Are you living an AND life or an OR life?

[uudecoded]

What if I want to live an AND life AND an OR life?

This post finds reasonable fault with false dichotomies as "OR life" then reifies the structure of false dichotomy in the title and proposition as positivist thinking.

I think the constructive equivalent is "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade". Or at least be mindful of the false binary trap, even in your personal life...

[giantg2]

Like typical self-help blogs, the article is oversimplified and does not provide a balanced analysis of the ideas presented. Disappointing really.

[phoe-krk]

There is a finite number of hours in a day and a finite number of possibilities to combine different activities during these hours. Even with best of intentions and very decent techniques, it's impossible to have a XOR life with too many things at once without getting exhausted and burned out and getting a temporarily NOT life as a result.

[moffkalast]

NAND life is where it's at.

[tomrod]

> it's impossible to have a XOR life

We tend to invest too much time into activities when we limit ourselves. You can work out, bone up your knowledge, eat healthy, work efficiently, and have time for recreation and a family. It take investing time into planning, which feels wasteful when you're overwhelmed. And it might mean you timebox certain activities to limit burning the ocean.

[sshine]

This reminds me of A Cyborg Manifesto:

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

Instead of identifying yourself in bounded categories, characterise yourself by affinity.

  Haraway calls for a revision of the concept of gender, moving away from Western patriarchal essentialism and toward "the utopian dream of the hope for a monstrous world without gender," stating that "Cyborgs might consider more seriously the partial, fluid, sometimes aspect of sex and sexual embodiment. Gender might not be global identity after all, even if it has profound historical breadth and depth."

[EatingWithForks]

Would love gender-by-affinity rather than gender-by-bimodal-physical-characteristics. It'd be neat to try on having boobs, especially if it's e.g. temporary to feed my child or something, and still do and be seen with all the guy characteristics I currently identify as.

[beebmam]

I feel like this article should replace OR with XOR. It's unfortunate English doesn't have a commonly used word for XOR.

Maybe we should start saying xor as though it is a normal English word, pronounced "zor"?

[kayodelycaon]

English determines exclusive OR, inclusive OR, and AND using context.

This kind of ambiguity really drives us logical people nuts. :)

[rob74]

Yeah, but the "everyday meaning" of AND is different too. Everyday meaning: you can have A and also B, but you don't have to; boolean logic: you have to have A and B, otherwise you don't have anything.

[yathern]

I think "Either" is what makes an OR a XOR. "You can go with either red or green"

[revolvingocelot]

I suggest "ecks-or". This developed in university CS labs, as a result of exchanges like "OK are we going to finish the shell project tonight or shall I just slam my head into the desk until I fall unconscious?" "Yes"

[samirillian]

I've thought the same thing, haha. I was thinking about going the other way though, with dor for and/or and or for xor. We already have doff and don, which for some reason seem like similar constructions.

[sshine]

Yes, when reading the headline, I thought "the moral is: pick (inclusive) OR!".

Which in this article is called "AND" (which logically requires both, rather than allows both).

[CoastalCoder]

I'm married with kids, so my life is more of a 3SAT situation.

[foooobaba]

You’re life is [np]complete :)

[aschearer]

Binary thinking limits. Control is an illusion or at best minimal. You are not your emotions. There are seasons in life. Let the river carry you to the ocean. It's up to you how that process feels.

[Night_Thastus]

I don't get the "control is an illusion" part. Maybe in some cosmic/determinism sense, but that wouldn't be very useful for day-to-day.

[parpfish]

DeMorgan's law says there's no difference between AND-life and OR-life if you throw in some negations

[tomrod]

You. I like you. Follows my own thought process. Few people would jump immediately to the axiomatic foundations of set theory.

[pphysch]

It's quite silly in hindsight how we invent false choices (I am A XOR B) to "escape" the daily responsibility of real decisions, i.e. whether to spend this moment working on A or B.

[1970-01-01]

I'm living the ternary life.

Yes.

No.

Time to do something else entirely.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-valued_logic

[NKosmatos]

Came here to see a reference to Karnaugh maps :-)

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

Returning on topic, like others have stated, some times you need to be an OR, others an AND, others a NOT and some others combinations of all.

[tuatoru]

Binary thinking doesn't lead to a good life. Continua.

[jmathai]

I landed on a "flexible OR" life. I've found that focusing on fewer things (OR) without being dogmatic (eating healthy can mean cake sometimes) brings me a lot more satisfaction than focusing on many things and not enjoying any of them fully.

[xeromal]

Anytime I open an article and it has that art style, I know it's not for me.

[LesZedCB]

Corporate Memphis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis

though I've also heard it called Alegria, and I'm not sure the exact difference.

edit: Alegria was Facebook's style specifically, Linus Boman has a great video which briefly discussed its place in history of clip art:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XfLlpxE6AYM

[xwowsersx]

Any article that features art in the style of that header image? Why exactly? That seems like an unnecessarily uncompromising attitude, no? I get that we all have our own heuristics and signals we rely on, but maybe the author here just didn't think through what image to use very deeply at all and just threw something on there last second before clicking to publish? Dismissing the entire post out of hand just based on that seems a bit rash.

[jrace]

I opened the article after I read you comment, and agree - something about that style is off-putting.

[parpfish]

That style has a name, and you’re not alone in disliking it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis

[swader999]

My life is a mix of switch, if then else, many nested blocks, unconventional formatting and even a couple of goto statements.

[jonnycomputer]

AND/OR, a techie in the Digital Circus, fell in love with a frankie, Angel Lips.

Funny, he never seemed to have met up with the techno witches Onoffon and Offonoff.

[scyzoryk_xyz]

I’m definitely living a for loop and package.json life.

[xianshou]

Shocked no one has suggested the XNOR life yet. What could be more expressive of the hell-yes-or-no mentality?

[amelius]

Or are you living a FOMO life?

[rezz]

You can do anything but you can’t do everything (well).