This probably won't be popular, but what the hell.
I feel like, if you strip away the outward trappings and dogma, this is what religion is good for. Not in a "believe in Jesus" or "trust in God" kind of way, but in a "how to orient your life" kind of way. Which is to say, the actually useful portion of religion generally teaches that your best life is probably not focused on you. It isn't about finding yourself, or being true to yourself, or really thinking about yourself at all. It's in being of benefit to the human beings around you. And in serving those around you, you become something that is worth being.
It doesn't matter who you are or where you live, there are poor people around you. There are parentless children, drug addicts, parks that need cleaning, animal shelters that need dog walkers. You can always do something meaningful with your life. Try that, and see what kind of relationships you make. Look at and actually see a homeless person. See how that makes you feel. See if your worrying about your own future maybe drops away, or gets morphed into something you can do something with. See what kinds of other people you run into that way. Focus on, if not bringing joy to other people, then at least making their lives better. See if that doesn't - as a pure byproduct - change your own self-worth. Or maybe just make you less focused on it.
I think we in the west ended up replacing religion with, not an absence of it, but with a religion of the Self — where you are the god, or the only one that matters anyway.
That obviously doesn’t mean a sincere belief in one’s own omniscience, more that the the aura of ‘importance’ bestowed upon things naturally emanate from the centre of the Universe, which is you.
Mind that humans are already pretty much hardwired to do this. Removing external factors of pressure and adding validation in the form of the mass market gospel of ‘find yourself’ just made this a lot more visible.
Funny enough, the people who end up going down to the deep end of this road of finding yourself often find that there is nothing to find, since all your life, you’ve spent it looking for yourself and you never added anything to it. It’s an empty box. You’re the pot at the end of the rainbow that you never thought you needed to put gold into.
From there, people usually split to a few branches. The more transcendentalist amongst us call it the Buddha, the folks with a more philosophical bent call it existential nausea.
The more practical, most of us, go ‘oh.’ and they move on with their lives. Which is probably the most healthy way, anyway.
I'd go a step further and say that we've replaced traditional religion with consumption, or more specifically consumerism. Most of the art produced in antiquity existed within the framework of religion, now it's advertising.
I think it's important to subscribe to some kind of overall framework with a worldview and community. We're hard wired for it and if you don't choose it, then consumerism will fill that vacuum and you will find yourself ensnared in mindless consumption.
I have an 80 year old aunt who is a nun who I consider to be one of the wisest people I know. I'm not religious and I have frank and honest discussions with her about religion and philosophy, completely free from judgement. Once we were sharing a drink at a family event and I asked her something to the extent of "at what point did you find yourself?". She replied that she's still finding herself will continue as long as she's alive.
>>you are the god, or the only one that matters anyway.
> you will find yourself ensnared in mindless consumption.
Funny how you're both following the religion thing only on the surface. Take a bite, already! Western culture is based on a specific religion whose philosophy hinges around the realization of slave morality as the superior state of being. Following a school of fish is all you get from consumerism, but all those fishes take away things. The reason why it's not going to fill you up is exactly that there's no interest between you and the next fish, and you weren't going to give them anything, anyway. The only thing you effectively give is a few cents towards blood, sweat and tears in some Asian factory or sweatshop. And you're feeling that somewhere, deep down there.
"That obviously doesn’t mean a sincere belief in one’s own omniscience, more that the the aura of ‘importance’ bestowed upon things naturally emanate from the centre of the Universe, which is you.
Mind that humans are already pretty much hardwired to do this."
I had trouble parsing your perspective as it was written in a unique way. I don't think humans are hardwired for this, can you back up that claim?
If you study evolutionary biology, there is a wealth of information and studies suggesting we are reciprocally altruistic and help others if they have helped us previously or we think they might help us in the future i.e. reciprocal altruism.
From a innate neuroscientific perspective, mirror neurons respond to actions that we observe in others which, if I recall correctly (correct me if I'm wrong), suggests several counterpoints to people in the west believing they are the "only one that matters" when our brains are constantly lighting up by noticing the actions of others which we are inclined to notice and react to (e.g. help those in need, whether family, friends, relatives, or stranger on the street).
This is a fascinating subject, hope others who know more about Neuroscience can chime in, I only minored in it in undergrad. Also, fusiform face area might be worthy of exploring w.r.t. noticing other and what this implies for the notion of human altruism.
There's definitely something to this. We HN readers see the occasional article about the crisis of reproducibility in science, which leads to some thoughtful discussion about the trustworthiness of the phrase "studies have shown," especially when it conflicts with one's own common sense.
I think that the overwhelming evidence of reality of modern existence - the fact that we don't live neolithic lives with neolithic lifespans - is sufficient proof that science has been overwhelmingly constructive and reflective of how the universe works.
Yes, there are issues, the incentivisation around publication etc makes it easy to game the system. However, to extrapolate this to a blanket attitude of distrusting science, "especially when it conflicts with one's own common sense", is incredibly dangerous because it's partly what has made large numbers of us so susceptible to overt manipulation.
"Common sense" is no such thing, and much of proven science could be construed as contradicting common sense. The light-speed limit, quantum spookiness, spacetime curvature, biological evolution - all were once considered contrary to "common sense" - mainly because "common sense" is ultimately derived from the extremely narrow and limited range of human experiences.
A post showed up on my twitter timeline the other day saying something to the effect of, "hey, these guys just landed a thing on a tiny thing in space, so hey, maybe listen to them about climate change, you idiots," completely devoid of sarcasm. A friend of mine had retweeted it. This is how many, if not most, people think these days; instead of looking to people wearing vestments and robes for guidance, they look to people they've never met who they assume probably wear white lab coats while "doing" their "science"—which naturally encompasses all scientific fields because all "scientists" are of course good at doing ALL the "science." (Sure, if you press them, they'll admit that there's different fields of science and not all "scientists" literally know it all... but that doesn't stop that from being the mental shortcut they make whenever they read a headline about whatever "Science" is saying today.) Instead of looking to Scripture, they look to headlines declaring "science" having been "settled" on the matter. We've moved away from religion as a people, yet all it seems to have done is instilled a false sense of rationality in everyone.
It's not about trusting or distrusting "science," it's about trusting or distrusting people who put too much trust into "science," on the principle of it being "science" that "scientists" have determined is truth. I'm not saying let's all go full Amish (or Kaczynski) and live off the land, I write code for a living. I'm just saying that it's easy to fall into the "religion is an old and outdated concept, only idiots and traditionalist fools would believe in such a thing, yet putting complete faith in anything said by anyone who calls themselves a 'scientist' that gets sufficient attention, that's completely totally different, Because Science" trap.
Belief in science is nothing like belief in religion. The former, ultimately, is a belief, based on evidence, in the scientific method (empirically acquiring knowledge).
So yes, I would argue that even if someone doesn't understand all the scientific principles behind climate change, they can still reasonably trust "science" and "scientists", since that work is built on top of empirically-backed, peer-evaluated research. In fact, this is necessary since the expertise required to have a critical opinion of the vast majority of scientific research is well beyond us.
"Science" and religion are both equally fallible because both are interpreted, disseminated, and perpetuated by man, which as we all know is about the most fallible thing there is. It's obvious and demonstrable that various religious institutions have had varying levels of corruption over the years as their power has waxed and waned based upon how much faith the people have in them. Why is it such a stretch to see that in this modern era where religion has been pretty much been given up on in favor of a more or less blind belief in whatever headlines tell us "scientists" now say, that once again, power and political motivations corrupt once-pure institutions?
Imagine trying to convince someone of incredible religious conviction that their earthly Church demonstrably has repeatedly fallen victim to corruption over the years, only to have her respond to you with, "but that can't be; the Word of God is unquestionably infallible!" There shouldn't be any problem in holding both of those ideas ("the Word of God (Bible) is literally Gospel and infallibly true" and "absolute power corrupts man") in your head at the same time (if anything, the former explicitly reinforces the latter!), and you'd be hard-pressed to find a Catholic today that won't admit that their earthly Church hasn't gone through periods of incredible corruption and downright evil.
Nobody's going to argue the validity of the scientific method, but when you look at the innate nature of man (demonstrated time and again over the course of all recorded history), it's easy to believe that modern "science" is just as corrupt as any other institution man has made at any point in time that rose to power in the minds of the people, i.e. "very"
Let's break it down into a few constituent parts. We have a thing (scripture / spiritual belief OR the scientific method as applied to the world). Then, nasty, messy fallible people who probably don't floss... do stuff with that thing: they teach it, they do it, they investigate it in their own messy wayd. And then regular joe-schmo's who aren't so involved in the doing-something-with-the-thing get reallll impressed by these doing-stuff people (priests/rabbis/gurus whatever OR scientists of all sorts).
Okay, well here's the thing. I agree that everybody is messy and fallible. I agree that hand-wavy "Science people are right!" talk is wrong, imprecise and has potential to be harmful. At the same time, I believe in the scientific-method-applied-to-the-world. I believe in its power to reveal truth. I do not have that same belief in scripture-or-organized-religion-applied-to-the-world. And I think that's REALLY important. Of course people do stupid things and make mistakes, but when someone puts blind faith in people-trying-to-adhere-to-science, it scares me a lot less than when someone puts blind faith in people-trying-to-adhere-to-a-religion. In fact, I'd much rather people put blind faith in "scientists" than in... any other type of group, really, at least when it comes to revealing knowledge.
Hopefully that made sense, if anyone has thoughts or disagrees, I'm more than happy to hear it.
Let's put it this way, do you feel a monarchy is as equally corruptible as a democracy?
Both are institutions constructed by greedy, corrupt, stupid, fallible human beings. It's just that the latter has built in several mechanisms to address this. Like science.
So over a long period of time, democracies have proven to be less corrupt then monarchies, and like-wise, science has proven to be less wrong then religion.
Define "democracy." Purely democratic systems are absolutely fallible; mob rule is a thing man is prone to falling prey to in such systems. This is why basically nobody uses straight-up direct democracy today, especially in the age of everyone having read/write access to a global information network in their pockets at all times.
But even putting that aside, and accepting for sake of the argument that the political system in use in countries such as the United States is a "democracy" ...still, yes. Did political corruption magically disappear overnight when we stopped being ruled by monarchs? Were all monarchies corrupt to begin with?
"Democracy is to monarchy as science is to religion" is an incredibly muddled comparison that does not make much sense when you break it down. Modern Christianity would not be where it is today without Protestantism questioning core fundamental beliefs and then-current leadership. When does what is accepted as "Science" get to have its version of Protestantism, questioning not just the dogma of "settled science" (the most hilarious oxymoron of all time), but those who spread it to the masses as well?
Why is it that Christians, even Catholics have no problem admitting to the fallibility of what they consider to be their holiest of institutions, yet atheists seem to believe that "science" is inherently always impossible to be anything but utterly pure use of the scientific method conducted with nothing but the utmost honesty, at every level?
The motivations of man are not always pure, especially when in positions of power and/or authority. Even if you want to disregard religion entirely, at least take lessons from the history it has given us.
You keep raising the straw man of "settled science" - who here, or in fact in the scientific community, believes this let alone proclaims it? Even in broader (non-scientifically literate) society, there are few people (in my experience) that believe science knows everything already.
Science had its "protestant" moment - it was called the Enlightenment, and it result from questioning the dogma of settled knowledge as promulgated by religions through the infallibility of scripture.
I'm not going to list politically-charged examples because that's highly unlikely to lead to productive discussion and everyone here knows it.
I'm not knowledgeable about philosophy or metaphysics but is there even anything approaching consensus on whether or not there even is a "knowledge ceiling" that an individual or even society could ever achieve? (If so, I'd love to know how anyone came to that conclusion lol)
>Science had its "protestant" moment - it was called the Enlightenment, and it result from questioning the dogma of settled knowledge as promulgated by religions through the infallibility of scripture.
You seem to have misunderstood the analogy I was making. I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, yet view Protestantism as having been a positive thing for Christianity as a whole, including Roman Catholicism. When is dogmatic belief in whatever passes for "science" these days going to be scrutinized? Systemic corruption of any sufficiently powerful institution of man is inevitable, and just because the scientific method is about as pure of a means of reasoning about the world around us as we can come up with and has led to profound advancements in technology and our understanding of our world... doesn't mean that everyone's just going to ignore the fact that using the now-widespread dogmatic belief in its infallibility is a pretty powerful means of achieving external political and personal goals unrelated to the pursuit of truth. It's naive to think otherwise.
You keep bringing in disparate arguments as if they are part of the same thing - infallibility, knowledge ceiling, dogmatism - and also throwing in the odd barb - "whatever passes for science these days" (the answer to which, is "science!").
Yes, agreed that human systems have a tendency to corruption, however the scientific method at least has within it the seeds to "keep the bastards honest" (as we say where I come from). i.e.
1. Nothing stops you from learning and becoming a scientist.
2. Nothing stops you from attempting to repeat published experiments, or if you can't, then to point out why (which are likely to be faults in either the description or execution of the original experiment).
In other words, there is transparency and a basis for objective comparison. Lack of transparency (either through gatekeeping or lack of detail) is considered a bad sign in science. That's what differentiates the scientific method, from say, the "political method", or "the religious method".
I think you’re not going to win this argument, but I will point out that you can’t look at a giant meadow of grass, focus on a few weeds and say, “see, it’s not grass!”.
As a system, science has brought about a better understanding of the physical world around us and has dramatically improved the lives of every human on the planet.
You keep beginning your responses with formal criticisms of my posts instead of the content within, starting with "You keep..." This time it accuses my previous post of "bringing in disparate arguments," but said post contains three paragraphs excluding the pull quote; the first two address pieces of the first paragraph of the post of yours my post was responding to, while the third paragraph directly responds to the second paragraph, indicated by a pull quote. It's clear you're either not really interested in discussion, or we're talking past each other, so there really isn't a need to continue this conversation thread.
Science as a system of producing knowledge (and rules for what to do and how to live) differs from religion in key ways:
1. It places empirical observation as the ultimate form of evidence, as opposed to scripture/existing knowledge.
If you observe something that contradicts existing theories and other people can make that observation then existing theories are disproven, the end. This still takes time to propagate, but really only for highly complicated abstract theories(of which climate change might be one!)
2. Science has a built in competitive market type process for selecting 'scripture' and an incentive to constantly be updating it.
Religions have more bureaucratic/despotic approaches to updating knowledge(college of cardinals/pope, influential preachers etc).
3. The core questions science tackles are physical and amenable to observation and maths. The core questions religion tackles are metaphysical, or to put them in evo-psych terms to do with selecting and reproducing rules of behavior that produce good societies in which to live over tens/hundreds of generations.
In as much as science tries to enter into that hyper-long term planning game it should be treated with extreme suspicion, it's a different statistical environment to that of physics and the existing statistical tools of science are probably not up to the task. It's the land of Taleb's fat tails and iterated games and exponential chaos, not statistically modelable quantum experiments(top pick a complicated but tractable problem).
Shitty metaphor: Hard sciences are about solving P problems, or at worst approximating NP or worse, but still computable, problems. Religion and social science are about providing heuristics to uncomputable problems(if you have a C program and all it does is return then it definitely halts etc). In as much as people take the NP approximations as seriously as the P solutions, they're in for some rude awakenings. In as much as a lot of our society does then we're in for a bumpy ride.
I dunno; there are vastly more people doing "science" now than in 1850, and a hell of a lot fewer technological changes, improvements and so on. I look at the people claiming the mantle now (used to be one of them!) as about as credible as if some MBA showed up and took credit for the Hoover dam.
it's funny to see this observation here. HN is one of the worse places for scientism. Having an argument? Drop a citation to NIH. Doesn't matter that neither of you read the paper, the title loosely alludes to your point so you win.
What are examples the term "scientist" being used in an inappropriate way? To me, a scientist is someone who is educated in the scientific method and experience using it to perform experiments. It's mostly applied to people for whom it's their profession but you can be an amateur scientist.
Yes, day to day there's a certain level of trust put in what scientists say based on their research, everyone can't know everything, but it's not blind faith. With priests, ultimately there's an expectation of belief without evidence.
shopping is making material sacrifices on the altar of the Self. How is buying some designer nonsense at 1000% markup to appease your ego much different from sacrificing a prize animal to appease an external God? Neither are likely to actually help you in return.
Isn't shopping/consumerism deeply entwined with a distorted notion of the "self" ? I am what I have, what I wear, where I fall on the status-totempole.
An alternative would be a community-outlook. I am part of a greater whole. I don't really own anything. We are living a story, together.
Yes. What's missing from modern life is somewhat intended by corporations and the political elite: the atomizing of people from each other via glowing screens and burning down of community that churches functioned to anchor people together. The multitude of consequences are loneliness, isolation, friendlessness, depression, anxiety and more suicidal than ever. I'm not arguing magical thinking in any form has any inherent value, but the caring about each other and the social commonwealth collectivism, empathy and support it provided are indispensable to sane, decent, good and successful people. The charity, forgiveness and nonviolent disobedience by deed part of many traditional religous traditions embody virtues that to most are inherently inspirational, noble and provide the foundation of civilization as functional, decent and possessing integrity. If we let society devolve into Orwellian, Kafkaesque, social Darwinism, then feudalism, inverted or outright totalitarianism, bullshit and brutality will comprise the primary palette of the social contract.
Have you read the book "Stand Firm" ? It was a best-seller in Denmark, with the idea that our new religion is "find yourself inside." The author advises that most who look inside won't find anything, and that we should look outward instead.
Ultimately, the author is making a case for a modern version of Stoicism.
> I think we in the west ended up replacing religion with, not an absence of it, but with a religion of the Self
More like objectivisim or individualism. Many of my small talks with people in the west include discussion about Ayn Rand and her work on FountainHead and Atlas Shrugged. After hearing about it for a long time I read the book. And frankly, the whole concept of individualism is strange to me.
I'm more or less an atheist by most standards, and I'm okay with that description.
I fundamentally agree with you.
We need things (that we imagine to be) outside of ourselves that are good in order to structure what we do. That otherness can be in the form of God or in the form of ethics, or in the form of whatever we unconsciously pickup as meaningful.
Culturally (in the US at least), I don't think that there are a lot of serious options just laying around for people to pick up if they aren't into religion, and so we unconsciously pick up other people, transient material successes, short term goal fulfillment, or novelty seeking as a substitute for these long term orientations.
When we unconsciously adopt those things (human relationships, solving our short term projects, being smart, or whatever) I think that we're bound to be disappointed because all of those things are pretty finite in what you can do with them: there is always a limit to how close a relationship can be, how healthy your body can be, how much professional success you can attain, and so on.
I have a 17 year old who lives with me, and when he goes off to college, I will be happy. I am glad that I have a lot more in my life than just my children, because in the end it's important that they leave, eventually.
Even your closest human relations need to have limits.
So the choice seems to be between living with short term successes, picking up religion, or doing a lot of intellectual work to try and find meaningful stuff that doesn't have the same frustrating limits as the short-term goals.
At this point, I have been finding that last option much more useful... finally, after two decades of being a dead weight of alienating drag, my degree in philosophy is starting to work out some things.
So, yeah, I think that you're right: an ethic where you place meaning in your life in the wellbeing of humanity in general is a strong idea.
That’s more a value system, or maybe an ideology, than a religion. Though I’ll agree the two do more or less occupy the same cognitive space. There is no need for anything mystical to be involved.
Today we are experimenting with new phenomena that have never been available to humanity en mass. Effective birth control, gender equality, freedom from restrictive social norms, all of these are very new, and indeed evolutionarily novel. We have not yet learned a tradition of how to operate in this space, we are the pioneers, and unfortunately a lot of missteps befall the pioneers.
