Yep. I was a minimalist living in a van for some years trying to live like a church mouse. It was painful and stressful. Ultimately, I gave up and went the opposite way: Japanese bidet, designer shirts, bamboo viscose sheets, bed made from rebar, robot mop, 5 kW subwoofer, and 75" monitor.
It's a Tragedy of the Commons world out there and there's no reward or advantage for individual suffering or deprivation.
I'll consider a Model 3 though, but I'm still partial to my vintage ICE camper.
This correlates with my experience. I hustled my way into a only paid undergrad research assistant role that didn't previously exist at a top-tier infosec lab doing IPS/IDS work and helping grad students fix their code. It was necessary as there were too many applicants for too few menial campus jobs.
This is often the case but I would never expect a response. I used to work with some PhD CS / MD / IITians / TED speakers. By-and-large, top people tend to skew towards celebrity-like personalities: bifurcating into highly-socialized or misanthropic. Most are highly-socialized as it's academia.
My general rule-set is "impose as least as possible, ask something only they would know, and don't waste anyone's time."
It's a Tragedy of the Commons world out there and there's no reward or advantage for individual suffering or deprivation.
I'll consider a Model 3 though, but I'm still partial to my vintage ICE camper.