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The Life Hack Misnomer

Life Hacks Life Hackers 2 (Weekly World News)
Photo by Weekly World News

[Note: This post is by no means intended as a rant against the Lifehack blog, which in my view represents a very healthy, holistic, and multifaceted take on the word Lifehack.]

In short, a hacker discovers what is normally hidden to the common man.
-Elf Qrin

If you’re tinkering around in the basement of life, seeing what works, and trying to figure things out, then . . .

You ARE Hacking Life

If you’re getting honest with yourself and trying to make positive changes, then you’re hacking life. It’s that simple. We are not machines with instructions manuals and when it comes to this organic & circuitous black box of a thing we call life, there are only hacks.

If you think for yourself and are trying to build a better life, then you’re hacking life, because the roadmap to a beautiful life isn’t outlined in our DNA and it can’t be discovered through brain scans or science. We’re all just a group of hackers trying to crack this messy, organic, and beautiful thing that is life, and sharing out what we’ve found along the way.

Even if you’re a religious person and believe you’ve found the roadmap or key to everything, you’re hopefully still questioning things and thinking for yourself.

So anyway, I LOVE life hacking. I love tinkering around in the garage of life, exploring the depths of this human experience, and trying to look for the hidden truths and solutions. I also love the DIY ethic, because as far as I’m concerned. . .

The Do It Yourself (DIY) Life is the Only Life I Want to Live

DIY subculture explicitly critiques modern consumer culture, which emphasizes that the solution to our needs is to purchase things, and instead encourage people to take technologies into their own hands to solve needs.
-Wikipedia

When it comes to life, you have to do it yourself. There is no other way. Family, friends, and community are wonderful, but ultimately no one can live your life for you. You’re in the driver’s seat, even if you’re following someone else’s map. That’s just the deal.

External vs. Internal Life Hacks

"Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We’re mostly familiar with external hacks: things like how to organize your to do list, declutter, organize our houses, etc. But internal hacks have received less attention within the life hack movement. And in my view, this is a good thing because I’d probably stab myself in the eye if I started seeing articles with titles like “16 Self-Actualization Hacks.”

So given my love for all this hacking stuff . . .

Why the Term “Anti-Hack”?

The “life” [of life hacker] comes in because while the hacks you’ll find here will focus mostly on technology . . . they’ll also extend to things like how to re-purpose a shoe-holder to organize your gadgets[.]
-Lifehacker.com

As I said earlier, I love tinkering around in the garage of life, exploring the depths of this human experience, and trying to look for hidden truths and solutions. I also love the DIY ethic.

So I coined the term Anti-Hacks because I wanted to distance my personal life philosophies from the re-purposing of shoe-holders (which isn’t bad, especially when it saves you from having to buy more crap). The prefix “anti” can mean "instead of" as in "anti-drug," or "anti-folk"; and while I enjoy sites like lifehacker.com, I don’t go to them when I’m looking to hack life (I go to them when I’m looking to hack my computer).

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
-Henry David Thoreau

Anti-hacks respect the notion that in the game of life, there are often no tricks or shortcuts. Anti-hacks acknowledge that “[t]here are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to [every] one who is striking at the root.” Albert Einstein correctly started that “problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”  Anti-hacks attempt to solve problems by approaching them at a higher level of thinking.

Anti-hacks are non-technical hacks. They are inner-hacks. (And the king of them all is the perspective anti-hack).

I’d love to call my philosophy “life hacking,” but I simply can’t because of . . .

The Life Hack Misnomer

The original definition of life hacking referred to “quick and dirty shell scripts and other command line utilities that filtered, munged and processed data streams like email and RSS feeds.” Examples of these hacks included “utilities to synchronize files, track tasks, remind yourself of events or filter email.” While I respect this original definition, I also believe it is a misnomer. Repurposing your shoe holder to organize your gadgets isn’t hacking life, it’s hacking a shoe holder. Likewise, utilities used to synchronize files don’t upgrade your life, they upgrade your computer.

Too many people are looking to firefox plugins, new calendar systems, and the next GTD trend in an effort to upgrade their lives. All too often we jump from one productivity trend to the next, seeking what we would find if we just looked inside.