Eventually through trial and error, and a kind of evolutionary process, we’ll figure it out, and then that will get passed down as the new value system. Then we’ll have kids again more or less following in the footsteps of their parents, they’ll just be footsteps we wouldn’t necessarily expect.
> That’s more a value system, or maybe an ideology, than a religion.
The difference is that the social structure which promotes the value system is valuable in and of itself (this said as someone who grew up religious but is not anymore). A lot of people can't "walk the path" without others to walk with them.
The only issue is that sometimes that social structure has downsides like occasionally becoming politically charged, self-serving or abusive.
Pretty sure every generation from the beginning of time has thought of itself as a pioneer exposed to new forces and new phenomena. It's a bit arrogant to think that you're the one and only.
There are a multitude of other changes that have transformed our environment (agriculture, spoken language, written language, barter, commerce, etc.) over the millennia.
> There is no need for anything mystical to be involved.
And yet something mystical has been involved for thousands of years, in virtually every culture. When we tried to eradicate it forcefully (communism), bad things happened. Perhaps there's more to it than you think?
The pace of change over the last century makes the pace over the last few thousand years look like a crawl. Agriculture was not invented and brought to the point of industrialisation within a single human lifetime. I’d wager that spoken language took a bit longer than a few decades to perfect as well. You’re not comparing like with like.
> And yet something mystical...
People need explanations for things, when they don’t have them they invent them.
> When we tried to eradicate it forcefully (communism), bad things happened
This is a little disingenuous.
Yes, states described as communist attempted to eradicate religion; to do that, they merely replaced religion with the state. The state became the church, its leaders became the saints.
Don't conflate the example of failed, corrupt Stalinist communist states with the concept of the eradication of religion, they're not at all mutually inclusive.
Not quite. When he took power, he ruthlessly enforced atheism and slaughtered anyone who stood in his way. Only when he was fighting for his life with the Nazis did he find the Orthodox Church useful in his efforts. After he was done with the Nazis, he went back to his old tricks.
Stalin's relative clemency towards the orthodox church does give the lie to the idea that the policy is "Stalinist." It was a Leninist policy of long standing. Khruschev reverted to it despite his explicit denunciation of Stalinism.
> After he was done with the Nazis, he went back to his old tricks.
According to the article you yourself linked, he was pretty soft on them from after the war until his death.
What if at the end, we end up realizing that all there is to life is a struggle in order to propagate our own DNA, and that really this struggle may not be worth it? Humanity as a whole could decide that this is all there is, and then that ultimately there really is no point other than what you make it. What if humanity bucked it's genetic programming, recognizing it for what it really is. And recognizing that what we are really up against, is the laws of physics themselves. That we've been dealt a raw deal, meaning that we must work in some way to sustain our own being, and that only the laws of the universe stop us from being truly free. That in the end, birthing children really isn't a blessing, but a curse. And that truly the best gift you can give your unborn children is the gift of non-existence.
What's the "this" that is all there is? What is the struggle you describe, exactly, and what would it mean for it to be "worth" it? What do you mean by freedom, exactly, and on what basis is it good (you imply that it's good and important to be "truly free")?
Those questions are semi-rhetorical (although I'd love to hear an answer if you want to have a convo about it), but your paragraph rings some alarm bells for me. Have you read Thomas Nagel's "The Absurd"? I think it directly and decisively addresses many of the concerns you bring up.
The hitch is that you can't work hard enough to stem the tide of suffering in the world. It's a hopeless situation because the world is broken and suffering and death are unavoidable. If the world is broken, then there is no path to salvation through works.
The message in religion, particularly in the message of Christianity, is that life is suffering because of ubiquitous sin - BUT - God came here bodily to teach us how to live, freeing us from the sin of broken laws, and died as a final blood sacrifice to wipe the sin slate clean.
Jesus is definitely the superman to model one's life after (be charitable, be loving, forgive, don't lead others to sin, speak truthfully, don't be a hypocrite, etc...) But, the main point the religion teaches is that salvation can only come through faith that Jesus is God and not by any good works you do.
You can get all rational and say that's all magic mumbo jumbo, but it's actually really good psychology. Belief in a higher power that saves leads to good people. It's beneficial to mental health when you can surrender the notion that anything you do will fix the world and that life isn't hopeless. And there is a power to prayer. We can definitely make things better here, and we are, but no works can eliminate all of the evil in the human heart.
No need of religion, just the new way of doing things. I feel you are talking of a loss of community. Of human beings being of benefit to each other that can be separate from religion. I do see that the church provides a community for many who can participate in that, even though I am a life-long atheist. But broadly, I agree with you.
For my parents and their siblings that meant the furthest apart they were until mid life, ignoring war service, was around 50 or so miles. Not by choice, but there were jobs, opportunities and housing locally. Not in each other's pockets like in a small village, but near enough to meet up regularly, visit when passing, take me over to my uncle or gran if they needed to go somewhere. There was some overlap between friends. There was always someone pretty locally.
For me and my siblings, friends and cousins, we are a far flung bunch, and it is the same for most of my friends. I have a relative 300 miles one way, one on another continent, another 200 miles the other way who I've almost completely lost touch with. Some friends have even more far flung friends and family. For the most part that seems to have come at a high cost. Not just when someone is taken ill, or at Christmas, but in day to day life, in our ways of parenting, in our closeness (or more accurately our lack of closeness) in day to day life. The lonely mum stuck miles away from relatives, the dad trying to keep it together alone. Maybe it even explains some of the addiction to social media.
Maybe I read far too much into it, having reached an age where mortality is far more apparent, and people I thought as young have died. My parents and their peers seemed to have had a level of contentment with their lot, even though many were in WW2 - sometimes at great cost, that me and my peers have utterly lost.
I think this is something that VR tech good enough to make you feel like you're really in the same room as someone (meaning not just visuals, but sight, sound, touch, smell) will help with. That may be hundreds of years away though.
I very much agree and I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
Interestingly enough, this line of thought is not new. People like Auguste Comte in the 1850s saw the industrial and technological revolution as an engine working to erode religion, and he wanted to work towards an alternative.
For many people, religion generally provides two things: 1) An overt faith-based explanation of why we're here, how the world came to be, and how important events are driven (God), and 2) a system of ethical and moral rules evolved over centuries to allow everyone to life their "best life".
As science and technology advanced, many people lost the need for #1, and started to abandon religion entirely. That kind of makes sense, because #1 is often the marquee headline of religion. But in abandoning religion, they also lost #2, the quieter, but perhaps even more important, aspect. There is nothing in today's modern society that can seriously fill that gap. (In the past, fraternal organizations played that role to some extent, but they are largely irrelevant today.)
Comte put together a "Religion of Humanity" in an attempt to provide people with point #2, couched in the familiar structure of religion and ceremony, but without the faith-based belief of point #1. It saw some medium-level success in its day but is now defunct. It was perhaps too early for its time.
However I think the idea is more important now than it ever was. People need an ethical, community-based, traditions-based societal structure they can attend regularly and fall back on, but without the requirement that one believe in faith-based myths and legends. We need a new "Religion of Humanity".
A system of ethics and moral rules that is evolved over time with no relation to how things are in themselves is simply so much legacy code, to be replaced by the stronger man at a time convenient to him.
If, on the other hand, moral rules and ethics are due to the natures of things then there must be someone who intended things to exist in the manner they are intended to exist. That being must be a person because of the principle of sufficient cause (since we exist). Faith is the response to communication from this person. It does not require abandoning of reason, but simply picks up where reason cannot ascend to because of its lack of perspective.
> If, on the other hand, moral rules and ethics are due to the natures of things then there must be someone who intended things to exist in the manner they are intended to exist.
Morals and ethics are either relative or absolute. If they are relative then they are not based on "what a thing is" (it's essence, to use an Aristotelean term) but on "how useful it is to me" or some other relative criteria). If, on the other hand, "what you ought to do with this thing" is based on "what is this thing and what is it intended to be", then there must exist some `intender` who is the reason for this thing's form / end being what that form / end is.
Thanks for the explanation. Something that is absolute needs an absolute reference frame, in other words. Here you’re saying that the absolute reference frame is what God intends.
I’m not sure that there is such an absolute reference frame for morality, but this is too long a conversation to get into here!
I think it is in a "believe in Jesus" way. In the book of Matthew, Jesus reaches out to folks who have finally come to this exhausting revelation:
Matthew 11:28-30 - “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
If anything she is blessed to have finally reached the end of her self-effort and encounter the weighty truth we find in Ecclesiastes -- that everything under the sun is indeed meaningless (vanity).
More Matthew, from, 10:34 and on, writing what Jesus personally says, according to him:
"“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I
did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to
turn
“ ‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’"
Or maybe Mark 11:12 and on:
"12 The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. 14 Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it."
Voluntarily serving others through time or money is definitely a good way to find some purpose, or at the very least, just not feel so selfish. A good opportunity that I've found that other HN folk might be interested in is donating your time to STEM clubs at public schools, especially those with less advantaged kids. They're usually after school and the one I'm doing is in the Lego robotics competition targeted towards 5th-7th graders.
We don't want happiness out of life, we want meaning. And we have the most meaning when we're impacting other people. Impacting people can start small, like your wonderful examples, or be huge like starting a successful company. There are so many ways.
I deeply disagree with this — if you can achieve happiness without meaning, there is no need for meaning.
Of course, I understand that achieving happiness can be challenging, and that seeking meaning can be a meaningful step on that path.
But it is possible to have happiness without meaning, and that seems more valuable than meaning without happiness, or happiness that relies on a sense of meaning.
According to Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics", happiness is the greatest good in life.
The pursuit of a meaningful life puts way too much pressure on identifying what is meaningful and worth our energies. That would probably decrease my happiness.
What if I can't find any pursuit that I consider to be the most meaningful? Am I OK committing to something that could potentially be less than optimal in terms of meaningfulness?
It isn't that important for me to evaluate my actions on meaningfulness - I'm bound to disappoint my self by that metric.
Prioritizing meaningfulness over happiness is putting the cart before the horse, in my mind.
Ah, interesting. Thank you for challenging my assertion.
Upon deeper introspection, my own personal experience of “happiness without meaning” is closer to “the meaning is just the universe/physics unfolding (and I happen to be a part of that)”, which is so all-encompassing that it has little meaning itself, in the Kolmogorov complexity sense. And concomitant well-being, which I would define as closer to “completely neutral affective experience” rather than the “positive affective experience” described as hedonic well-being in the study you referenced.
The lady isn't struggling with meaning - she's struggling with having lived a care-free life and is now realizing that the ability to form a family and/or have a career that earns above average, has passed her by.
There isn't anything to 'do' to solve this - because there is no problem. She's made trade-offs she wasn't fully aware of and now she's coming to see them for what they are. She'll pout for a few days/months/years and then move on with her life.
This 'become something that is worth being' aka Jordan Peterson cult of 2018, is going to run it's course too, because most people are average, and this 'worth being' is always something an average person isn't already doing. When they start doing it, 'worth being' will become something more difficult surely because it's never enough. What a great way to view yourself as above others and continue being an ego-maniac (what Jordan Peterson is)
I agree, she exploited her good fortune (including youth and beauty as a woman in a society that gives that enormous power), and along the way she didn't spend much effort helping others or figuring out how to so that's no satisfaction to her now. She still wants her lottery ticket to win, she just doesn't see how.
Most people are average, which means they can become well-above average at some one useful thing that is "worth being." Most people do get there. "Worth being" clearly implies, that being enough.
If J.P. were actually an ego-maniac he would have been chewed up and spit out by society long ago; standing against the crowd isn't easy work.
> You can always do something meaningful with your life.
There lies the rub. What if you don't find anything to be meaningful to you. This implies that there are some activities that are inherently more meaningful that others and you just have to find them. Now you are back to square one.
Can it be rewritten to
> You can always find meaning in anything you do
This doesn't handwave the problem away. Main task is to find meaning in yourself not keep looking for activities that will give you meaning and hope you get lucky.
It seems like "you can always find meaning in anything you do" turns the sentiment back into being about YOU, which is what OP seemed to be lamenting in the first place.
As you expressed, you see the task as "find meaning in yourself," a concept that can maybe be expressed as "meaning comes from within." This sounds nice! I think what OP was getting at is that this perspective has two problems: 1. It requires you to produce your own sense of "meaning" (whatever that means) that is self-satisfying, AND that works well in the society/community in which you exist; and 2. it is fundamentally self-centered. A hypothesis could be that this perspective seems to most frequently result in a failure to find "meaning" (probably better called "contentment") in anything.
As OP said, faith/religion traditions tend to hand you a set of pre-defined "here's what's meaningful" morals, and these also tend to be skewed towards group value instead of just self-satisfaction. When handed this outlook on meaning/morals, it seems possible there might be benefits - not having to come up with a self-fulfilling sense of meaning that also meshes with broader society, as well as a focus on being useful to the community instead of just yourself.
I personally find the whole "be yourself" / "do what you love" dogma-du-jour to be terrible, and prone to actually resulting in depression and shame. It is at the same time selfish, and self-sabotaging.
Because here's something else that's true.
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as
atheism.
There is no such thing as not worshipping.
Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship.
And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type
thing to worship – be it J.C. Or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mothergoddess
or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles –
is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.
If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning
in life – then you will never have enough.
Never feel you have enough.
It's the truth.
Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always
feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths
before they finally plant you.
On one level we all know this stuff already – it's been codified as myths,
proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great
story.
Worship your intellect, being seen as smart – you will end up feeling
stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.
And so on.
David Foster Wallace, from This is Water, a commencement speech he gave in 2005.
>If you worship money and things – if they are where you tap real meaning in life – then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth.
The only reason he has to assert it like that is because it isn't true. He has a lack of imagination if he's not able to imagine someone who doesn't worship anything. I imagine he'd just move the goalposts though, and say "oh well they worship their lack of worship, which is a form of eating them alive." It's disingenuous at best, but probably just ignorance, so that he can sound profound without really giving a convincing argument.
How you've written things is exactly how Buddhist mindfulness authors Christina Feldman, Sharon Salzberg, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Pema Chödrön have been writing and thinking about it. I recommend checking out Wherever You Go, There You Are.
It's clear to me how all of the reaction and distraction we've started to discover that the current Internet lets us cling to will drive people to start seriously evaluating teachings of mindfulness and Buddhism.
> It's in being of benefit to the human beings around you. And in serving those around you, you become something that is worth being.
I both agree and disagree with you. On the one hand, you're right that most people would be happier if they committed more and gave more. Human relationships are a positive-sum game.
But people who mindlessly follow that advice are asking to be exploited. History is full of dictators who grew rich and powerful off the backs of people whom they persuaded to think of something other than themselves. "Blut und boden." "Deus, pátria, e família."
What religion is supposed to be (whether it succeeds is a different question) is a moral compass so that one may find happiness and meaning in service to others, without your good intentions being exploited or usurped against your interests.
If we see religion as a dominant world viewpoint, it becomes less about one particular religious interpretation (or not), and more about the benefits of having a practice that helps you be better for yourself and others.
It could be argued that belief systems are an inescapable component of the human experience and religion forces a person to channel thinking about such in a deliberate cognitive way.
I fundamentally agree with your message (and, as an atheist, try to live it as well as I can), but I don't see why you need religion to propagate it.
Then again, perhaps religion is just helpful here in the sense that people -- especially those going through emotional/existential crises -- might find it easier to climb out of a hole with dogma as a guide rather than rational thought.
I wasn’t trying to say one needs religion to look past oneself. I was instead tipping my hat to religion, in the sense that I think this is a thing religion very much gets right. And it is through religion that most people in our culture are exposed to the idea.
That being said, religion does a pretty poor job of spreading the gospel of loosing oneself in the service of others. It tends to focus on religiosity instead. But imho it does a better job than almost any other institution we have.
Which is to say that as a culture we are pretty terrible at it.
Until you are the type of person that is always focused on others and wants everybody to be happy, often at the cost of expressing your own opinion. Then you'd need a dose of Ayn Rand and you also won't be popular on HN, but what the hell.
If you strip away all the industrial entrepreneur worshiping, there is a beautiful lesson about the ethics of expressing what you want and allowing loved ones to do things for you, because they want to see you happy, because they love the real, full you. I guess one can come from many sides but in the end I agree with the writer of this piece, it is about accepting yourself, including the things you don't like. If you've seen Naruto, this is the height of the series for me: [0] (None of the movies will play though.)
Religion and conservatism is really good groundwork for those who aren't exceptional. Hard to say if the world is a better place with religion in it but it's easy to say that some people's lives /are/ better because of it.
I identified with the person in the article, and what you described is how I pulled myself out of it. It was a mix somewhere between depression and existential despair. The notion of putting others first, kindness, and empathy is absolutely compatible with a secular lifestyle.
That said, I'd also encourage this person to seek therapy. Sometimes knowing the answer isn't enough and you need help getting there...perhaps with the benefit of medication.
As an atheist I’ve been thinking about that lately and I think I can agree. It looks like in the US nobody cares about the poor people and the homeless and the church is pne of the last organization trying to help people (and convert them, but still).
As long as the US will demonize socialism, people who have nothing won’t get help from the government.
Socialism without morality leads to Stalinism. Socialism with morality requires strict (e. g. sworn) obedience to a higher authority (see the monasteries of Catholicism which are strictly speaking socialist).
But capitalism without morality ends up being America. Where people sleep in the streets at every corners and need to pay to go to college or get medical treatment.
Oliver Twist's England, surely, where children are pressed into service in dangerous factories that can severe limbs and kill, for mere pennies a day?
Otherwise, we definitely agree. We are fallen creatures and will drive earth to hell, regardless of which car we decide to drive there in. Only external help can save us from ourselves.
America has become substantially more socialist over the last 50 years, if you look at the statistics on social welfare spending, or the number and breadth of social programs in force.
In the past, without the safety net, and with anti-vagrancy laws, the street people would have been doing the work now done by low wage legal and illegal immigrants. It was a hard life, but better than slowly poisoning themselves to death with opioids while living on government aid.
I'm from the flock that value his own practical and hard-learnt lessons over prepackaged answers. Yes it could be said it's more inefficient but I see a beautiful depth in earning your own growth.
Following an ethical life path does not provide the same value as rediscovering it.
I think the parents of many 20 and 30-somethings played a role in so many young(ish) adults failing to launch.
American parents could learn a thing or two about parenting from previous generations and from a lot of immigrant families: nobody owes you anything, plan for a rainy day, find a partner you love and commit to them, work hard, cherish friends and family even when it's difficult, etc.
I think parenting has over-corrected from the overly didactic and stern parenting of previous generations to endless "follow your bliss" and "you can do anything" -- which is causing a lot of young people to spin their wheels for decades at a time, never growing up while their body is growing old. It's a shame to see.
I think we're seeing the result of the baby boomer generation, essentially. They rejected the old, as you put it -- stern way of parenting. I'd argue, perhaps it wasn't so much stern as it was the structured.
There was structure, expectations, and responsibilities. Things previous generates required to live. Since then, we've grown increasingly accustomed to insane amounts of wealth (or perhaps debt?).
This enabled us to lax our expectations, because you didn't need to be super disciplined to make the wealth.
The fact that we rebuffed the social norms has it's good and bad, unfortunately it does appear that we took it too far -- at least from a "you can do anything perspective". Yes, you can do anything, but you have to work to get there. It appears a lot of people forget that last part and feel entitled to their wealth / place in society.
Social trends almost always overcorrect. I wouldn't be surprised if we overcorrect the other way in future generations, then back again, etc. People seem to have trouble with the idea that the optimum is not at an extreme.
> "... the idea that the optimum is not an extreme."
