermit life. calm, slow, and quiet.
anon115over 2 years ago
i just dont want to be in pain anymore
nynxover 2 years ago
Complexity, adventure, and purpose.
alexfromapexover 2 years ago
Having a paid off house
jesuscriptover 2 years ago
Not this kind.