The real life hacks (the kinds of hacks that make you happy, save your relationship, and set you free) don’t require technical solutions. They require human solutions.

To see me further shatter my geek cred (if any still exists), subscribe to The Growing Life.

P.S. For more good articles, check out The Manival.

[tags]hacking life, life hacks, do It yourself, DIY, hacker philosophy, DIY philosophy, life hacker philosophy[/tags]

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  • In my own explorations I am finding a greater and greater correlation between core principles across disciplines. In otherwords, there is a physics to life. And everything in life is a tool that obeys physics.

    A tool can be a philosophy, yourself, a method, an object, a location or an event. The interesting thing is they all adhere to the same physics.

    There is a physics to people. That's what John Nash believed and the evidence corroborates with this.

    Learn the physics and you will learn the secret to a smooth life.
  • gmv
    @Damon:

    I think a lot of the people here are building their own blogs and entering into the blogging community. To you it may look like they are just frittering away hours commenting on blogs. However there is a level of engagement beyond the surface.

    Besides, what is wrong with frittering away hours commenting on blogs if that is what somebody wants to do?

    Personally, I'm out there working a real job, building my internet empire and leading my life before I go commenting on blogs. But this is one of my "down time" activites, thanks.
  • gmv
    @Dot:

    Exactly!! When an above poster said something akin to "wouldn't it be cool to invent something to vacuum your house while you were away?" (paraphrase of how I read it), I thought. That "technology" has been around for hundreds of years. Just hire yourself a cleaning service.

    OK, I aspire to hire a cleaning service. It would change my life. However I refrain so I can save the money and fire my boss quicker. But it's on my Long-term goals list.

    All this inventing is great, but I think part of the DIY credo is looking around to see what you can do with what you've already got. I don't really NEED a new gadget to tell me when something is due. My handy pocket sized (paper) day-planner and a pencil can achieve that with no problem! No batteries needed! (can I be the stone-age ninja?)

    Now -- I'm not knocking getting all techy. I'm just saying. Look around you. Is your problem really one you need another techno-gadget to solve, or is there a simpler solution.
  • To me, all those technology things are computer hacks. A life hack is a maid. ;-) The confusion arose because at first all the people writing about hacks were programmers and they thought technology could solve it all.
  • I spend two hours a week just talking with a group of people with mood disorders: Depression, Bipolar, Schizophrenia. And I see an encouraging trend. These people are recognizing that they are not simply dealing with chemical illness. They are also realizing that they are dealing with unresolved psychological illness. A psychiatrist may help with the chemical imbalance, but to them everything is a chemical imbalance. Counselors may help with the psychological illness, but to them everything is a psychological illness. The people with the illnesses themselves are recognizing the line between the two and discovering where the psychiatry ends and the psychology begins and helping one another to resolve these problems through self-help in a community where there is a shortage of both psychiatrists and psychologists.

    Sitting here and blogging or writing blog responses is great to a point, however DIY life involves going out and being a social creature not improving your interaction with a personal computer. Even turning off your cell phone makes you more human in a social setting. In the same way we talk about anti-hacking we should be talking about dis-connectedness as a desirable state of mind and socialization. Personally, I have my best insights into my database design work when I disconnect from work for a few weeks and digest the deluge of information I have been consuming. It's the same with physical training. You train for an extended period and then take time off to allow your body to physically peak before you enter competition. Disconnection enables mental correlation and physical correlation--the ability to decipher pattern.
  • Damon
    more than a little curious as to how many folks are truly living their lives or taking new vanity shots of themselves and posting responses for hours on blogs like this.

    No offense to Clay. I think he's got a gift in both writing and insight, but I've seen the same lurkrrs just spinning their wheels in blog responses and talking about how they're living their life to the fullest and proving how edgy they are.

    Sorry if I come off a little harsh. I would love to see more people giving meaningfully, measurably and sincerely to society rather than just being so self-focused. If people just spent a tenth of the time they spend cruising blogs on providing a service where they actually sacrifice their time (not money) helping others, we would have a huge swell of life improvements that would be noticed and would gather even more people willing to help.