I'd put this as "not an extreme" /on any of the axes that we're considering/. Life has an awful lot of dimensions -- if you imagine a very high-dimensional hypercube and draw the optima randomly, the optima are almost guaranteed to be close to some surface (some "extreme").
To my eye, the real problem is finding the correct perspective -- the one at which an optimum lies at an extreme.
>To my eye, the real problem is finding the correct perspective -- the one at which an optimum lies at an extreme.
Something which has brought a lot of happiness to my life and dramatically changed the way I live is taking responsibility for my own happiness and life choices. I used to spin my wheels and drift through life but at 30 I was diagnosed with cancer. It's a long story and it turned out to not be serious, although I did have two surgeries. There was a time period where it seemed very serious, however, and this period completely changed how I view my own life. I didn't want to die with this sense of being so unfulfilled and I wished I had made better choices. Now I try to make these choices as I live.
I commend you for finding the way to live to the fullest.
And I am envious. I have no impending doom looming above my head and I feel that this really makes me slow and feeling that I have time. I am 38 now and I am pretty aware that my time is ticking away. But there's always another crysis to salvage... I am trying my very best to crawl out of this hole but it's taking way too long.
I feel I lack the very important perspective that you have but these things are profound epiphanies; you can't just talk somebody into having them. They are transformative experiences and the resulting change in you cannot be duplicated by just talking or reading others' stories...
You definitely can't talk someone into having life-changing experiences. In the space of two years I went through:
1) Wife cheating on me
2) Divorce after a year of attempting to make it work
3) A clinically diagnosed major depressive episode (mainly brought on by the wife stuff but also some unresolved personal issues)
4) Cancer diagnosis
These years were incredibly formative, despite happening at ~30 years of age. The years since have seen me take control of my own life in ways I would never have before. If I want something I find a way to make it work.
One thing that helps me now is I don't worry about things. There is typically always a way out of a shit situation if you're willing to work for it. I don't know your personal situation but I recommend trying to be grateful for what you've got, set a 5-year plan for what you work and start doing the things you need to do for that 5-year plan (even if they're difficult and don't pay off for a long time). Treat your future self as someone to whom you're going to give a great gift.
> These years were incredibly formative, despite happening at ~30 years of age.
You know what they say: "No good sailor is formed by windless sailing" or some such. It's absolutely never too late to not only learn but to get transformed dramatically.
I also got through a ton of crap lately -- been jobless for 6 months but that was only the tip of it. Not gonna bore you, bottom line is that yes, these things make you shift priorities and look at everything with new eyes. That much is true.
What is still not true is that I don't have that mythical perspective that people with near-death experiences gain. I wonder if it's possible to gain it without outlasting cancer or barely surviving a car crash.
As for not worrying, at 38 I learned for the first time in my life to take everything that's happening in stride and without sweating. Basically, if paying the bills and food isn't the threat, I really seriously cannot even get stressed or pissed anymore. Took me several months of a ton of stress to transform though. Looking back at the process, even though it's still ongoing, makes you appreciate how painful and slow a profound change in your character can be.
Being grateful for what you got is, again, not something you just read somewhere and start doing it tomorrow and until you die. Suffering and pain gave me much needed perspective to really become grateful. Nowadays I can't even get upset at my wife or mother if they get pissy at something; I just smile widely because I am happy that they are alive and well, and with me. (In rare cases this is misinterpreted which makes the situation even more hilarious.)
As for own schedule and plans -- thanks, that's a good perspective. I am a pretty relentless guy and I have a "grand vision" and I almost never lose the horizon but I fully appreciate that having a self-imposed deadline can be a motivator.
Do you have an advice on how do I sparkle the strong emotional reaction that makes one not want to waste another minute? I really cannot consciously replicate that. I envy people like you who got that epiphany and are now living under its flag.
Demographic replacement in the sense of the original posts "American parents" vs "Immigrant parents" will put a natural damper on whatever oscillations "American parents" try to implement. The woman in the linked story will never have descendants to overcorrect.
I feel similarly with the differences between me and my family vs my wife and her family. I grew up not desperately poor, but with only just enough money to get by. In the late 90s we had a computer, a basic Windows 95 machine with dial-up and about 1/4 of the RAM/CPU that modern machines had, but we had one. That's about all we had for modern comforts, which I think forced me to be laser-focused on one activity. There just wasn't a lot of opportunity for me anywhere else but the computer. If I decided I didn't like computers and wanted to be a painter, there was no way we were buying art supplies. I asked for a computer and I got it and that was all I was going to get.
My wife's family wasn't rich, but the parenting attitude was "whatever you want, follow your heart". The kids had painting, sculpting, pianos, guitars, drums, dance lessons, soccer, karate, foreign language tutors, and anything else they desired. As soon as they got bored or frustrated, they quit and moved on to the next thing. The hope from the parents was if they were exposed to enough stuff, they'd find their passion. Of the three kids, only my wife has a steady job, and only because I nearly broke up with her when she was job hopping while we were dating. The other siblings quit their jobs at the first sign of any real struggle and move back in with their parents. I believe it's because they've never been forced to work past the uninteresting or difficult parts of any hobby or job in the past.
I don't know where the line should be drawn between giving kids every opportunity to find their passion versus making them stick with something they may not actually enjoy. I hope I figure that out before I have kids.
If your only had a piano, instead of a computer, your story wouldn't be particularly convincing. People who grew up with a computer, before most other people had one, were lucky to find a rapidly growing industry. Most other people are getting very little for their single focus.
If I only had a piano to entertain myself I probably would not be a professional piano player, you are correct. But that's not the point of the anecdote. Replace my computer with anything else, and the frustrations will still be the same. The boredom and experimentation and learning and moments of clarity and joy and pain will still be the same.
Whether I carry the piano into my adult life doesn't matter. I've still learned how to stick through something difficult without quitting and moving on to the next exciting thing. The most valuable lesson learned in this story is that everything worth doing is boring and difficult sometimes. If you never stick through it beyond that point, you'll never learn that lesson.
I do think it matters, because we are trying to establish some sort of utility of having focus in the context of the conversation. The theory of this thread is that a lack of focus is harmful and, at least partly, to blame for why young people are struggling.
You can be the most dedicated piano player, but if you later decides to channel that dedication into e.g. writing you are very likely to be struggling anyways. So now you are essentially in the same boat as everyone else.
Young people are mainly struggling because education, housing and long term careers are competitive and costly. Of course dedication can help with being successful in almost any sense of the word. But overall it is very likely overshadowed by other factors as e.g. your position in the housing market.
How many people who could afford a mortgage in a major city in their early twenties, by any means, are struggling with their lives today? Certainly a few, but surely a lot less than those who don't yet have a stable home in their thirties.
I personally think learning how to focus and power through a struggle is the important skill to learn, regardless of what form it takes. Finishing 10 imperfect paintings is more of a learning experience than never finishing one perfect painting. Finishing a terrible novel in NaNoWriMo is more important than giving up because your story is bad. Making it through school with a C+ is more important than dropping out because it's too hard. If you're going for a run, the first mile might be excruciating pain but then the runner's high kicks in. Now every time you go for a run after that, you'll know to grin and bear it because the pain will go away and it will get easier.
I'm arguing that it's not what skill you learn, but rather that you did. You moved past something being new and exciting, got to the point where it was frustrating and boring, and you kept going anyway. I'm now wishing I hadn't use a computer as my example because I still feel like you're taking the wrong lesson from my anecdote. I don't credit my childhood computer use for my successful career as an adult. I credit my (forced) single-minded focus, where giving up was not an option.
In this story, my siblings-in-law never knew that it gets easier, never knew that there is a plateau you can overcome, and never made it to the other side. Because they never had to. It's a story about not giving up, not a story about how everyone should learn to use a computer.
I just don't think it is accurate. Often pursuing something means giving up other things, which won't help you not to struggle in life. There is often no plateau in menial or highly competitive professions. Trying to e.g. become a writer will leave you struggling for a long time. Unless some can provide for you in the meantime, which has little to do with your own focus. I just don't think focus as such is that relevant for whether you will struggle or not in life. A lazy programmer is still on average very likely going to struggle less than a dedicated service worker. There are plenty of, say, high school football players who have more grit than most of us but are doing worse in life than the kid who barely knew how to tie his own shoes.
Maybe. My brother had access to a computer and a piano. For a while he was big into computer graphics and everyone in my family thought he'd be a graphics designer. He ended up becoming singularly focussed on music and is now a professional music producer. We're quite similar, we're both very focussed on a single skill and have reached professional levels in our respective areas.
So I'm not sure that sort of life is an inherent quality of growing up with a computer. It's perfectly possible to push through the hard parts and find a passion with music.
As far as I know that is a similar deal. Knowing how software works is an essential part of being a music producer today. You would have great benefit from already having extensive experience with a software suite. The same isn't true if he had been dedicated to music and dancing. People don't generally lack dedication so much as they lack opportunities. Learning about computers gives you opportunities, learning about something else might not.
We didn't have Fortnite but we had many other venues for entertainment on computers: MUDs, Ultima, DOOM, Duke Nukem 3D, Wolfenstein, Wing Commander, etc. etc. The list goes on.
My early family life resembled the parent's. The difference in my case and related to your point wasn't the absence of distractions it was to get at them I had to learn how to make the damn computer work. I once tricked my 286 into thinking it was a 386 so that I could install Windows 3.1. All for the purpose of... playing solitaire. Yeah, that's how bored I was.
I'm not even sure I could replicate doing that today. As a 9 year old I was better with a rudimentary BIOS than I am today with a modern one. I'm pretty sure it was because there was a barrier between me and what I wanted and the only way to get it was to figure out that horrendous system.
Well, now kids would be learning about overclocking video cards, messing with refresh rates, optimizing their gaming mouse etc. Same idea. I had Zork and PAC man growing up and while I enjoyed it I wasn’t completely addicted to it possibly because the graphics, multi player gaming etc weren’t there yet. It does bother me seeing my son play fortnite rather than learning python etc like I’d have been inclined to do if I were his age. Then again, I’d probably be addicted to fortnite as well.
I think all parents stress about video games. Mine did. Sometimes I'd get a new game and play it incessently. Eventually I'd get bored and go back to programming. If someone is interested in the topic fun games won't stop them exploring it, I'm sure.
So much truth. I must have beat Wing Commander 100 times. To play it, I had to tinker. I didn't want to tinker, but it was the only way to blow up evil cat people in space. Things are more stable and reliable these days. I prefer it for the usability, but I recognize the limited hackability of most modern computers means few people will take an interest.
My family was relatively rich. We also had a computer. With lots of games. I played Red Alert and then started programming. My brother played Counter Strike and now plays Dota or whatever, he never learned to program. I'm a successful programmer and he's a successful lawyer.
I wasn't a "follow your heart" kid, but school came super easy to me and I never learned how to force myself to do things I don't want to do. It's a constant struggle.
I understand the failure to launch part that modern parenting contributes to. However, from personal experience, I do not believe it is only limited to American-born parents. I grew up with a lot of Chinese/Indian/Korean immigrant families around (which are among the most "successful" immigrants in America in terms of wealth and educational attainment).
We grew up with high expectations to study hard, go to a top university, get a 6-figure job, and start a family in the suburbs. Throughout years 4-18 our parents told us "You will do X, Y, and Z because these are the ingredients that worked for us to live a good life in America, so this is what will work for you."
While this does a good job providing structure, it doesn't take the individual into account. So many of my friends from immigrant families came out of college wondering "Now what?" because being a person was new to them in the sense that they had to figure out what to do with their life once things were no longer as pre-determined.
This created a new wave of 'failure to launch' where 20-somethings found themselves living at home trying to figure out what to do, or working down a path of some job they hate because their parents wanted them to do it. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a good way to describe the situation.
"You can do anything" is a troublesome parental mindset to establish, but so is a mindset of "You can't do this because this is not one of the 5 jobs we believe is best for you". For example, my 25y.o. Chinese female friend is just now getting into CompSci (what she is good at) after dropping out of pharmacy school (her parents goal for her because "you are a girl, you should be a pharmacist or a dentist").
The pleasing-the-parents issue is one that affects every family, since there are all kinds of hidden sociocultural expectations that tend to start being confronted near the end of the educational years and the start of career building and family formation. It's expressed more strongly in this time period because the job market has quickly reshaped itself around computing, and the traditionally safe options for young people are drying up while new aspirational fantasies like "become a pro Fortnite player" or "become a cryptocurrency baron" are working their way in.
And it isn't just a generation gap - a whole set of institutions are like this, motivating the popular "Millenials killed tradition" genre of journalism. And for the Millenial generation that amounts to having to reinvent each institution in a new form. Not an ambition anyone particularly signed up for, but one where the jobs are now.
It’s tough, the balance between the two extremes that you’re talking about. Immigrants, and the previous generations, were a lot more preoccupied with survival than with self-actualization. Watching a movie like Office Space becomes interesting to view from the perspective of survival. It’s almost indulgent. This guy has a well-paying job, his biggest woe is that his manager is not likeable, and he’s unhappy? But when you live it, you understand.
For me, the balance has been most aptly described by the phrase: you can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. You can travel, follow your bliss, whatever it takes to find some self-actualization (very important in the western world), but you pay a price. This way, you’re not completely discounting the value of ‘finding yourself’, but, like any major decision, you assess the ROI.
"you can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want." I heard this quote for the first time in ray Dalio's book Principles. It's one I intend to use in the future lol
I've at times felt resentment towards my baby boomer/hippy parents for spoiling me and failing to teach me discipline, which I've had to learn in adulthood at what I imagine is a steeper opportunity cost than if I had learned discipline as a child.
But on the other hand, I'm sympathetic to their impulse to reject the parenting styles of their parents. My father's father beat him brutally throughout his childhood. My mother's mother would shame her relentlessly for any slight failure to comply to her will, even well past childhood - when she earned her PhD, despite her mother's wishes for her to instead become an MD, after 7 hard years of working on her dissertation her mother's 'congratulatory' card ended with "I'll still pay for you to go to medical school" (and she had not helped her pay for graduate school).
They rejected the cruelty of their parents world, but gained a false optimism from the progressive, high growth times of the 60s through 90s, and failed to prepare me for the real world which is still plenty cruel.
> nobody owes you anything, plan for a rainy day, find a partner you love and commit to them, work hard, cherish friends and family even when it's difficult, etc.
My SO is doing all theses things, a bit to the extreme too but she feel EXACTLY like that person in the post.
- She planned for rainy days, much more than anyone I know, much more than her parents, much more than mine too.
- She was in love with someone for a pretty long time, way too much, but he had pretty big issues and whatever she did, he would never fix his issue, he was taking her down so hard, yet she loved him and she kept committing to him, it took her 5 years to decide it was enough, 5 years where he was the priority and not her own life.
- She worked pretty hard, again, way too much, she had a good well paid government job, they had nearly no resource because of cuts, the department of one of her colleague went from 8 to 2 employees. Right before she quit, they learned that they were only replacing 1 out of 8 employee that was quitting (she was one of the youngest, most were 45+). She pushed herself up to a depression, again also after nearly 5 years of this.
- Cherish friends and family even when it's difficult. That girl has a heart so big, it's crazy. She hated spending time with her mom, her mom always denigrated her, she always pushed her to her limit and never ever she would fight back. She die recently and my SO was there for her up until the end, more than anyone else in the family.
It has NOTHING to do with what you say. You may believe that's the right way, fine, but it has no bearing over the feelings of that person.
I only started reading the answer from Polly and that make much more sense. It may help quite a bit my SO.
It's easy to blame other people. The fact of the matter is, my generation drinks the "quit your job, sell everything, and boat around the world to find yourself" kool-aid because they like it.
Even here we'll get a few blog posts a month from a one-man-show who's just got their start-up off the ground -- or alternatively, the one that's just burst into flames.
It's the same story. "I keep putting all my money into lottery tickets hoping to make it big, with no plans for what to do when I don't." No one tells us to romanticize it. We're not ignorant of the risks. And yet, we still do.
The romance around travel and adventure has been around for centuries, if not millennia. The Homeric cycle has plenty of that, and other cultures have analogous stories. I think it's a young person thing, not a generation thing.
Travel for self-discovery has the well-understood problem that self-discovery is not about the places you go or things you do. It's about how you react and change in the process.
Hedonistic travel is fine and can be restoring, but pleasure only gives you insight into what you like, not how you handle life's challenges. The latter is where you actually find yourself. For that, travel is useful because it makes you uncomfortable, but first you have to seek discomfort.
How is that any different than the hippy, free love, counter culture of the 60's. People in every single generation have wanted to do that and many have. The only difference between your generation and all the ones of the past is you now have social media around to amplify and make you feel subliminally jealous of the ones who actually do it. You're a real live productive member of society, so why aren't all these people your age able to do it right /s?
It's also easy to look down on others from a position of moral superiority. Yeah, it's the same story, but why is the behavior so wildly rampant now when it wasn't previously? I seriously push back on the position that "nobody romanticizes it" - the self-made entrepreneur, the kid who backpacked around Africa for two years then started a successful NGO and now gets to meet celebrities every day (this is completely made up) - the point is, our culture DOES romanticize this, and frames it all in the context of "they followed their passion!" or some other baloney like that.
I have two kids, and the ONE THING I try the hardest to teach them is personal responsibility. Yet I recognize that generally the term "personal responsibility" is kind of used as a gatekeeping term against the poor and the young. Whatever their problems are, they are self-imposed as they lack personal responsibility. Sympathy, compassion, charity not required.
Every generation of parents is a generation of first-time parents. The best we can do is learn from past generations. I don't see any harm in identifying causes and effects of generational shifts in parenting style in order to better correct for the next round.
> American parents could learn a thing or two about parenting from previous generations and from a lot of immigrant families.
My parents and most of their peers got married right out of high school just to get out of the houses their 1st generation Catholic parents filled to the brim with like, seven or eight semi-neglected kids.
A lot of them didn't make it out of those environments unscathed, and there's no guarantee they learned how to save money or hunker down for the long haul with a partner because of it.
It's easy to look back on those times with rose-colored glasses, especially if you weren't there.
I get why you would say that and why it is alluring for people to agree, it even is for me to some extent. But I don't really see any, even indication of, evidence that it would be true. I think you are confusing cause and effect.
The people who are spinning their wheels aren't the once who just want a decent job and modest life. It is if you don't want to go into debt, you don't to move to a major city, you can't or don't want to get help from your parent and you believe in making your own way that you are spinning your wheels. The "follow you bliss" kids are all getting money from their parents.
It is easy to have an opinion about how other people should live their lives. So just tel me, after they had your ideal upbringing, what do they do then and why would they not in that scenario benefit from essentially being spoiled?
> cherish friends and family even when it's difficult
I generally agree with what you're saying except for this. You should cherish friends and family... unless doing so ends up being a net negative. Maybe that goes beyond "even when it's difficult", but... life is too short to keep people around who hurt you, even if they're blood relatives.
Set boundaries. If people fail to respect those boundaries, then they don't deserve to be in your life, at all. Cutting someone out of your life shouldn't be a decision taken lightly or on a whim, but it's a tool in your toolbox for keeping toxic people from bringing you down.
Boomers didn't just reject the old way of parenting. They rejected anything which didn't improve the bottom line for them individually. There has never been a more self-important, self-centered generation.
Don't forget that they give advice they never followed themselves.
If a millennial loses a once-profitable career due to sudden market shifts, "that's his fault for not persuing additional skills". But if a Boomer loses a job, it's never their fault.
As a relatively "young" person (teen) I feel as if I subconsciously witness or experience this all the time. However I'm not fully aware of what exactly took place that ultimately got us to where we are today e.g., boomers and their effects on modern society, aside from people wanting to have sex/kids after WW2.
I've been getting really into history recently so if anyone has any resources on the socio economic impact of other generations, specifically boomers, please let me know!
It isn't just the boomers. The "Greatest Generation" were the ones who were the most politically active at a time that they yearned for political leadership from grandpa Reagan, who had a large hand in helping weaken unions, eliminate pensions, and balloon the national debt... but at the same time they were a hell of a lot more pragmatic than their kids, who somehow decided that America had a soul that needed to be fought for by voting for corporate kleptocrats who hugged the flag and the Bible and sent kids to wars they would have protested against at that age.
>I think parenting has over-corrected from the overly didactic and stern parenting of previous generations to endless "follow your bliss" and "you can do anything" -- which is causing a lot of young people to spin their wheels for decades at a time, never growing up while their body is growing old. It's a shame to see.
It will likely be the last generation that has this opportunity. I don't imagine our children or their children living on a planet with much 'bliss' compared to their parents. Earth's trajectory is not looking good.
On the flip side, many of the previous generations of parents would kill to have the choices their kids have. They simply never had those choices when they grew up.
I can't disagree with your comment more. As someone who falls squarely in the Millennial Age range, late 20s to 30s (btw that's how old millennials are now), I find the issue with so many people in this position has less to do with their upbringing or personality in particular, and more to do with the fact that we are in many ways playing a game in which the rules have changed. And that's a direct consequence of the actions of not our parent but our parents' parents', who are somehow, still in power 20 years after they normally would have passed on control on the economy and government to the next generation.
And what I mean by that is, that those who have come of age over the past 20 years have spent pretty much their entire lives being read a recipe for success. Go to college -> get a degree -> get a job -> live a successful live. It's a simple step by step plan that every single person in our lives have reinforced ad nauseam, because for most of the 20th Century that has been the surest path to a happy middle class life.
The problem is that of course every single step in that path is now significantly more difficult than it was 20-30 years ago when our parents' generation did it. You can't just go to college anymore. It costs 10x what it did in the 80's and you can't even compare the cost to the 50's or 60's. It's also way more competitive getting into a top school. Even if you manage to get into college and pay for it, it's no longer good enough to just get a degree. You need to get a degree in the right thing and or find a way to differentiate yourself from the other 1 million students who graduate each year, because oh by the way our generation is the most well educated in the history of the world. Even if all those things go right finding a job is harder than ever. People retire later if at all now so the market is flooded not only with too many well educated applicants but the multitude of experienced candidates competing for the same entry level jobs. And even if you get a job, the crushing levels of student debt and the fact that wages haven't kept up with inflation, basically mean that it's incredibly hard to live a successful life on your own.
So basically the issue is that people have spent their entire lives calibrated for a set of conditions that no longer exists. There isn't a golden path to a cozy middle class lifestyle anymore. And once you start compounding that with the normal issues everyone runs into adjusting to an adult life you get this malaise. Everyone's poor and hates their life and social media is there so you can compare yourself to the 10% of the population who seem to have it all figured out either because they have rich parents to subsidize their life, or they got lucky and picked a major that actually pays decently, or they married their HS sweetheart and hate life somewhat less than everyone else.
And because it has to be said the fact that everyone keeps calling Millenial's lazy, and entitled for somehow not being as successful as previous generations despite the changing landscape doesn't help.
People always use the same old argument that it's this "you can do anything" that's ruining this generation. There's no real evidence to support that, and I can tell you there are many people who were able to advance to high places using that mindset.
"cherish friends and family when it gets difficult".
I'm not trying to sound harsh, but what I hear in the article is just a lack of perseverance and persistence. Relationships are hard, if you leave because the other person fails to lift the toilet seat, or you quit your job because your boss is an a-hole I find that to be a lack of character.
Strife is what gives people a sense of satisfaction. Buying the new car after driving a POS for years that needed constant work on the weekend is massively more satisfying than having mommie buy you a BMW for your birthday. Having a good year with the wife after a couple where you barely talked... That is how people grow, not sitting in flower beds having everything handed to them and running away every-time the world doesn't respond as you wish.
Indeed, real love is a choice you make, not a magical feeling that persists throughout life without any effort on your part. Even though that is how it is portrayed in all movies.
I spent my 20s getting a PhD. I don't think I've ever gotten the most out of my degree professionally, but as a way to spend one ones 20s, it wasn't too bad. I never had more than about $10K to my name until sometime in my 30s. Having a career in tech certainly helped--I took very few loans, but the ones I did have were paid off within five years of exiting academia and smartening up about my career.
I just wish I had gotten patents for the things I worked on in grad school, even if those patents belonged to the university.
These days I strongly advise young people to just get a bachelors and forget the rest unless it's required (e.g. for teaching).
You sound like someone who has never experienced poverty.
Meanwhile, the original prompt of the inciting content has... Two days' hotel stay of savings.
That's what this is about. The lack of meaning, the alienation after being told "we could be anything we want" when we grow up, to having no choice but to settle for careers in "whatever almost pays bills" since the collapse of 2008.
We're bitter. We're ashamed of where we've been and what we've done to survive. And you know what happens when we get over that? We get angry, we may get political. We might even snap.
If we're technically minded? I'm mad that I dont see more hacktivists.
>If we're technically minded? I'm mad that I dont see more hacktivists.
If you're skilled enough to be a hacktivist that can contribute significantly than you're also skilled enough to find well-paying work and you won't become bitter.
I think the issue isn't the "wasted life" but rather how one measures their life.
If she was in a committed relationship, had offspring, a home with equity, savings, and a career, there is no guarantee that would bring her fulfillment.
And even if you had that fulfillment, there is no guarantee it lasts.
Life is hard, it's cruel and not at all fair. And the way to survive is learn that no matter how hard it hits, you have to keep moving forward. I feel for the author. I do.
I had "everything" going for me and in less than a year I found myself jobless, homeless, and prohibited from seeing my kids except for a few hours a day. Why? Because I finally stood up for us and called 9-1-1 on their mother for domestic violence.
I'll edit:
I'm now working on a new startup, loving every minute of it. I have a small apartment, and I have joint custody and parenting decisions with my kids. I'm getting help through a DV survivor group, making sure to prioritize my self care, and starting to date again. This struggle has brought me closer to friends, family, and to God, and has made me a better father. And it reminds me never to take for granted the things in life that I find joy in.
Thanks for sharing. I had a close friend who was in a similar situation, and came to court to support him during the custody decision. It was so emotionally draining for me even as an outsider I can't begin to imagine actually being in that situation while trying to keep a career.
I had an experience with a woman who was banging on my door at night and threatening me. She had said she "already claimed me." I dont care about this woman and I dont have any ill will towards her but the whole thing was extroardinarily insane. Apparently she was working as a prostitute (someone else told me this and then showed me her ads on a website called backpage). After she threatened to physically hurt me, I eventually filed for a protection order. One witness said they would testify because they saw it. I asked my landlord for the video surveillance, but she said she would only provide it through subpoena. I couldnt find an affordable lawyer or figure out how to subpoena it before the court date. Later that witness renegged, saying they were threatened and said frankly 'I dont want you to get hurt, but who I really care about is myself and my family.' Others told me she had gone around saying her family was heavily involved in gang activity and she had told them to hurt me. She had posted strange things on FB about blood and violence, which some had shown me.
Nobody really wanted to help me beyond that, though. One lawyer I visited said "I cant help you," because she assumed I was the aggressor. I explained I wasn't and that I had proof, then said, 'yea I know most of the time it is probably is the guy who is the aggressor' and then she said "I knew you were a rampant sexist." What in God's name is this?
Nobody seemed seriously interested in putting things down to help me. Several other people seemed to end up hating me without ever even talking to me. It turned out my state had strict 2-party consent laws so whatever other evidence I could have possible have had was illegitimate. Many others privately told me they were sorry and that I should just 'move some new place and dont tell anyone.' Jesus Christ, I dont know, I didn't ask for this. Honestly, what the fuck. Sometimes the world seems insane.
This is becoming a common thread these days; assuming the male is the aggressor. I've heard stories of girlfriends beating their boyfriend so bad as to have him visibly bleeding, yet when the he calls 911, he is the one that gets arrested with the police saying something along the lines of, "Yeah, there's no way a little girl like that beat you up."
I would venture to guess that the majority of domestic violence is male against female, but we have to start recognizing and allowing for the fact that it happens the other way around more often than we might be willing to think.
The police doesn't have much of discretion on the subject according to common training material. Consider the following points selected from Stop Violence Against Women website[1]:
To determine the predominant aggressor, police must consider:
The seriousness of injuries received by each party
The height and weight of the parties
Which party has the potential to seriously injure the other party
Orders for protection that have been filed by a party
Whether a party has a fearful demeanor
Whether a party has a controlling demeanor
I can't find the source right now, but I've read the male victims of DV are more likely to be arrested themselves when the call the police on the female perpetrator.
"Nearly half of all women and men in the United States have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime (48.4% and 48.8%, respectively)."
Abusers are about equally men and women. A surprisingly large percentage of those partners are mutually abusive (I forgot if it's more like 25% or more like 50% but both are high IMO). Men hurt women more because men are, duh, stronger.
In Kevin Hart's audiobook he talks about how his ex-wife beat him until he was visibly damaged. When he called the cops the first thing they did was ask his ex-wife "Is everything ok?"
Keep in mind, Kevin was the one who called the cops!
Just watched a documentary about a female investigating the mens rights movement. It was very eye opening and some of the things they talk about hit home being a man. Its called The Red Pill[0].
Its not about the crazies on reddit by the way. It starts off a bit rough talking about controversial article written by mens rights activists, but just keep watching, I swear they explain it.
There are people who are perpetually single, with pretty much no relationships at all in their adult life. I don't know what is worse - having a handful of relationships that don't last a long time, or not having relationships at all.
We have so many communication tools at our disposal today - ideally, it should be ridiculously easy to make friends, love/date etc as one can reach a person on the other side of the planet. And yet, more people are single and lonely than ever :(
Could it be that, because people are online more and communicating in person less and less, that actual in-person meetings are fraught and awkward? It's a lot easier to just have "online" friends to whom you can present your "best" self, and only see their "best" self in return (photoshopped, carefully edited comments etc.)
Part of the problem, yes. I also find people unwilling to put in even the basic effort to make and maintain friendships, offline. It is easier to text than email, it is easier to email than call, it is easier to call than meet in person and so on...
Things are bad for men than women, from what little I see around me. Broadly, I find people are more willing to help women than men, all else being equal. Maybe this is why men's lifespans are shorter than women's? Men are expected to "man up and shut up", whatever that means. So they don't seek out friends, don't speak up...
>> "If she was in a committed relationship, had offspring, a home with equity, savings, and a career, there is no guarantee that would bring her fulfillment."
All of this. Also, I'd bet more than a few of her friends in relationships with homes are jealous of her! They probably have a false impression of how exciting her life is.
Also, I am happy you were able to get out of your DV situation and can see your kids. Can't imagine what that must have been like.
> If she was in a committed relationship, had offspring, a home with equity, savings, and a career...
I literally finished this sentence in my mind - before reading it to the end - with "she'd be fine!", which just goes to show how easy it is to misconstrue fulfillment with its signifiers.
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking.
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
This is an old true story. And the answer given by the article is mostly useless, some nonsense about the nature of art and accumulating a "treasure that doesn't disappear" or something.
One thing you realize when you're old is that time is finite and life is all about trade-offs. Every day by choosing the things you do you are continuously foreclosing a whole range of things you aren't doing, and soon will never do.
We live in a consumerist culture increasingly dominated by those with a financial interest in keeping us ignorant of this fact, but that doesn't make it any less true.
So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
And you might be racing for something you don't really want.
Figure out what you really want before you chase after it. If you're unmarried at 35, do you really want children, or do you think that you're supposed to have children and that doing so will make you feel more fulfilled? Not everyone needs or wants to be a parent and there's nothing wrong with not being one.
Wow, I've heard this song a million times but never listened closely to the lyrics. Then I read the next verse which depresses me immensely because its so true.
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the english way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say
"We live in a consumerist culture increasingly dominated by those with a financial interest in keeping us ignorant of this fact, but that doesn't make it any less true."
One of the more subtle, but powerful cultural subplots in the TV series "30 Rock" was the salutation that Dennis Duffy[1] would greet Liz Lemon with whenever she involved him in her life:
Everyone around us is fighting their own little war. I've felt similarly to the writer -- I moved out of my childhood home the day after graduating college and started work that Monday. I only moved 215 miles (NYC to Boston), but it felt a world away, especially considering most Americans live relatively close to where they grew up and 215 miles in Europe goes a long way.
I've made and abandoned friends at almost every stage in my life. I have no idea who will be the best man at my wedding because to be honest my brother probably isn't up to the "responsibilities", but I have no alternative.
I now live on the west cost, a tough 6 hour flight away from home. I visited my family this Thanksgiving and am noticing so many changes, people are dying, babies are being born, my cousins who I've always viewed as children are about to graduate college. It's tough being away from home and not feeling like I have roots (I'm considering a move to Seattle or the Bay Area in early 2019), but at every step I've justified my actions because the next step always came with a significant pay increase and more career opportunities.
This January will be my 13th anniversary with my high school girlfriend (soon to be fiance). I can't describe how valuable it's been to have someone so close in age (I'm 3 months older) that can relate to the things that I'm going through, and who has my back, and knows that I have hers. Things haven't been easy, but it's become so much more than a girlfriend/boyfriend relationship, which is why marriage is in our future.
I've met so many fellow millennials who are serial monogamist or date freely, I don't judge them at all and at some times have felt a tinge on envy, and these folks may have a friend or family member who is to them what my girlfriend is to me -- I guess all this is to say that in today's society I just don't know how we can traverse this reality with at least one person who you are tightly integrated with. It's just too tough out there.
As an addition, I really love Robert Anton Wilson's flavor of this idea:
“under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.”
Your story has a similar outline to my own. I moved from the UK to Canada which has been excellent for my career but at the same time has put enormous strain on my relationships as I just don't get to see people thanks to splitting a really shitty vacation allowance (3 weeks Canada wtf).
Now I'm torn between putting down roots in Toronto, moving out to the sticks, moving to Europe to be close to everyone or doing the right thing for my career by going to the US.
I am in the exact same situation. I moved to Canada from Europe and it has been really tough thanks to three measly weeks of vacation. I can't remember the last time I have been on a real two+ weeks vacation somewhere that is not my home country.
I am thinking about all those same options except the moving to the US thing. Even though I could earn much more money, I don't think that would be worth it living in a country like the US.
I've been trying that for years and I never get anywhere. Makes all the hoo-rah about negotiating over a job offer feel pretty hollow - the form of compensation I really want is never, ever on the table.
You should try contracting. When my son was in high school I switched from full time employment to contracting. The pay was about the same and I took every summer off.
I think that this the reality for the majority of people. We are the first generation, as a whole, that will not do as good as their parents. That the is the economic reality.
One major issue though is education. Giving a good technical education to people is fundamental. No matter how much a person falls, they have something that they can build on. They are never starting from scratch, as many people in this generation do, over and over again.
Me too. But I don’t know how to give funny speeches in the wedding. This resonates with me because I moved from Philippines to USA to pursue my graduate degree. Friends get lost along the way and it’s a big effort to reconnect due to time zone issues. Now married to my wife ( gf of 10 years) and have kids. It’s a difficult but fruitful journey.
Do you need to have a best man? Just go without if it doesn't feel right. My brother was mine, and my wife had five bridesmaids, but I don't see why you'd be obliged to have one or give them any formal duties. Always baffles me when couples go to awkward lengths to balance each side of the aisle.
If you've been with your girlfriend for 13 years, how have you guys been managing the movements? Does she follow you to your new job or do you follow her?
When I was in Boston and her in NYC we would drive up every other weekend to visit. I moved to the west coast and tried to make one trip every other month while we did the long distance thing.. she eventually got a job at my company and for the past two years we've been living together. However we both are about ready to move again and are preparing to be separated again, but this time we're trying to align our movements to reduce the amount of time we'll be apart.
damn dude that is rough. I did 3 years apart from my GF before she moved in with me. 13 years is redic haha. After a few years of dating and multiple years of long distance i was like 'move down here and lets fuckin do it babe!' . we dids it all right and marriage is great, even though she brought along 63k debt from grad school =(
It’s politically incorrect, but I feel like feminism has sold a massive lie to women like this.
Admittedly much of what she describes could apply to either gender, but it’s women who are hit hardest by fading looks and declining fertility.
It used to be accepted cultural knowledge that if a woman desired marriage and children, she should probably spend her ‘best years’ looking for and committing to a husband. Now you’d be labelled a misogynist for even suggesting that.
Women have been indoctrinated to think that they can spend their 20s and early 30s being ‘the poster child for serial monogamy’, and then have a husband fall into their lap when they’re ready for it. I’m sure it works out for many of them, but I feel sorry for the ones for whom it doesn’t.
Me and my wife have an 8 year old son, however I'm 36 years old and right now I don't feel like I'm capable of having another child.
Our son is a premature baby, born at 30 weeks, after what was a very troubled pregnancy. And then when he was one year old he suffered from Lyell's syndrome. Plus he's always been more sensitive to catching cold, etc. Now at 8 years old he's a healthy, good looking boy, does well in school, etc and I tell you, it's a miracle that he turned out as well as he did.
We were also fortunate to live with my mother in law. It's great to have one of your parents around. She babysits for us, she cooks for us, etc. Other people aren't as fortunate.
Being a parent is freaking hard sometimes. Being a parent is also the only thing that I'll never regret, possibly the best thing we ever did in our life.
But you need the energy of your twenties to do it. The sooner you do it, the better. Even if you're a man.
It’s not true for men to anything like the same extent.
I totally understand why you don’t have the energy for another kid. We’re the same age and I don’t think I’ve got the energy for one kid.
But the fact remains that biologically you could have another kid now or in 10, perhaps even 20 years. For a woman that’s a virtual impossibility. You can’t pretend it’s the same thing.
I'm a man, and I had my first kid at 45, just had my second at 49.
I didn't plan for it to be this way; my wife is 10 years younger than me, and she wasn't ready to have kids until she was in her mid 30's.
I do sometimes wish I'd been able to have kids sooner; I'll be pretty old by the time my kids go off to college, and I'll be very old if/when I ever see any grandchildren.
However, I'd like to say, don't not have kids just because you may be a bit older than average. I'm pretty able to handle it so far, despite the lack of sleep and stress that goes along with having kids. It's such an incredible experience and greatly enriches one's life.
It is so true. A woman thinking about her declining fertility for the first time in the age of 35? This only happens in modern western countries, where feminism has convinced women: "do not marry early", "explore your feelings", "meet new people", "have a career", "children and family oppress you" and so on. Of course, such things were unheard of some decades ago, and still are in many parts of the world, where women start a family routinely at 20 and it is not unheard of that some women are already grandmothers at the age of 35.
I am sorry, but of course there is no hope of a normal family for a woman of this age. Her fate has already been sealed by feminism. Life is tough. The question is, what happens with the next generation.
> I am sorry, but of course there is no hope of a normal family for a woman of this age.
Eh. While we married much younger, my wife and I had our two kids when she was 38 and 40, and we have age peers who found life partners around or after 35. Unless you are involving a simple tautology by defining “normal family” to be one started before leaving the 20s or something like that, you are just dead wrong.
Exactly, while the ease and likelihood of "having it all" are likely oversold, and an argument for ensuring that kids realize that adults don't get a trophy just for showing up is worth having, pretending that people can't start a family in there 30s from no current relationship (especially if they're willing to make it a focus) is ridiculous.
I agree that radiator is wrong to say “no hope”. You’d only need to find one example of a couple who met and had kids after 35 to disprove that, and I’m sure there are plenty.