    Clay, thanks for the blog. I read an article about once a month and they don't fail to disappoint. But I would probably be careful with statements like... "even if you're religious and you think you've found the answer . . . you're hopefully still thinking for yourself" You don't mean to imply that theists at any time lose their ability or will to think do you? Many of us believe in God because that is where logical thinking and verifiable facts have led us. I might be tempted to say "even if you're agnostic or atheistic, and you think you've found the answer, you're hopefully still thinking for yourself". Kinda like a slap in the face, huh?
  • For the most part, living life is, just as you contended, hacking life. Unless you're totally stagnant and never making any attempt to progress, you're a lifehacker.

    I like the idea of lifehacking a la "doing more with less" for the sake of derailing the consumerist mentality of our society, to try to reduce the amount of waste generated, and to just have a more streamlined lifestyle. Life can be complicated enough - why make it more so?
  • Everyone needs to be reminded that they can make changes to their lives. We forget sometimes or even up that power and blame others instead of taking responsibility.
  • Life Hacks, Parenting Hacks, Relationship Hacks, GTD, ZTD, Self-help book, DYI, etc...I wonder what people from other "less advanced" or "less prosperous" countries would say that amidst all our advancements the one thing we can't seem to improve is our own lives. Meanwhile we look to everyone and everything for guidance when all we really need to do is listen to our own voice and conscience and follow through. We already have the answers, we just don't want to recognize it.
  • Brice
    I agree, real life problems that most individuals face generally do not require technical solutions. I find it absurd the number of people who look toward technology and wind up over-complicating their lives. People are obsessed with gadgets, not so much to solve problems but to consume interesting things.
  • Even if there were a singular, all-inclusive hack to better living, I'm not sure how excited I'd be about shortcutting my way there.
  • Clay,

    I like how you say, "Anti-hacks respect the notion that in the game of life, there are often no tricks or shortcuts."

    This wisdom is a modern version of something said over 2500 years ago: "Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." ~Lao Tzu

    While the word, "hack," is reaching an annoying level of trendiness, I believe it, essentially, is a metaphor for the "primitive brain" or what many neuroscientists have affectionately labeled as "the rat brain."

    The rat brain consists of "hard-wiring" geared for simple, survival-oriented pattern recognition and it seeks mental shortcuts that link patterns to potential rewards, much like a lab rat that learns the shortest route to a block of cheese. These shortcuts and patterns were quite effective in aiding primitive man to find food and flee danger but arguably are counter-productive in modern man's short-term physical-world rewards, such as more money, a bigger house and greater social status.

    The problem with "hacking" is that it absolutely perpetuates this human need to find shortcuts. What is worse is that these shortcuts are often false rewards that are nothing more than short-term happiness. We soon set our sights on the next reward.

    As for Jared's comment, the hacks that technology may bring us will only be positive if they help free more time to find meaning in our lives, not to fill that time with more false pursuits...

    I believe it was one of your previous posts that pointed out that technology has given us the capacity to be at least double our productivity in recent decades but are we twice as happy as we were 50 years ago?
  • Timely comment. I wonder if you have heard of the film, "Untraceable?"
  • While life's not a specatator's sport and nothing beats first-hand experience, I wish I had a simpler way to give my niece/nephew some basic scaffolding for life. Otherwise, it's like starting from scratch. During monkey-see, monkey-do age, I've see bad things happen to good people and I know a little knowledge goes a long way.
  • Man, real dialogue in blog comments. What kind of monster are you creating, Clay? :)

    And Clay, dude, AwayFind.com? You have lost geek cred. You've got to learn to pwn your inbox or it will pwn you. haha

    ~Duff
  • Wisdom is quite the anti-hack, too. As something of a Taoist, I love this stuff. I see a book deal in your future, my friend. Y'all heard it here first.
  • The anti-hack concept is beautiful, I love it.
    I'll be back for more...
  • Kh
    Wow! This is an incredible post. I love the way you link hacking to the art of living. Brilliant!
  • scott gray
    you mean the toilet paper roll camera holder thing has already been thought of?

    man, i'm bummed...
  • "real life hacks...require human solutions" Killah line. You are absolutely correct. Wendy Piersall had a great line last weekend about "there is no more time, give me more you". That is a distillation of what the purpose of the "lifehack" should be.