But I think both you and the parent commenter are deliberately missing the point. The amount of “hope” is severely diminished, and it gets smaller every day.
The woman is faced with the task of finding a guy who wants kids as much (and as quickly) as she does, without the chance to first bond and grow together in a relaxed and unhurried relationship. She’ll have to reassure him that no, she isn’t settling just because she wants a baby, even though the same thought sometimes crosses her mind.
Plus she’s broke, so this guy will have to love her enough to make a considerable financial sacrifice and then continue to support her through motherhood. (NB this applies whether or not they stay together).
So sure, there’s hope, but you’re being disingenuous if you pretend that there’s a lot of it.
I said this upthread, but at the risk of being repetitive: the possibility of adoption addresses many of those concerns.
There are tradeoffs (nontraditional family dynamics with kids being raised by older parents, hassles with the adoption system itself, etc.), but a) you could consider those tradeoffs to be in exchange for the benefit of spending the first parts of your life doing other things, and b) the benefits to adopted kids are often truly huge.
> I am sorry, but of course there is no hope of a normal family for a woman of this age.
You could adopt, coparent, or marry a spouse who already has kids.
None of those things are "well, duh"; they have their own challenges and tradeoffs, but so does starting a family when you're young. There are many, many other options, especially as a first-worlder, and many kids that could benefit from another parent, or that could benefit from any parent.
As other posters mention, no path in life is guaranteed to be fulfilling for all individuals. Given that, you shouldn't feel sorry for anyone who has had the opportunity to lead their life according to their own principles. And that is all "feminists" want, the ability for women/all people to be considered equal, responsible agents.
This is very incisive comment. Indeed the woman in the article has had the opportunity to live her life according to her own agency, and it’s perhaps condescending of me to feel sorry for her.
But on the other hand, I still think it’s ok to feel pity for someone who has been misled by a social movement that claimed to have all the answers, when it really didn’t.
And most importantly, we should be free to criticise that social movement and point out its shortcomings.
I think the heart of the issue is that feminism promotes what the end state should be. If you're a woman and try to live your life as if feminism has already "won", then you're going to encounter some setbacks. Hopefully there will be a day when men and women actually are considered socially, legally, economically, etc. equal, but we're not there yet.
I'm a little confused when you say that feminism "has sold a massive lie to women". Feminism as a topic seems really large to me, and I'm not sure what about it you mean when you say that a big lie has been told. Would you be able to clarify?
Sure. I used the word ‘feminism’ for brevity, and because I wasn’t really sure what else to call it.
I’ll try to summarise what I mean. Women used to be under great pressure (cultural, religious, family) to find a good man and settle down. They were also shamed for promiscuity.
In the western world, we’ve largely got rid of all this pressure and shame (thank goodness) but the fact remains that women face a very different biological reality to men. Most of them have a powerful urge to be a mother, and a limited window in which to do it.
Anonymous city living, dating apps and the removal of shame associated with promiscuity have made it extremely easy for a young woman to enjoy being a “25 year old sexpot” (her description, not mine). Male attention is plentiful, and as a result there’s no reason to hang on to a particular man, why not keep looking and see what else is out there? Ask any younger guy who has been on the dating scene recently - 20-something women are increasingly flaky and unwilling to commit to anything.
I don’t begrudge women any of this, but the big lie I mentioned is the idea that a woman can just switch into “long term partner mode” when she decides the time is right. Building a relationship stable enough to have kids in takes years, and a man (generally speaking) doesn’t want to feel like he’s been chosen just as a sperm donor. Guys who want to commit, want to commit to a 25 year old sexpot. And the ‘alpha’ guys who will never commit can always find another 25 year old sexpot.
This is what I meant by the big lie. I’m not trying to say it’s all terrible or that society is going to hell, but it has backfired on the women who don’t recognise it.
Thanks for taking the time to clarify what you meant. I think I can see what you mean about how you don't really have a word to describe the picture you're painting.
I don't know if I agree with you about the idea that women want children more than men do as a matter of biology. Speaking "as a younger guy who has been on the dating scene recently" (your description, not mine), women seem really varied to me in terms of what they want. Some hate the thought of having children and wish other women would stop talking about them. Others tell me being a parent is something they've always wanted. I've known plenty of 20-something women that don't really care for children, but their long-term 20-something male partners vehemently do. I say this as someone partaking in anonymous city living in a "liberal" west-coast environment. I think women's attitudes on children are actually pretty varied, and the shadow of how we used to expect them to act/live still lingers over the twenty-first century.
Philosophers like Butler[1] often propose that we're treated as a child specific ways due to our sex, and we internalize it and kind of have this self-reinforcing culture. I think this plays a lot into our assumptions about women's attitudes, and how we treat them in turn, and they respond in turn.
I think it's less a problem with feminism and more a problem with the corporate misappropriation of feminist attitudes - so, rather than worrying about actually supporting women (paid time off/maternity leave/onsite daycare, etc), society sells women the idea that they can "have it all" - a family while also being treated like men in the workplace (which, it turns out, means being disposable pawns for the capitalist machine). The "Lean In" phenomenon and the mandating of % of women on corporate boards are good examples of this.
Because it makes for the situation where women is comitted to familly and husband seeing her as nagging wife preventing him to do more fun things then boring familly. And she is nagging in truth, because it is not that great as single people without children imagine. It makes for moms who are criticized for living through children and damaging them that way and kids are supposed to leave anyway. Kids are not supposed to stay to make company to parents anymore.
I wouldn't call it feminism, but the lingering effects of the sexual revolution, which was dominated heavily by male interest. (Read Dworkin's "Right Wing Women." TLDR version, the sexual revolution was heavily influenced by male desire to make women more sexually available: https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010... (pp. 94-95)) Iliza Shlesinger has a great point about this in one of her routines.
> You’ve also been holding in… your intentions. We have this really nasty habit in our society of labeling women very cruel and unfair things when they express their desire for very normal things. Monogamy, exclusivity, a relationship, a family, babies. Right? We like to call them desperate, sad, psychos, baby crazy. “We’ve been married for six years. She already wants a kid! I’m a fuck man! They can’t get me.” It’s very normal to want these things.
Or you could read Dawkins' "Selfish Gene" and or if you want something lighter Matt Ridley's "The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature" to have it debunked.
> I wouldn't call it feminism, but the lingering effects of the sexual revolution, which was dominated heavily by male interest. (Read Dworkin's "Right Wing Women." TLDR version, the sexual revolution was heavily influenced by male desire to make women more sexually available: https://www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010.... (pp. 94-95)) Iliza Shlesinger has a great point about this in one of her routines.
Hm. And there was of course no female desire to not be stigmatized for wanting to be sexually available? Because only men want that, right? This thesis smells funny.
Yes, everyone should read feminist theory ( of course we must exclude Paglia because she is not a true feminist as she contradicts the true feminists ) to debunk Evolutionary Biology.
What exactly is the point of evolutionary biology that you feel is being attacked? To the contrary, Dworkin's point is rooted in biology, specifically the fact that sex is expensive and risky for women in a way it isn't for men. She describes the women in communes who had to take care of children without any support (or risk unsafe abortions) due to the free love culture. She deemed the sexual revolution male-centric for that reason: it was about more sex for men and diminished responsibility for the outcomes, which for biological reasons is borne by women.
Because communes? That's a small nail to hang a theory on. Sounds a lot like what-about-ism.
And what's the revolution about today? Because its still here. And women are advancing into every social institution continuously, the risk having been abated by chemistry and physics. Is it still male-centric? Should it now stop because of a 1960's confused theory?
That's a highly reductionist view of Dworkin's point. The sexual revolution was not merely about reducing the stigma on women for having sex outside of marriage. As Dworkin explains in Right Wing Women (p. 89):
> The pop idea was that fucking was good, so good that the more there was of it, the better. The pop idea was that people should fuck whom they wanted: translated for the girls, this meant that girls should want to be fucked—as close to all the time as was humanly possible.
She continues (at p. 91):
> Empirically speaking, sexual liberation
was practiced by women on a wide scale in the sixties and it did not work: that is, it did not free women. Its purpose—it turned out—was to free men to use women without bourgeois constraints, and in that it was successful.
Hence Iliza Shlesinger's point:
> > You’ve also been holding in… your intentions. We have this really nasty habit in our society of labeling women very cruel and unfair things when they express their desire for very normal things. Monogamy, exclusivity, a relationship, a family, babies. Right? We like to call them desperate, sad, psychos, baby crazy. “We’ve been married for six years. She already wants a kid! I’m a fuck man! They can’t get me.” It’s very normal to want these things.
Calling women "baby crazy" for wanting kids is the product of a male-centric sexual revolution that prioritizes what men want out of sexual relationships and criticizes women for wanting perfectly normal things out of those same relationships. I haven't read the "Selfish Gene," but I strongly suspect it doesn't "debunk" the idea that it's normal for women to want kids and that our popular culture shouldn't stigmatize that desire.
> Empirically speaking, sexual liberation was practiced by women on a wide scale in the sixties and it did not work: that is, it did not free women.
I think that calling this empirically true requires a highly dubious operationalization of “free”; it is absolutely the case that sexually (and in other ways which are indirectly related to sexual and reproductive choices), women have more options that will not lead to near-universal condemnation.
It is true that this is not cost-free for women of all preferences (and particularly for women who strongly desire universal acceptance), in that the one option that previously had near universal approbation now only produces large minority approbation, overwhelming majority (but not near-universal) acceptance, and small minority condemnation.
Alternatively, it requires (as seems to underlie most of Dworkins fact claims, in RWW and elsewhere), simply the willingness to claim whatever suits your ideological agenda as proven fact no matter whether it has any correspondence with reality whatsoever.
You're ignoring the male side of the equation: "Its purpose—it turned out—was to free men to use women without bourgeois constraints." The sexual revolution dramatically reduced the reciprocal obligations men used to have in connection with sexual activity: i.e. taking care of the resulting kids.
> in that the one option that previously had near universal approbation now only produces large minority approbation, overwhelming majority (but not near-universal) acceptance, and small minority condemnation.
This is an understatement. It's not one option--it's the option. Wanting kids is a nearly universal preference: https://news.gallup.com/poll/164618/desire-children-norm.asp.... Among adults age 45+, if they had to do it again, only 11% would have chosen to not have children. (7% of those who had children, and 44% of those who never had children). But for women, expressing this nearly universal preference is quite taboo these days during their prime reproductive years. And if they choose to have kids (which men and women want at similar rates), the sexual revolution has meant that they are much more likely to be bear the cost of taking care of them alone, because reciprocal male obligation has been greatly diminished.
> The sexual revolution dramatically reduced the reciprocal obligations men used to have in connection with sexual activity: i.e. taking care of the resulting kids.
This kind of miss a massive aspect of the sexual revolution. It dramatically reduced the reciprocal obligations women used to have in connection with sexual activity: i.e. giving birth to the resulting kids. Roe v. Wade decriminalised abortion nationwide in 1973. The sexual revolution happened between 1960 and 1980. A rather big coincident that.
No, when I'm not ignoring the fact claim you point to when I say that Dworkin’s fact claims tend to be unsupported Fabrications of whatever is convenient for her ideological agenda.
> The sexual revolution dramatically reduced the reciprocal obligations men used to have in connection with sexual activity: i.e. taking care of the resulting kids.
Except that it, well, didn't do that at all. Except maybe in a transitory way, at the height of the sexual revolution, as far as informal social obligations within the subculture at the center of the sexual revolution, but that subculture had almost entirely collapsed as a coherent group and social force by the time Dworkin wrote Right-Wing Women, and is a distant memory today.
There's actually a not insignificant political movement centered around the fact that the increase in women's acceptable (including legally acceptable) choices in recent decades (in part, but not entirely, stemming from the Sexual Revolution) was not matched by a reduction in men's obligations (which the movement sees now as unilateral rather than reciprocal) but instead increased vigor in social and formal/legal enforcement of those obligations.
It's also hilariously ironic that people are resorting to Right-Wing Women as an authority in support of a reversion to the previous degree of support for traditional gender roles for women, quoting bits where she paints the sexual revolution as a false effort at women's liberation foisted upon women by patriarchal elements on the Left, since the central point of Right-Wing Women was describing how Dworkin saw those values as tools of patriarchal enslavement of women and, more to the point (hence the title of the work) female support for such values as a defensive adaptation to patriarchy that reinforces and normalizes their enslavement by it.
At the end of Chapter 2 of Right-Wing Women, Dworkin writes:
---[begin quote]---
Right-wing women see that within the system in which they live they cannot make their bodies their own, but they can agree to privatized male ownership: keep it one-on- one, as it were. They know that they are valued for their sex— their sex organs and their reproductive capacity—and so they try to up their value: through cooperation, manipulation, conformity; through displays of affection or attempts at friendship; through submission and obedience; and especially through the use of euphemism—“femininity, ” “total woman, ” “good, ” “maternal instinct, ” “motherly love. ” Their desperation is quiet; they hide their bruises of body and heart; they dress carefully and have good manners; they suffer, they love God, they follow the rules. They see that intelligence displayed in a woman is a flaw, that intelligence realized in a woman is a crime. They see the world they live in and they are not wrong. They use sex and babies to stay valuable because they need a home, food, clothing. They use the traditional intelligence of the female—animal, not human: they do what they have to to survive.
Not only feminism. The media, the government, capitalism and globalism. Everyone is selling lies. It is how it works: You should not believe what they tell you. Probably doesn't work in your advantage either.
Think about it like the stock market: Would you buy a stock that it is being pumped by the media. Maybe yes, maybe not. But if someone is profiting it is probably not you.
I married very young. My wife and I had very little, both were working jobs for close to minimum wage with no marketable skills between us. So we sat down and decided what we wanted. We both wanted kids, she wanted to stay home with them when they were young. We both wanted a house of our own. We both wanted to live somewhere with family and friends that we could rely on to help us lay down roots and build that home.
So the first thing we did was move to the place we wanted to try and stay forever.
The second step was to go to school and get a skill. We both worked while I went to college for computer science. I'd been building computers since I was a little kid, was always good at math, decided it would be an easy way to get into the job market at a decent salary. I was right.
Next, we paid off all that student loan debt. Stayed in our tiny apartment with next to nothing and just put that new tech salary into the debt until it was totally gone.
Then we bought a house where the mortgage wouldn't be much higher than our tiny apartment. We could afford something three or four times bigger on my salary, but we didn't do that. Stayed small. Maintenance costs are low, cleaning it up is easy, and we don't even have an HOA to bother us (and I don't care, because it's not like I bought my dinky little house as an investment).
Next came the kids. Started having one after another. She stays home, I work, we spend time together as much as possible. We have friends and family nearby that make life so much better in a million ways. Honestly, I have all these roots and commitments and still...zero stress. Life is great.
And now all our extra money is going into long-term investments and traveling. We've started going all sorts of places. We'll be doing a tour of Europe in the next few years and I am in my early thirties at this point.
So here is my message to anyone that read the person above and is reading this post now and hasn't yet spent their twenties and thirties having hobo adventures:
Life is so much better if you just do what you evolved to do. There's no way to hack life and make it better in any real way. Pair up, get a trade, build a home, and enjoy that for what it is.
How did you know that's what you wanted? What gives you the authority to say that's the best path for everyone?
Consider an analogy for me - you mentioned travel. Have you ever driven through the mountains? Hiked up a few? Even from the road, it's easy to look up and see spectacular peaks calling out your name, begging to be climbed.
And coming from a flat, midwestern state, you may need to recalibrate your eyeballs for distance: You can't park the car for lunch and walk up most of them if you start in the afternoon...it's likely to take most of a vacation to hike in and up one or two peaks, so you need to plan your route before you arrive at the park.
The tragedy of the story is that there's no better viewpoint from which to gaze at a distant mountain and imagine a climb up it than from the path up the adjacent one you're climbing up.
I'm not yet thirty and have a family, a home, savings, a degree, and a career. I've got life-long commitments and am building solid roots like I thought I should, but now that I've got that all checked off it's not what I thought it would be. I've just got to continue trudging up this mountain I picked as a 17-year-old applying for college and dating one of the girls from high school. It's time to work my 40 hours, enjoy a few weeks vacation every year, and wait for retirement until eventually dying. It's quickly starting to feel unfulfilling and stifling.
The author of the article has spent her twenties and thirties bouldering up dozens of smaller cliffs and clambering over foothills all over the place. You denigrate them as "hobo adventures" but it sounds magnificent to me. I won't get to spend my thirties adventuring like that because I have a wife and a kid and a trade and a home, and it's just not all it's cracked up to be.
Sounds like your perspective involves an omniscient ideal that does not and can not exist. Tradition exists for this very reason. We pass on what works, we do what works, and we don't presume to know what is better. That is what makes human beings so good at learning - we have the ability to hyper imitate one another. I see you doing something successfully, I don't need to know the actual process behind it, I just need to do it the way you do it.
Gratitude for what you have is a critical component of the formula. You seem to lack that. I hope you find it. You won't last long without it.
I recommend church. It helps. You evolved to do that too.
What you've written (own a home, have job, make kids, go to church) really only applies to american's, who make up ~300m out of 7b people currently inhabiting our planet.
That definition of what we're evolved to do, is incredibly myopic; more so if you consider that definition of middle class has really only been around since the mid 1900's?
Home ownership is very much ingrained in American culture because of it's ties to the US economy (for those who own homes, it's typically they're only investment).
FWIW, I think it's great that you and your spouse have found meaning in your lives.
You're 100% correct, but I'm posting this to the audience of Hacker News. I highly doubt we have too many representatives from the true lower classes here.
And to be clear, I don't mean "own a home" when I say "build a home." A home is composed of the people you are committed to and the people you love. I don't mean buy a house or buy anything, actually. I mean building an identity for yourself that includes the notion of "home."
> What you've written (own a home, have job, make kids, go to church) really only applies to american's, who make up ~300m out of 7b people currently inhabiting our planet.
No... This is true for middle middle class and richer people almost everywhere in the world.
I'm not sure what you think religion is if not an evolved social construct. Do you actually think religion, with all its ritual and structure and beauty exists because cave men tried to explain away the things that scared them? It is the foundation of broader social order. It makes you feel part of something bigger than yourself. It makes it possible for you to relate positively with human beings outside the 300-400 or so that you are capable of remembering and caring about at once.
> ...an evolved social construct. Do you actually think religion, with all its ritual and structure and beauty exists because cave men tried to explain away the things that scared them?
Is that not what "an evolved social construct" means? Some cave man's explanation was a social construct happened to have good characteristics in favor of its survival in the environment of human society. Like the process of evolution in biology, it contained traits that were useful for its preservation and propagation. It possibly (but not necessarily) included utility for its adherents, and it possibly formed an effective foundation of social order.
You're right, that's exactly what I think religion is. This stands in stark contrast to where most religious people think their religion comes from: not from some cave-man's misguided guess but from the genuine revelation from God to people.
I do not want to feel like part of something bigger than myself if it consists of mutually pretending that something false (or at least uncertain) is certain. If it is untrue, I do not wish to believe it, regardless of its utility.
I don't disagree, I just found it funny because I live in the Bible belt and you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who both recommends church and believes science. I go to church, but would recommend therapy over church for personal issues.
You got lost in the meta. There's a difference between someone's beliefs about evolution, which might be true, false, or nonexistent; versus evolution itself, which is a force that will act on us regardless of what we believe.
Are we evolved to have religion? Maybe, but the answer to that has absolutely nothing to do with the question of whether or not evolution itself is true.
This is hilarious anti-religion rhetoric, complete unwillingness to have evolution and religion in the same sentence. Twisting from how religion historically promotes community into the content of the religion itself. The content is irrelevant, what is important is the sense of community and bonding that religion has offered people for forever.
> what is important is the sense of community and bonding that religion has offered people for forever.
Religion doesn't have anything unique to create community and bonding, other than large numbers. It's not any better at fostering that things over any other shared interest, and at it's worst causes significantly more damage to communities.
Right, it's a baby step to science: actually explaining how the world works. It's a powerful meme that tends to run away with itself once the scientific method is stumbled upon in society.
You are conflating communities formed around religions with explanations that religions have about the world. Religions provide many different things, one being community and sense of belonging, another being a sense of understanding of the world. You can be part of the former without necessarily beleiving the latter.
> I recommend church. It helps. You evolved to do that too.
We may evolved to follow each other but just because one person wrote a hit sermon doesn't mean we evolved to mindlessly church it out every week. Religion is really just something we do on the side that usually doesn't get in the way of evolution (unless it involves sacrifices or suicide).
Thank you for sharing the other perspective. I am a sophomore in university and there is a lot to choose. Reading posts like yours make me even more confused. I just assumed that people generally have stuff figured out in their 20's. I don't have student loans to pay-off, no debts and can get placed in a big tech company (pursuing a CS degree at a top 10 college in my country) with relative ease. But for what? To optimize ads? Starting to think that I should join an NGO or use my technical skills to help humanity somehow.
The work you do is unlikely to provide you with that much meaning. The position I have does a lot of actual, tangible good in the world. After a while, even that carries diminishing returns. The truth is that even though I am doing good, if I was not here, someone else would be here doing the same work. This doesn't provide meaning for me being me, it just doesn't feel meaningless. The sort of sense of meaning, purpose, and belonging that comes with building a family and putting down roots is a sort of meaning that requires you for you. If you weren't there, it wouldn't be the way it is. That's different and special. I recommend you give it a shot before you move into the "career will bring me meaning" camp and realize it is too late to ever feel irreplaceable.
Sounds like I am in a similar boat, 28 here... I feel some similar feelings now after having a kid, i dont want to work all week I want to do stuff with my family. It's possible to retire earlier but requires sacrifice now. Stash as much $$$ as you can away.
Also i think i'm just lucky but my software job has been pretty smooth sailing i got very lucky with my company. The weeks are going by so fast now, i just cruise thru the workday and cant wait to go home and see my little baby!
Neither is right, neither is wrong it just is. You're still in your 20s with a solid foundation and assuming you maintain your health you will see your child graduate leaving you with plenty of time and money to use as you see fit. Use your time and money wisely now and make your life goal to retire early so you can travel and have "hobo adventures."
I traded my 20s for "hobo adventures" and I hope to have another round of them.
>> There's no way to hack life and make it better in any real way.
This is a very close-minded statement. You've found happiness in your personal life by successfully aligning your actions with a traditional value system, and that's great! But, it's apparent you haven't fully considered other walks of life that align with different value systems.
Take, for example, a man I know who is paralyzed from the neck down, has no family to call his own, yet is probably the happiest man you'll find around. He has found meaning in his injury and its ability to help others grow.
The mind is extremely resilient and adaptable. I would argue that your life path is the EASIEST path to long-term fulfillment in modern western society, but it is NOT the ONLY way. Making such a claim is doing a huge disservice to people like the woman in the article.
I'm really glad that this worked out for you. You have a great partner and are very lucky for that. This won't be the case for everyone that follows your path. I can't help but be reminded of this quote:
"Realize that sleeping on a futon when you're 30 is not the worst thing. You know what's worse, sleeping in a king bed next to a wife you're not really in love with but for some reason you married, and you got a couple kids, and you got a job you hate. You'll be laying there fantasizing about sleeping on a futon. There's no risk when you go after a dream. There's a tremendous amount to risk to playing it safe."
Contributing to the resource needs of your social group and establishing a safe location to live and raise your young is exactly what you evolved to do. You aren't an amoeba, you're the most advanced mammal species on the planet. When you say "you evolved to reproduce" as if that doesn't include the other things I mentioned, you're kind of missing out on what gave you a survival advantage to begin with.
I agree you can't fight your nature and win. However, the counter argument would be:
1. Evolution is not concerned with your happiness, it's concerned with successful survival and reproduction - and keeping you just happy enough to do so.
2. Building a stable relationship and career in one place is quite counter to the thousands of years of itinerant hunter-gatherer, questionably-monogamous lives of our evolution lineage.
I said life is better, not happy. I am not happy all the time, but my life is extremely meaningful. I'm leaning in to what evolution expects from me because that is the only thing that makes any sense at all. What real, meaningful purpose do I accomplish by struggling against the things I am most suited to do?
I would also point out that thousands of years of itinerant hunting and gathering is not the same as evolving to be itinerant. We are a highly adaptive species and we can live many different ways - we often do - but that doesn't mean we are ideally suited to all of them. The vast majority of people, including those in under-industrialized nations, are not itinerant and of those that are, it's not often by choice. There are clear advantages to staying in place. The fact that most people, in their current evolved state, choose to remain where they are, is just as valid evidence that we are suited to be stationary as the existence of itinerant hunter gatherers in the past is evidence that we are suited to move around.
However, you could argue that we evolved to optimize our reproduction in one of several strategies. For some, it means their best bet is to settle with one family, for others it means profligate mating with dozens of partners. If so, by your logic, neither lifestyle would have any more inherent meaning than the other.
And, well, the 400,000 years of itinerant existence with much stronger evolutionary selection pressures vs. 10,000 years of agrarian society with less intense selection pressures doesn't seem commensurate.
You're arguing very hard for your chosen lifestyle, which includes some sunk cost bias.
Personally, I've done the settled-down thing and the hobo life and neither is more inherently meaningful than the other.
Perhaps you could argue that a pair-bond and a single location and community makes climbing Maslow's hierarchy of needs easier in our current society - that I might buy.
I would point out the other component to this, which is that the ideal structure should be what rewards the group, not the individual. So some people might be most suited as an individual to mate with many partners, but that would need to fall someplace within the larger hierarchy of their social suitability, in which case an absent or unavailable father is not ideal (children do objectively - although not universally - worse on average without their fathers). In that instance, whatever they are personally inclined to do is actually harmful to the broader group, meaning they should be given a compensatory incentive by the group to adopt a less promiscuous lifestyle. In either situation, whether it is natural for them to be monogamous or not, they should end up monogamous for the sake their young. So we have to look at the broader group structure as well.
Reading this comment struck me more than any HN comment has before. This seems to mirror my own life pretty well (married at 22 and finishing up a CS degree). I've been experiencing some anxious feelings in the past few weeks about whether I've made life decisions too hastily, seeing as it's such a normal/traditional path. Spending substantial time on this site tends to give me those feelings, like having a normal family life is antithetical to meaningful work as a programmer. Seeing such a similar situation played out in a fulfilling way was of great encouragement. So thank you for sharing!
I'm glad! Don't give up. Stick with it. Make smart choices, and don't be afraid to commit to things like family, home, and children. You gain the most meaning from the things that demand the most of you.
So, you got lucky and found your soul mate when you were young, correct? Not everyone is so lucky. For some, they don't find them til they're in their 30s, 40s, or sadly never.
You wouldn't have been the same without her, so once again - lucky ;-) Many modern men, I'd estimate at least 65%, need to settle down (happily of course) to truly become men, and civilized human beings.
Seemingly unrelated, but what was your relationship with your parents like?
> Life is so much better if you just do what you evolved to do. There's no way to hack life and make it better in any real way. Pair up, get a trade, build a home, and enjoy that for what it is.
That's where we differ. It's great that you enjoy your life, but it sounds horrible to me. "Pair up, get a trade, build a home" ends up going very badly for some people, there is no single path to an enjoyable life.
You evolved to contribute to the resource needs of your social group and establish a safe location to live and raise your young. If selling vacuum cleaners door to door paid the most and I was good at it, I would have done that instead of computer science. The point was to have the resources I needed to build something meaningful, not to work on computers.
That could be challenging for many people for multiple reasons. Have you considered the possibility that you found (by luck) a rather exceptional partner and thus your model could not be replicated on the society at large.
Nah, the notion of holding out for "the one" is overrated and just makes you pass over plenty of acceptable candidates. Everyone has flaws and overlapping interests isn't really necessary either. Just find someone you find attractive, who's in your league, and who shares your values and work at it, you'll be fine. I hear the divorce rate of arranged marriages is pretty low.
It is very true that many people can't and won't be able to pair up, but they can group together other ways. You can build a family many different ways. One of the major problems with modern society is that the only reliable companionship any of us ever really find is in our romantic partners and that's a sad byproduct of our alienation from family, community, and work in general. You can find others like yourself, commit to one another, care for one another, and build a home together that has meaning in its own way. I have an aunt like that who never married, but she has close friendships even into her old age that mirror a marriage (maybe she is gay, I don't know or care). But she found a way to build a home like that.
> And with men I date, I feel pressure to make something of the relationship too soon (move in, get married, “I have to have kids in a couple of years”; fun times!). All the while still trying to be the sexpot 25-year-old I thought I was until what seemed like a moment ago.
It sounds like going from one end of the spectrum (aventuros, yolo) to the other (a family, fast), all while punching above their weight, so to speak, in terms of compatible long term partners.
Most young women can easily find "serial monogamous", short term, male partners with highly desirable qualities such as physical good looks, relative success, social skills etc., but most of this limited pool knows they are desirable and do not really want to get bogged down with a family.
When youth starts to fade away, reality kicks in - the highly desirable partners are not interested, and the average ones are already committed to long time partners who valued them in their own youth. Their "family" started a long time ago with mutual investment - you can choose not to make that trade-off but cannot have the cake and eat it too.
I'm 33 and male, I find it amazing how the dating balance has shifted since I was 23. If I wanted I could easily line up multiple dates per week with women who I'd date. When I was younger a lot of women wouldn't give me the time of day.
Mainly dating apps. I live in a very large city and I keep my age filters somewhat appropriate (27-35). If you struggle with dating apps I'd recommend getting decent photos, even if you need to pay a photographer and spend a day taking good Tinder/etc photos. Dating, even from people looking for serious partners, is a very shallow game. The more attractive someone finds you, the more interest they'll show you. This makes conversation much easier.
When I say appropriate I mean "an age range which will likely result in swipes from them too". I'm not what a lot of 23 year olds want but I'm fairly desirable for a 29 year old. On top of that I don't have anything in common with women who are under 25.
Not rooted in science, perhaps, but in empirical evidence? Boy howdy.
I used to be 260lb and invisible to most women. I decided to get my act together, start lifting weights, and dropped a significant amount (nearly 100lb over the last three years) and wouldn't you know: interest is through the roof. Couple that with a burgeoning business and money getting stable and it's point and shoot.
Most men (people) don't like that reality because it means a few harsh truths about looks, status, and money. It also means you have to take responsibility for your results which is the antithesis to ideologies that push as-is self-acceptance and "good enough" ideals. That is to say, my starting to understand and accept this reality hurt beyond belief. It took the better part of a year to really swallow the changes that were taking place.
You have a ranking and women especially are either subconsciously or (for a select few) consciously aware of it. Coincidentally, men are too (read: they don't like you climbing the ranks; their behavior in response makes this clear). I've lost a lot of friends in the process of getting my stuff together—people who I'd consider second family. Serious food for thought.
They are rooted in science in the sense that they make predictions based on a sensible model that seem to match the past and predict reality better than any other available theory.
They are not rooted in science in the sense of sophistry where they are anti-authoritarian and anti-conformist. Its impossible to express something new without being in conflict with established authority.
Its actually a fairly normal situation for all paradigm shifts. Kuhn wrote a book about it named "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" about a half century ago; it seems a pretty accurate model for how real paradigm change happens in societies (as opposed to idealized theory).
I'm not saying you're wrong and certainly not in any sort of value judgment but am saying that historically there seems to be no possible way for a paradigm shift to roll out without those relatively standard feelings and attitudes toward change you express.
The legacy model seems to result in sad middle aged lonely cat ladies for no obvious reason; clearly that model doesn't work well enough; the paradigm shift proposes a workable model with successful predictions, perhaps workable solutions.
Okay, it's science in the sense that it makes predictions. So it's a theory. Is it science in the sense that the theory has been tested, and peer reviewed? As soon as you started in on the "anti-authoritarian and anti-conformist" part, I got the sense that you're somewhat invested in this being true. But science means more than proposing an idea; it means testing the predictions, looking for evidence, subjecting it to a critical eye and seeing if it withstands objective scrutiny. Is that the case here?
This is the elephant in the room that most people don't want to discuss. Young women get confused, they are able to "short term date" men out of their league and so then balk at men who are their equals. I've seen a number of awkward marriage dynamics where the women was used to dating men of higher caliber than the man she married.
Of all the elephants in the room when it comes to modern tech-enabled dating, this is possibly the biggest and ugliest.
The thought of ending up as one of those husbands genuinely makes my skin crawl. Imagine the woman you adore secretly resenting you for not measuring up to those alpha dudes she met on Tinder and dated for a few weeks at a time.
I sometimes wonder if we’ll see total change in relationship dynamics in my lifetime. Perhaps even a return to a “harem” system, where women decide that sharing a very high-value man is preferable to having a low-value one all to herself.
I don't think this has anything to do with modern dating. Powerful men have had mistresses and before that they had concubines. Now that casual dating is socially acceptable, the tendency for high social class men sleeping with lower social class women is more visible, but it isn't necessarily more popular. The number of sexual partners millennials have is similar to that of Gen X and the Boomers.
There will always be women (and men) who want a single partner and don't really care about value or whatever it is you're on about.
It's just that, like me, by 25 they're married. If you're 35 these people are pretty much permanently unavailable to you unless you have very auspicious financial or cultural circumstances.
The weird thing is most people will call you a misogynist for bringing this up. I would argue that in most major US cities there is already a large "harem" dynamic. It's mostly invisible to the general population, but quite obvious if you're friends with men in the top 1 to 2% of dating potential.
One of my friends at work is like this. He just keeps tripping over and finding women. He's been at work just this year and has been involved with nearly every available woman (and some that aren't), he plays football on the weekends and has the women involved in the club throwing themselves at him, etc. In any one week, he is courting literally 5-8 women despite the fact he does nothing to go out and meet them. It's like every woman in his social circles gravitates towards him. This year he's had 3 women break up with their boyfriends to chase him! It's crazy.
You’re right, and it’s happening throughout the western world. As someone who is definitely not in the top 2%, there are some difficult truths to confront.
It will be a strange time when & if it starts happening out in the open.
It is misogynist in its worldview; the woman's value is her attractiveness (which declines with age), and a man's attractiveness (which may be a function of money as well as just looks) is all she cares about.
Just because it is misogynist does not mean that women don't participate in it. But whenever you reduce human relationships to something "simple", you're likely doing something offensive.
The implication that all people of a certain group behave and desire a certain thing is obviously false, especially when the group is as large as half the population.
Furthermore, even if it is true for a wide swath of the group, that does not mean it should not be criticized and torn apart for the assumptions that it rests on. A lot of people of both genders internalize negative messages about themselves and operate as though they are more fundamental truths.
Often, seeing them successfully challenged is what allows a person to grow and live a happier life.
The person in the original article believes, at least on some level, that her value as a person is tied to her attractiveness and thus her age. Clearly a lot of others in society believe that too. It's still harmful to her and often them as well and it is a misogynist belief. Simply because a lot of people believe it and operate on that assumption does not mean everyone does, and it does not mean that doing so is beneficial.
Your argument seems to be along the same lines as “my grandad smoked 2 packs a day and lived until he was 95”.
On average, smoking is harmful. On average, women’s perceived attractiveness is highly tied to their beauty and youthfulness.
It’s a shame if the woman in the article believes her value as a person is tied to her attractiveness and age. Given that “value as a person” is an entirely subjective concept, there’s no reason for this to be true.
However, her value in the “dating market place” is tied to her attractiveness and age. That’s a fact, it’s objectively measurable and it’s as cold and uncaring as natural selection. It certainly doesn’t care how offensive you find it.
> It’s a shame if the woman in the article believes her value as a person is tied to her attractiveness and age
This is exactly my point (and that's why I used that phrase). The letter writer feels that her value in the world is diminished by her age; with her most fertile years squandered she hasn't much else to give it. The response author goes to pains to illustrate that even someone well into her 90s still has value - that she values her interactions with the older woman.
The letter writer's is a misogynist worldview. To get there, you have to assume that women aren't really contributing anything to the world beyond reproduction. Men's lives have meaning without a woman and children, perhaps, but women's don't.
Separately, I think saying that someone's value as a romantic partner is primarily in their physical attractiveness is obnoxiously reductionist. I went off on quite the drunken rant about that last night in another thread (not my best work, tbh).
But basically, I argue optimizing for the most attractive partner I can find for someone at my level of attractiveness and then locking that down (via marriage or similar monogamous institution) is a poor strategy, even if it is the most common one and one implied by genetics. My genes would also love me to sit in bed eating sugar all day, and that won't make me happy.
Ultimately: I accept that people approach dating (especially app dating) primarily by looking at attractiveness, aiming for someone in their "league" or a bit higher as evaluated visually. However, I don't think it's the best approach for your overall happiness, nor is it one that everyone employs.
I mean, can you imagine dating a teenager? They're at peak fertility. But not only is it illegal depending on the exact age and where you live, it sounds like a nightmare. Like just talking to them gives me a headache.
Me? I'm a transwoman and a lesbian so I'm a bit of an evo-psych nightmare. Despite having no real fertility to speak of and a noticeable lack of childbearing hips, I do quite alright. I'm doing much better dating women as a 36yo transwoman than I did as a 31yo cis male. I've been trying to figure out why, and the only explanation I have is that me being more authentic is, in fact, valuable to the people I date.
I think you’re assuming tabula rasa here; that there is no innate human nature, that everything is socially constructed. If there is such a thing as an innate, biologically derived measure of attractiveness, then your point doesn’t really hold up. Unless we’re comfortable with saying biology is misogynistic. That would be an interesting one.
Frankly it would be great to have real, impartial numbers about all of this so we could actually reach some conclusions, but it’s so politicised that’s effectively impossible.
If you take this extreme reductionist viewpoint, "biology"is misandrist and misogynist both. It reduces human relationships to an exchange of genetic material and its optimization. The male human may as well be the the male anglerfish and the life of the female is barely more meaningful than that.
And, well, no. We live in an industrialized world where we have all the food we could ever need and yet we have fewer children than ever before in history. People make human decisions that are more than their genetics, even when choosing romantic and sexual partners. Why would we take the most socially complex species we're aware of, and then look at one of the most complex social interactions that species engages in, and say "well, but it's really just about making babies"?
Another way to put it - I accept these things as true
1) Physical attractiveness is important to most people in picking a partner
2) Physical attractiveness is correlated with fertility
2) Physical attractiveness negatively correlates with age
Yet I still argue that a woman's worth, not just to the world but even as a partner, is more than her physical attractiveness. Biologically, a post-menopausal woman is not contributing new humans to the world, but she still can contribute to the world as a whole, contributing happiness and meaning to others, doing all kinds of things that make the world a better place. I would argue that meaning in romantic relationships isn't limited to fertility, either.
I don't think is even that controversial a viewpoint, but as a woman, there is certainly a cultural notion that your value IS your attractiveness. If you justify the viewpoint that a woman in her 40s is of no value simply because her fertility is phbbt, that's misogynist.
It is a biological reality that men can remain fertile much longer than women. Using that fact to justify a worldview that women in general have less value, especially past a certain age, is misogynist.