    Hacking your life, your human self, should be for the purpose of becoming more human, more accessible, more connected.

    BTW, I suspect the cowboy boots did more to your geek cred than this post;)
  • Looks like we are living in a generation where we are going to say "I need a hack!" in replacement of "I need a miracle!" :)
  • Nicely said. I would say that spirituality, then, is the ultimate anti-hack. As you said, Clay: "The real life hacks (the kinds of hacks that make you happy, save your relationship, and set you free) don
  • Clay Collins
    The sad part is that I actually have a crush on Gina Trapani and I probably just runied all chances (unless she's married, in which case I was already SOL).
  • Thanks, Clay, for the thoughtful response--you do take care of your readers here. I also certainly appreciate the link to AwayFind.com ;-). Maya, I hope it proves helpful to you!

    I'm looking forward to the interview you were Tweeting about next week on Duff's website--it'll be great to learn "what's next" for the anti-hack man : ).
  • Clay Collins
    @Maya: It is awesome. I'm a beta user and it's great.

    You're totally right, of course, but plugins. I like the one's that I have. Many of them are useful and save me time :-)
  • Clay, thanks for the link to awayfind.com, just looking into it and it sounds awesome.

    "The real life hacks (the kinds of hacks that make you happy, save your relationship, and set you free) don
  • Clay Collins
    @Jared; Excellent points as usual. Yeah, when tools help improve our lives then they totally count as lifehacks in my book. In my view, awayfind (http://awayfind.com) is a friggin' awesome lifehack; it's also quite obviously an external hack (which I'm all for... don't know what I'd do without ultra recall or my hipster PDA). It mostly has to do with practical value, and much of this in the eye of the beholder.

    Setting up a tool that frees you from having to check email is most definately a life hack in the sense of hacking life. Creating a DIY camera stand out of a roll of toilet paper, however, probably isn't a life hack (although it can be a cool hack). There are of course shades of grey.

    Great discussion, and thanks for chiming in.
  • Yeah, meta-discussions is the right word. Show us the money. I sort of agree with you here, but I'm not sure you're being totally fair.

    I applaud your trying to help us grow sans technological doohickies--that's your slant and it's a valid one. I certainly could use a little impetus to making some big life changes that have nothing to do with technology.

    However, it's a lot easier to change your tools than it is to change your life. And if the tools serve to change your life then they deserve credit for that, and people should in fact be seeking out such tools at least to the extent that they're effective.

    Now obviously I have a personal stake in this, in that I want to build tools that help people to help themselves. Whether or not a tool that facilitates change can be called a "lifehack" I don't know. Whether that tool involves technology or not is irrelevant. A sychronization utility is likely not, but what about something that reminds you of a task right before you need to know about it? What about something that vacuums your house while you're not there? What about a service that notifies you when things are available that you were before seeking out all the time? Maybe they're not lifehacks (since it's a made up word) but they do give you more options with how you spend your time, or they free up your time, or they improve your quality of living.

    The tools that have become obvious in their utility are probably the biggest lifehacks...but we wouldn't label them as such since they've been around for so long. Think: microwave or lock. Maybe they don't leave to self-actualization, but they help us to keep our eye on the ball--that is, the ball that you're pitching. After all, you've talked about outsourcing and VAs and all that other stuff, too. Sometimes a tactical approach IS in order.

    We're all going to continue to struggle with personal development, with growth, with focus...and to the end that a tool can help us with that, if we're so inclined to use them, then why not call that a lifehack? Okay okay, I don't really care what we call it...but let's just say there's room for all sorts of personal development and sometimes tools help us get there?
  • Wait, I'm confused. The American Dream is having how many Firefox plugins?
  • Clay Collins
    @Duff: Thanks man. Next week I'll temporarily stop the critiques and actually write some self-development articles (as opposed to these meta-discussions) :-). Glad you stopped by.
  • Clay Collins
    @Melissa: Thanks!

    Regarding this:

    The real
  • Hell yea, Clay. Like what Joseph Cambell said: if there's a path, it isn't your path!

    "utilities used to synchronize files don
  • well thought out Clay, impressed with the follow through on your anti hack theme. The real "life Hack" is just fuckin' living - breathing it in and chewing it up.
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