When we’re anthropomorphising facts and telling them that they’re bad, something has gone wrong. Facts are not social actors, they don’t care if you try to shame them, they’ll still be true.
> The male human may as well be the male anglerfish and the life of the female is barely more meaningful than that.
I’m honestly not sure what meaning you’re looking for here, or what bearing that has on the conversation. There isn’t any meaning to life other than that which we make for ourselves.
> Why would we take the most socially complex species we're aware of, and then look at one of the most complex social interactions that species engages in, and say "well, but it's really just about making babies"?
Because that statement is true? Is your argument that we should reject reality in order to tell ourselves pleasing lies about the world?
> Yet I still argue that a woman's worth, not just to the world but even as a partner, is more than her physical attractiveness.
I agree. There are different kinds of value to be sure. However this is a discussion of sexual attraction and romantic partnership. Someone’s, let’s say, java skills, are not very likely to factor heavily. Nor are they likely to be a replacement for sexual attractiveness if it is absent.
> Facts are not social actors, they don’t care if you try to shame them, they’ll still be true.
And yet science has a history of creating "facts" that exist to promote a certain worldview with a veneer of impartiality. These "facts" are created by and to be social actors. Racist and misogynist ones in particular.
> I’m honestly not sure what meaning you’re looking for here, or what bearing that has on the conversation. There isn’t any meaning to life other than that which we make for ourselves.
This is exactly my point; there is more meaning to our mating choices than merely optimizing for making children. We take meaning from, and find happiness in, things that are much more complex than raw physical attractiveness.
> Because that statement is true? Is your argument that we should reject reality in order to tell ourselves pleasing lies about the world?
It is not; it is absurdly reductionist. We live in a world with as much food as we could ever want, yet we make fewer babies than we ever did before. We live in a world with homosexuality. We make countless choices about our romantic and sexual partners that have nothing to do with their fertility. A lot of our choices have to do with social signaling, for instance; things that genetics alone can't be controlling directly.
>I agree. There are different kinds of value to be sure. However this is a discussion of sexual attraction and romantic partnership. Someone’s, let’s say, java skills, are not very likely to factor heavily. Nor are they likely to be a replacement for sexual attractiveness if it is absent.
It is a discussion of physical attractiveness, romantic/sexual value, and overall human value. I am arguing for decoupling all three.
There is a viewpoint that couples all three, and that viewpoint is not merely wrong; it is toxic and pernicious. It is fundamentally the viewpoint of the incel community. A viewpoint that, at its extreme, motivates people to acts of violence because they believe their lives are worthless as a result of unchangeable physical traits. It is also a view that is clearly held, at least to some degree, by the letter writer in the parent article. It is a drain on humanity.
Is it the case that a more attractive person will have more people interested in them sexually? Of course. Almost by definition.
However, attractiveness (particularly of the youthful variety) is neither necessary nor sufficient to have positive romantic relationships. Furthermore, positive romantic relationships are neither necessary nor sufficient to having a meaningful, happy life.
Ultimately I'm arguing that a 35 year old, 40 year old, whatever-year-old woman's life is not over if she's "still" single. Her dating life isn't over either. Do I expect all men to be attracted to her? Of course not; but some definitely would be, and she still has a lot to offer in that context.
> And yet science has a history of creating "facts" that exist to promote a certain worldview with a veneer of impartiality. These "facts" are created by and to be social actors. Racist and misogynist ones in particular.
Which reads as an excuse to dismiss any inconvenient finding as a lie.
Also, to nitpick, the facts themselves still cannot be social actors, they aren’t people.
> We make countless choices about our romantic and sexual partners that have nothing to do with their fertility.
Fertility? Try perceived reproductive fitness instead. Now remove the conscious element, where someone is actively selecting for reproductive fitness, and replace it with a host of emotions and drives that have been selected by evolution for the perception of reproductive fitness without the benefit of reason.
This is where all of the magic of emotionality and meaning that you are talking about comes from. They’re a bunch of imperfect heuristics designed to ensure survival and reproduction. As they are simple they often go wrong and are easily hijacked, see the term super-stimulus for an example.
> It is a discussion of physical attractiveness, romantic/sexual value, and overall human value. I am arguing for decoupling all three.
You seem to want to pretend that attractiveness does not have the value it does so that people who are low in it don’t feel bad. On top of this, you seem to want to force other people to pretend along with you.
> Ultimately I'm arguing that a 35 year old, 40 year old, whatever-year-old woman's life is not over if she's "still" single. Her dating life isn't over either. Do I expect all men to be attracted to her? Of course not; but some definitely would be, and she still has a lot to offer in that context.
I agree. But is she justified in feeling bad about it, knowing that her opportunities have narrowed? Yes. Indeed you seem to acknowledge this. Her life is by no means ruined, but she’d be lying to herself to pretend that it were a bed of roses. This is also about giving advice to younger people, and telling them that following in her footsteps is fine and dandy would be doing them a disservice.
> Which reads as an excuse to dismiss any inconvenient finding as a lie.
No? I'm not even sure what fields we are talking about any more, but the findings of some fields and some works are so thoroughly polluted by their political motivations that they can indeed be dismissed entirely.
There are no doubt scientific works that are manipulated not merely for commercial reasons (e.g., the classic publication bias with pharmaceutical research) but for ideological ones as well. Some fields attract this sort of thing with such regularity that every work in the field is at least somewhat suspect, if the field itself has any credibility left (e.g. phrenology)
> Also, to nitpick, the facts themselves still cannot be social actors, they aren’t people.
Perhaps the term "actor" is the source of the nitpicking; my belief is that some science is done primarily to be a social force; to push a certain ideology.
> This is where all of the magic of emotionality and meaning that you are talking about comes from. They’re a bunch of imperfect heuristics designed to ensure survival and reproduction. As they are simple they often go wrong and are easily hijacked, see the term super-stimulus for an example.
Perhaps we agree here; I am arguing attraction and partnership and all of that is very complex, that there is a lot of emergent behavior. And that, to use your "super-stimulus" as an example, it is often beneficial to consciously override the simplest impulses in order to live a happier and more fulfilling life.
"I only date the most attractive person I possibly can; it's my genetics after all" is about as good a strategy as "I only eat sugar; it's my genetics after all".
> This is also about giving advice to younger people, and telling them that following in her footsteps is fine and dandy would be doing them a disservice.
I stand by my previous reply in that the destructive forms of an attraction-focused ideology are the far larger disservice. The message that a woman's worth is strongly related to her attractiveness which is strongly related to her age is the far more dangerous (and honestly, pervasive) message.
Far too many people are embracing a message that tells them to "lay down and rot" because they aren't attractive and have no chance at a normal, meaningful human relationship. Far too many people are convinced their attractiveness is extremely low, when it is low-average.
Far too many people believe that they are unattractive and unloveable and let that view trap them in bad relationships and decisions; I know I did it. I've seen this stuff rip through my friends and communities far too often. It doesn't even need to be age; there are countless ways people of both genders can be less than ideally attractive and feel worse for it.
My own lived experience tells me that as a 36 year old woman I'm more successful at dating than I was at any previous point in my life. Would I be even moreso if I was 10 years younger? Probably, but in my case success has come only with age, so I find it hard to accept a narrative that insists otherwise.
It’s an easy strategy to fall back on, you don’t like the implications of a piece of research? Claim the researchers are just propagandists. Make this claim of anyone who finds against your claims, actively attempt to damage their careers due to their obvious bias, and effectively censor any research proposal that doesn’t declare it’s findings as being within acceptable bounds before being carried out. Of course this can be applied to honest and dishonest researchers alike, muddying the waters to the fullest.
> Perhaps the term "actor" is the source of the nitpicking; my belief is that some science is done primarily to be a social force; to push a certain ideology.
My take on your position is that you want everyone to lie about the way the world really works in a misguided attempt to make things better for some.
This is damaging in the long term, people can only make the best decisions for themselves if they know the relevant facts. Telling young women to ignore the implications of this letter while also telling them a mixture of “it’s not true” and “society is morally bankrupt because it’s true!” does not help them, in fact it actively makes them worse off.
> It’s an easy strategy to fall back on, you don’t like the implications of a piece of research? Claim the researchers are just propagandists. Make this claim of anyone who finds against your claims, actively attempt to damage their careers due to their obvious bias, and effectively censor any research proposal that doesn’t declare it’s findings as being within acceptable bounds before being carried out. Of course this can be applied to honest and dishonest researchers alike, muddying the waters to the fullest.
It's an imperfect heuristic, but I can't accept every claim that's given to me as a "fact" as true; some I have so little respect for due to a long history of falsehood that they go straight to the circular file. Climate change, for instance, I have seen very detailed research on and personally witnessed, and I am satisfied that it is real and meaningful. If my mom sends me an email with "facts" showing it to be false, I no longer pay them attention. There was a time when I considered them and researched the conflicting data, but I've consistently found it to be of such poor quality that it would take exceptional circumstances for me to consider it again.
Credibility is real, in other words. It's not a perfect measure, but I can't thoroughly debunk (or validate) every "fact" that comes into my world.
> My take on your position is that you want everyone to lie about the way the world really works in a misguided attempt to make things better for some.
> This is damaging in the long term, people can only make the best decisions for themselves if they know the relevant facts. Telling young women to ignore the implications of this letter while also telling them a mixture of “it’s not true” and “society is morally bankrupt because it’s true!” does not help them, in fact it actively makes them worse off.
Too many people are taking "the world values attractive people more" to such an extreme that it diminishes their existence. I would say that it applies to men as well; as I've mentioned, incels are in service to that same ideology to their own detriment.
Yes, in most areas, attractive people do better. Yes they have more dating options. I'll even accept that people have a bias towards seeing them as more trustworthy and other positively in other traits that have nothing to do with fertility or partner selection. (Though for women, there's a tradeoff; being perceived as more attractive often means being perceived as less competent)
As a person, you cannot let that fact run your life. You cannot look in the mirror and say you'll never find a boyfriend because you're in your 30s now; no girl will want you with this skull shape; since you had a kid nobody is ever going to want you, etc.
You can find happy relationships in your 30s, you can find them with a less than ideal skull shape, if you're a single parent, if you have a "dad bod". It does happen. It is possible.
Society isn't morally bankrupt. In fact what I'm saying is there's hope and love out there for everyone. If you try, if you compromise, if you open your heart. But age, weight, finances... these are not reasons to give up on life.
Yes, people do need to think about what will make them happy, what they want to do with their lives, and the earlier the better. If you are someone who wants to have children and a family and you know that when you are 25, doing nothing to advance that goal for 10 years will not help you. It will be harder for you.
But that is not the end of the story. If you just figured that out at 35, if it took that long to realize who you are, you have options. Some of us are infertile, for instance, but that doesn't mean we can't have children in our lives.
My perspective is colored by the communities I inhabit and the friends I have, but the number of people I see squandering their youth? Basically 0. The number of people allowing something like age or body shape to convince them they have no options, at times to seriously consider suicide? It's not 0.
After I finish this reply I'm going to message a friend who is deeply depressed and feels they can't live authentically because of their body shape. This person is brilliant, young, amazing, one of the most interesting people I know, but can't see it. Because of how they see their body. They think it's impossible to have the life want.
I see people deciding it's impossible to make changes in their life at 20 because of their age that I know I made in my 30s. People who resign themselves to defeat over things I know can be overcome.
There are a lot of things that make a lot of areas of life harder. Privilege comes in all kinds of forms, not just race and gender - being born attractive, having parents that support you financially, being a US Citizen, being young, it just goes on and on. Not having these things makes life hard.
But hard isn't impossible. I'm telling people out there not to give up. It's a message I wish I could have given myself so many times over, to tell her the person I was who she could be. I was in an abusive relationship for years because I thought it was all I deserved, all I was worth. If I could go back in time, for even for 15 seconds, to show me what future awaited me... I could've saved years of the deepest, most soul rending pain.
The surest way for this woman to never find what she wants in life is to resign herself and stop trying. Resigning yourself to your fate only lets the hole gradually get deeper. You can always fight your way out of it.
The fight might be hard, and choices she has made will make that fight harder. But the past is the past. As the proverb says, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."
I think I’ve said as much as I need to at this point. However regarding your friend, incels, and other such people: some people have mental and personality disorders that make them act extremely towards themselves and others. I don’t think we should misrepresent reality for the sake of such people, certainly not for fundamental truths of life that affect us all. There are better ways to help them, ways that don’t involve distorting reality for the rest of society. Being realistic in this case does not mean being unduly pessimistic as they may be, but nor does it mean denying the reality of one’s position.
No, even without innate human nature / assuming tabula rasa, it makes logical sense, because we still cannot escape biology (yet). Women can only have kids when young, so youth is hugely important when men choose their partners, and is proxied by beauty. Women also invest much more than men into each kid (9 months of their life and a chance of dying), so it makes sense for them to seek men of wealth, status, power.
In other words, differences in preferences for choosing sexual partners follow directly (logically) from sexual dimorphism, nothing else required, and are thus in a sense “correct”.
> but most of this limited pool knows they are desirable and do not really want to get bogged down with a family.
My friends who enjoyed dating for fun, found they had trouble with it, because most guys were looking to commit - they weren't too interested in merely flings.
But this is anecdata, from Europe, so it may have limited applicability.
I think his view is fairly correct. I also don’t see it as being negative, you’re making your own value judgement equating commitment with positivity. Men do tend to want to have a lot of partners, and many of those who can, do.
It is just not my impresion that men who hop relationships look all that better. The comitted ones are not ugly ones.
Also, a men who is having relationship with you solely because he can't find replacement likely sux as a partner. Or maybe she sux or they don't match, but in any case, that relationship will be crap.
And that relationship will become real bad after children.
>It is just not my impresion that men who hop relationships look all that better. The comitted ones are not ugly ones.
There are plenty of good-looking men in committed relationships. You're reading the relationship in reverse. It's not that "men who hop relationships look all that better". It's that better-looking men can hop relationships.
I wouldn't equate looks with desirability, for men it's much more complex because women have complex expectations, and that's exactly why men maintain and even enhance their desirability with age.
That being said, the desirable men are either committed (unavailable) or available because they can hop and choose to do so. So only a minority of desirable men are available. This is in strict contrast with the large majority of young women, who can almost always hop relationships should they so choose. Since overall there needs to be gender equilibrium, females are sliced by age to a much larger degree, allowing the minority of desirable men of all ages to pursue the minority of younger women.
The asimetry is caused by the fact that females are selective and males are partner-maximizing. It's not good or bad, it's a sociological truth.
No, it is not that easy to find desirable men for large majority of young women. No, women can not hop relationships as easily as you seem to believe.
Also real sociologists do not claim what you claim. They have a lot more nuance into it and in terms of marriages, talk a lot a lot more about economy and it's affects.
Your version sounds like something that emerges on chat when people cherry pick half understood studies, not what sociologists says.
Most young women can easily find "serial monogamous", short term, male partners with highly desirable qualities such as physical good looks, relative success, social skills etc., but most of this limited pool knows they are desirable and do not really want to get bogged down with a family
Women stopped being overly monogamous compared to men since the introduction of birth control. I wouldn't be surprised if tables have turned.
This tangent of ripping on guys more attractive than you seems incredibly irrelevant. At no point does the author say she dated men with "good looks, relative success, social skills etc."
You just sound grouchy, making excuses for yourself. Also, attractive men don't want a life of serial monogamy either.
I didn't read this as "ripping on guys" in any way. It seemed more focused on the perspective of women, and the shifting marketplace of relationships as people start looking to form a family. I don't think this was portraying or referencing attractive men in any negative light, and I'm curious as to why you interpreted the above comment on this way.
> When youth starts to fade away, reality kicks in - the highly desirable partners are not interested, and the average ones are already committed to long time partners who valued them in their own youth.
You're forgetting about a) divorcees and b) men who have also gone down the same path.
Men don't have the same time pressure to start a family with many starting at 45+. The other thing is men often become more attractive to women as they age due to things like financial success while the same can't be said for women.
As a 32-year-old with 3 kids, my parents are still in their mid-50s and can watch our kids for a week while we go on vacation. My father-in-law passed away last in his mid-70s (my mother-in-law is amazing and is a huge help, but she can't watch 3 kids alone for a week). There's a good chance my parents will be at my kids' weddings.
When you're 83 and your kid is my age, he'll probably wish there was anything he could do to make you 20 years younger.
I'm not saying you shouldn't have had a kid, or anything like that, but I don't know how you can suggest that it will never be a problem that you are a relatively old father (versus if you had kids in your 30s, other things being equal, which obviously they aren't).
It's nice that your parents are able to help with your kids. But, you know, it's rather common nowadays for people with kids to have parents (whatever their age) that live thousands of miles away...
I debated about whether to post this, because it’s rather emotive, even unsettling, but on the off chance it might actually sway someone, I will.
The average life expectancy for a male in the USA is 76. All other things being equal, a 51 year old father will die when their offspring is 25 years old. This is too early to lose a parent. Think about how this would have effected you, reader of this post. This is also assuming that the father does not experience any debilitating illnesses prior to dying, such as dementia, which would place an inordinate burden on a young person, who would have far fewer resources and life experience to draw on during such an ordeal.
These are not small potatoes. Think before you act, be responsible. You’re gambling with someone else’s life and wellbeing.
The life expectancy of a man who has already reached the age of 51 however, is 82, because that average no longer includes deaths of younger men. If you add things like good health, education and higher income, which are likely for someone that decides to have kids at 51 (and that manages to find a most likely younger partner willing to have kids with them), then one might lose their parent at the age of 35. It's still early but not uncommon.
That’s the best case scenario. Add in smoking, drinking, high blood pressure and obesity, all of which are common, and it’s as low as 62, from a starting age of 51.
Oh? Would you like to tell when is a _good_ time for your father to die? He's going to die sometime, you know.
And maybe taking care of a parent with dementia is actually more of a problem when you're older and have kids of your own?
At my advanced age, I have the advantage of remembering things like the arguments you would hear back in the 1960's about why interracial marriage was a bad idea. Not because we're racist of course! But think of the practical difficulties. Like, the kids won't fit into either community! I'm sure you can think of more reasons too.
> Oh? Would you like to tell when is a _good_ time for your father to die?
The later the better.
> And maybe taking care of a parent with dementia is actually more of a problem when you're older and have kids of your own?
It would certainly be easier to deal with when you have more stability in your life and are more emotionally mature.
> At my advanced age, I have the advantage of remembering things like the arguments you would hear back in the 1960's about why interracial marriage was a bad idea. Not because we're racist of course! But think of the practical difficulties. Like, the kids won't fit into either community! I'm sure you can think of more reasons too.
Do you really think this is a reasonable comparison? Of course you’ll say that you do. It’s not.
Well, it may be that you're not ageist. You may instead be anti-natalist. If we were talking about a 20-year-old having a kid, you might go on about how they don't have the maturity necessary to take on such a responsibility. And of course it's obvious that you shouldn't have kids if you haven't achieved an upper-middle-class level of financial stability. Then there is the matter of genetics. Do you have ancestors who died of Alzheimer's disease, cancer, or heart disease? Those all have a genetic risk component. Do you want to pass on such genes to your kids?
The fact is that every kid comes into the world with some advantages and some disadvantages. Any disadvantages from having an older parent are at most on a par with the disadvantages from not having particularly wealthy parents, or not having parents with perfect genes, or having parents who were abused by their own parents, or having parents who aren't citizens of a first-world country, and so on and so on.
Would you like to assign me any more imaginary opinions? Your reply is an exercise in whatabouttery: ignore this harm because look at all those harms over there. Controlling the age at which one has children is within one’s power to control, and helps to alleviate obvious harm. Nothing you have said or can say will change that.
Your statement that "the age at which one has children is within one’s power to control" is just obviously false. Especially for men. But also for everyone, if you're trying to time things to mitigate other disadvantages.
In reality, you may be 51, and may be in a good position otherwise to have a kid, and the question is whether being 51 is a reason not to. And the answer is "no", it is not. Not unless you also think that other people with non-major reasons not to have a kid shouldn't. In other words, not unless you think nobody should have kids.
I don't wish to belittle the hardships and sadness having an elderly parent at a relatively young age may potentially bring, but the alternative you're suggesting is never being born, which surely is even less preferable.
No, I’m suggesting that you have your children earlier in life. It’s best to think of it like a certain number, the exact genetic identity of the kids is a toss-up anyway, and if you really want to argue that point you’d be arguing for being responsible for people not being born every day.
I'm not sure this is always the case, starting a family later has a swath of benefits such as more life experience on on the part of parents, greater financial stability, and usually more ability to take time off. Both my parents quit their jobs and raised kids full time when my sister was born, and they were largely able to do so because they had kids later than average.
Balanced vs. ill health due to old age and dying earlier in your child’s life. I’ll agree that having children somewhat later, circa thirties, is better due to stability than twenties, but pushing into the forties is too much for me.
Don't forget higher chances your kid has a genetic disorder, and not being able to play sports with your kid because of bad joints. The situation you describe isn't one most people can relate to, given early retirement is not common.
They never see the dad bod as a sexual thing, it's more a symbol of other traits that the man brings to a relationship. Traits that are very important to a woman looking to start a family. The 'hot body' will still be their sexual choice but it's a trade-off.
I meant that women who don't become interested in having a long-term committed relationship until later in life have the option of dating men who followed the same path as them, as well as the option of dating divorced men.
I would hope that as they mature, at least some men realize there is more value in a partner than youthful good looks. That others who have led winding and complex paths in life are often more mature, supportive, and all around better partners than someone whose world view is, essentially, "I'm attractive so people do what I want".
Perhaps a lot of 35 year old women have realized that the value of a young attractive partner isn't very high and have realized that a committed relationship can bring happiness?
Imagine how a man might pick a woman if attractiness was completely off the table - an older woman is generally more mature, more sure of herself, simply had more life experiences and knows how to handle more situations. A 21 year old has barely spent any time supporting herself; a 35 year old has moore than a decade of life.
Perhaps women value men this way; with physical attractiveness less important than emotional maturity? Which tends to increase with age?
Some of these I would argue are positively correlated, especially loyalty and kindness. Some I would argue are a bit of a toss up, like intelligence. I am not sure what flexibility means (ability to adapt to change? I would argue that a 40 year old is more capable than a 20-something on average in that regard). Some I feel are more about having a similar level to a partner rather than being an absolute value (energy level).
I feel like this list is really answering the question "what do I find attractive, besides her face/body?", and not "what kind of traits in a partner actually bring me happiness?" - with the exception of kindness and loyalty.
Even as someone who used to identify as a man and thus was in the dating market as such, I can't understand how emotional maturity is of no value; it's one of the most important traits to me in a partner and essentially the reason I picked my last partner for a long term relationship.
You're trying to contort a mate selection process that has an inherently sexual-reproductive basis (for most people) into an exercise in platonic pair bonding. It doesn't make sense as such, and it isn't supposed to. People are seeking fulfillment of motivations that are fundamentally evolutionary in nature.
For everything else, we have friendship. (Setting aside the evolutionary advantages of e.g. male coalition-building, which we really can't, but whatever!)
I am someone who exists outside of evolution's traditional goals. I'm a transwoman, and predominantly lesbian at that. In all honesty, I'm so far outside the norm (even for a transwoman) that it causes most people I date not to have a script for it; the usual reaction is for them to become "starry eyed" and metaphorically eat out of my hand.
This is extra bizarre to me, as someone who used to be read as a relatively uninteresting, effeminate male; being passably female in pretty much every sense (including hormonally) should not increase my attractiveness to other women, yet it does. Not a single woman I've dated has expressed any particular interest in me as a fertile partner, and in what biological sense am I, really? While I have banked sperm, my testosterone levels are lower than most cisgender women's - in all likelihood, I am not fertile. There's very little way for a casual observer - even one who has access to my blood to run non-genetic tests on - to recognize that I am transgender.
I'm not just bragging; I straight up don't understand it. It was one of the things that kept me from transitioning for so long - being afraid women would have no interest in me if I did. I have postulated that the unique mix of hormones that I currently have, somehow, smells like perpetual ovulation; and yet if so why am I apparently far more attractive to women than men? Most girls I date seem particularly attached to my smell in a way they weren't before, but the interest I get from men is somehow less than before I transitioned.
I am promiscuous and unwilling to commit; I neither seek nor am particularly attractive to women seeking someone to support them and potentially their children. I regularly date women who have or have previously had male partners (in an ethical way).
Unless my humanity itself, the fact that I am living authentically and being who I truly am is more attractive, more valuable to the women I date, I simply have no explanation for the reactions I get now.
As a result - my own lived experience tells me that humans, and our relationships, are so much more than evolutionary motivations - at least as we understand them.
The testosterone running through my veins was just as real as the estradiol running through them now; the queerness of my life does not in any way diminish my humanity nor that of those who have interacted with me.
If you come at it from a queer perspective, you plainly see that your argument falls apart. Us queers are very sexual people, but by nature of being queer, don't feel compelled to follow any particular script; as a result our interests are very diverse. Some lesbians might prefer childbearing hips; the ones that date me definitely don't! And yet my femininity is nonetheless compelling; I've had girls tell me how nice it was to date someone so feminine (and how hard that was to find).
The women I find the most attractive tend to be KPop stars; east Asian (usually Korean) women in their early 20s (if that), often who are borderline underweight. The woman who I bonded with like nobody else in my life, the one I loved, the one I always thought was beautiful even when she couldn't see it, the one who gave my life meaning, the one who I still sometimes weep about even months after I last saw her was an obese scots woman in her early 30s with a serious disability.
And she was beautiful to me. Even before I transitioned.
Humans are wonderfully, fabulously, beautifully complex creatures. Our culture and social complexity has run far ahead of our genetics in so many ways. If we accept we have gone past our genetically programmed ways to figure out what to eat, consuming endless salt and sugar, causing us cavities and diabetes and unhappiness, why can't we accept that, too, our genetics were never meant for a world with Tinder and plastic surgery or even fast fashion? That our basest instincts do not bring us happiness - unless we examine them from a perspective that we are something greater, that we can be better than that?
The truth is, we can. The truth is, happiness - mediated by oxytocin and dopamine and all of that evolutionary history - DOES exist beyond merely eating and sex. We are programmed for empathy, for cooperation, for belonging. For love. We may desire things that will make us unhappy but we can make a choice.
If you ignore that, whether you are male or female- if you insist that, no, your life is just about having sex with the most attractive partner because evolution demands it - you will wind up like the parent of this entire conversation. You will be sad. Whether you are a 60 year old man or a 35 year old woman, you will realize at some point what you have been doing is refusing to be human, to have real relationships; you have been using sexuality to protect your feelings, and suddenly, it doesn't work any more.
Choose to be human; choose to be more than your selfish genes.
I get where you are coming from but attraction is still a thing. I'm a guy and for me, physical attraction is a minimum standard that loses value after the minimum is met. Once someone reaches the standards for the physical attraction I value other traits vastly more. These physical standards aren't even all that hard to meet if someone looks after themselves.
I actually agree with you (I was a bit drunk when I wrote that rant). If someone meets a relatively low standard of physical attractiveness, the rest matters more. I may be off in queer lala land, but that still is roughly true for me.
The argument I am encountering, the one I disagree with, is that attractiveness is a linear function and substantially the only thing that matters when dating. By virtue of being in her mid 30s, the letter writer is right to realize her value is low and declining. She will only find low value partners and even those doors are closing as she creeps closer to menopause.
I'm trying to argue that no, her value as a person AND as a romantic partner is much more than that.
I'm even going one step farther than that to say that picking a mate based on attractiveness as correlated with age is a strategy that will not bring you happiness whether you are a man, woman, or a queer degenerate like myself.
A lot of people follow other strategies, even if they are in the minority, and while it might take some time, she should seek out those who do, who value the things she has done in her life, the perspectives she's gained, all of that, and not just her youthful good looks.
tl;dr - Girl needs to chill. Her life (even romantic life!) isn't over because she's single and 35. She needs to stop evaluating herself that way.
> How does a string of short term relationships show loyalty?
Age says nothing about what prior relationships someone has had, other than that they've had more time to have them.
It translates to loyalty (albeit weakly) in that a woman who is older has better self awareness and knows what she wants in a relationship, where a younger woman might still be figuring that out (and realize only later on that her relationship isn't what she wanted)
>I’ve known plenty of early 20s women who will drop their careers to follow their boyfriend overseas and very few in their 30s who will.
So it's more valuable to have a woman who isn't independent? Who doesn't have her own life or hobbies and gets fulfillment solely through her partner?
> Why should a man find it valuable in a partner?
Seriously? You don't know why emotional maturity is valuable in a partner?
> It translates to loyalty (albeit weakly) in that a woman who is older has better self awareness and knows what she wants in a relationship, where a younger woman might still be figuring that out
Than why are there clear correlations (for women) between # of monogamous relationships and likelihood of divorce? As well as between # of sexual partners and likelihood of divorce?
> So it's more valuable to have a woman who isn't independent?
Of course! More flexibility and dependence up to a point is certainly better.
Of course the idea that this means a woman can’t have her own hobbies seems to be taking things to the extreme.
> Seriously?
Yes and honestly.
I married young and I think the troubles we went through together have deepened our relationship in a way that would never have been possible if we were both “emotionally mature”.
I’d also question whether people really do mature “globally” that much - vs maturing in specific contexts and relationships.
For example if women matured significantly in a “global” sense between mid-20s to mid-30s you would expect a big drop in obesity as women started taking better care of their health. But you don’t. Etc etc.
divorce tends to neuter men in practice. Poverty and its secondary effects from any cause, alimony or child support or legal bills in specific, is rarely "highly desirable" for men.
> When youth starts to fade away, reality kicks in - the highly desirable partners are not interested, and the average ones are already committed to long time partners who valued them in their own youth. Their "family" started a long time ago with mutual investment - you can choose not to make that trade-off but cannot have the cake and eat it too.
As someone who has his cake and eats it too (and has ice cream) I can tell you that this is incorrect. Highly desirable partners could still be interested if you have used your younger days to acquire the skills that would compensate for not being a 25-year-old sex pot.
Unless she is Miranda Kerr she better be prepared for a life of someone who needs to go to the grocery store even when it is raining, and needs to take out trash even if she does not feel like it and needs to deal with a washing machine being broken all while a cat peed in a rug because her partner did not clean the litter box. And boy if she has been a sex pot between the ages of 17 and 35 she is in for a surprise.
I've known people who lived a life very similar to the one this person describes: moving from town to town, making art wherever they go, meeting new people, floating from relationship to relationship, not much money or stuff to their name, nothing really tying them down. The difference is that they were the sort of people who said "f_ck 'normal' society and its expectations" – an attitude that I don't see much these days – and, maybe as a result of that attitude, they were really happy people.
> I used to think I was the one who had it all figured out. Adventurous life in the city! Traveling the world! Making memories! Now I feel incredibly hollow. And foolish. How can I make a future for myself that I can get excited about out of these wasted years?
I hope she can learn to stop thinking about those years as wasted. She saw and did things that most people never get to see or do because they're too busy working. Plenty of 35-year-olds are in debt, upside-down on their houses, in miserable marriages, and just a few years from getting divorced, buying a convertible, and dating someone inappropriately young for them. More than a few of them would envy her life.
I honestly wondered if this was some kind of satire.
I have great sympathy for the person asking for advice, and I suspect they may have been hoping for something a bit more actionable. Also, the advice columnist mentioning their new book and book tour in the reply seems a bit tone-deaf to me.
I hope that she finds a way to start making the changes she wants to see in her life.
I agree. Feels like the only reason she decided to respond to this person is to use it as an excuse to shill her new book to her readers and not out of genuine care for the other person.
"Hi Dan, thanks for calling the Suicide Helpline! I know what you're going through is tough. I went through what you're going through too, which I wrote all about in my new book, Suicide Kings, available on Amazon, buy now and get it 20% off the hardcover price for a limited time only! Here's an affiliate link, and an interview I did with the Today show. So yeah, I've been feeling down in the dumps lately too, and you know what I did? I wrote Suicide Kings, only $19.99 in two easy payments if you call 555-555-1513. That's 555-555-1513. Don't kill yourself Dan. I didn't. Write a book instead."
Reiterating something I wrote in another comment: the columnist's response is more than 2,300 words long. The mention of her book is 600 words in, is limited to a single sentence with no mention of what it's even about. And it is in the context of how the columnist fights feelings of inadequacy even during the ostensible high point of her career.
In recent years, biographies of 'famous people' are much less 'cleaned-up' and idealized than they once were. As I've read more of them, it's clearer that the inner lives of people who 'got up on the stage' are pretty much like those of all the rest of us 'down here in the audience'. And so they are more instructive than the PR bios.
This 'haunted' lady was once young and footloose and fancy-free and in pursuit of her dreams. And so were we all. But, once off whatever stage we occupy during the day, we all need to go home. There's where we have to face the same questions ... or distract or anaesthetize ourselves so that we don't.
Nobody has all the answers. Today I like this Kenneth Patchen answer I found yesterday.
Autobiographies in particular, I believe, tend to euhpamize or otherwise distort emotional conflicts, especially those that happen early in the author's life (when their recognition comes later on). I think emotional conflicts are one of the most influential parts of maturing and many autobiographies seem to gloss over their teens/early 20s or look back with a nostalgic lens, unless something extremely traumatic happened during that period.
I could give better advice in a single sentence. To wit, "you should schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist to get screened for adult ADHD."
These life problems are classic adult ADHD symptoms. Moving cities every few years. Not being able to hold down a long-term relationship. Your "who-knows-what-number" job. Debt from poor and impulsive decisions. Lack of internal drive. Difficulty making and keeping friends. "Can barely remember to buy dish soap". Enough difficulty with making deadlines that her boss is reminding her of them.
Is it really a diagnosis every single time? Are you saying pills will fix that? Unabashedly, no. Some people just get caught up in the wrong mentality and among peers who think a certain way. That analogy of "blindfolded, sitting on a mountain of glittering gems" makes a lot of sense. It's the lack of perspective/awareness.
It's completely possible to be a neurotypical person and "getting into the wrong mentality", as you are saying. But that is why the parent suggested a -screening-, rather than diagnosing the person over the internet. Because if it is ADHD, there is help to be found that is much more effective than "just change your mentality around things". In fact, I'd personally suggest a more general screening, as there is a high comorbidity with ADHD and other psychological issues.
Further, getting a diagnosis is not only about the medical treatment itself. Understanding one's problems goes a long way in coping with the symptoms.
I'm sure a therapist has handled hundreds of patients going through a mid-life crisis and will be infinitely more useful than some internet columnist hocking their book. (Or a random guy on a startup forum trying to diagnose you)
that was my case. Had all those symptoms you described. 30mg of Vyvanse every morning, prescribed by a Psychiatrist, allowed me to get a hold of my life again. The difference is night and day.
I think also exploring the reasons why she behaves this way. It sounds cliche but I'm guessing it goes back to her childhood. She probably had a childhood full of instability, moving, absent or indifferent father, etc. and those patterns are imprinted in her thought process now. Good psychotherapy might expose the underlying reasons for her behavior and help her deal with them.
Learning things does not help people with ADHD like it can help people without ADHD. ADHD is a performance issue; they don't end up doing things to the extent that they know how to. It is not a knowledge issue. If she has ADHD, learning about how her life patterns are dysfunctional and why is not going to fix how she executes her life in a dysfunctional way.
It certainly won't hurt though, outside of opportunity cost. ADHD has a genetic component, and growing up with ADHD parents is often a big contributory factor to the life problems that ADHD folks face. But it's not getting screened for ADHD, which if you suspect you have ADHD really should be the first step.
Yeah, stimulant therapy works extraordinarily well for ADHD. Like, it's basically the best psychiatric intervention known. It doesn't work for everyone, but it's the first line treatment for a reason.
This sounds like me, except the debt and relationship problems.
I'm 90% sure I have add, but I'm afraid treatment would turn me into a zombie. It would be really nice to be able to work on crap at work I can't stand doing, but at the same time it would be awful.
There are strategies that can help without medication.
It might be good to spend a couple of hours reading and learning, perhaps watching some videos with first-hand discussions. This could help cultivate future awareness and potentially reduce impact even if you do nothing else. Or maybe you rule out ADHD as a potential contributing factor entirely. Or maybe you don't have ADHD but some of the strategies are useful anyway. You won't know until you look into it. But even if it's not applicable to you, the knowledge might help you understand someone else in your life.
This stigma about the different medications, along with worry for the view that people who seek treatment are simply looking for ADHD drugs, has prevented a lot of people from seeking treatment. It's very unfortunate.
it doesnt turn you into a zombie. You dont _have_ to take medications, and good psychiatrists will be willing to work with you with, or without medications.
Depression or bipolar disorder seem like a better fit. ADHD would manifest more in “short term” issues, i. e. difficulty getting through a workday. The fact that they can, apparently, hold down a job they don’t enjoy, and seem to quit voluntarily to improve their situation (going for an opportunity more than getting away from s/t) also don’t fit.
In the end, the point might be mood because the first step is the same, and a therapist will be far better figuring it out in person. The specific labels also seem not to perfectly fit the actual conditions, which are more fluid than what the existing lingo suggests.
> And with men I date, I feel pressure to make something of the relationship too soon (move in, get married, “I have to have kids in a couple of years”; fun times!).
I think most, if not all problems people have that aren't resource-driven (not making enough money to live) boil down to lack of ability to enjoy the present moment. And maybe even the resource-driven ones as well. If people could just learn how to relax, appreciate what you do have, realize it could be a lot worse, smell the roses, then they could get centered and plan for the future more effectively.
But instead many people just get caught in these catch-22s where they're depressed over not being where they want to be. But there's always somewhere you're going to want to be, you're never going to be 100% perfectly content with everything. Discontent isn't the worst thing in the world, but people let it sabotage their well-being and mental health. So sad.
Agree, all of these thoughts of hypothetical's that instantiate people's continuous internal dialogue take away, especially, from the beauty and mystery of connection with another person. Everyone has this 'agenda'(whether conscious or not) that, as some sort of psychic mold, must fit and restrict the reality of the present moment.
True that. I read an article last week about the rohingya genocide currently in Myanmar. The article centered about a guy who suffered throughout his life. Basically going back and forth because he has no citizenship. From childhood to fatherhood. His only hope was his intelligent daughter and she was just raped and killed by the soldiers... and I get stressed because I don’t get enough s. Talk about perspective. Being in A first world country I’m already living like a king compared to 90% of the world.
Not in this case. With no family/child obligations, the short term goal-- and, depending on the size of the debt, midterm goal-- needs to be paying down the debt.
Just take the example of the measly two-nights-in-a-hotel savings. Without debt she could freely decide to save for a month or two and increase that number by one or two orders of magnitude (depending on current job's income). Ahhh.
With debt that savings cannot increase. No decisions are available to make.
Sorry to be flippant but getting out of debt is the only option here. Giving any other advice would be like talking chess strategy to someone eternally stuck playing tic-tac-toe.
When I was in college there was an older woman doing my course who was a little like this - had lived all over the world, and had had the kind of wild life that I envied. I learned from her that memories of good times don't make you happy - quite the opposite, in fact, if your present is a let-down.
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits.
I feel like what he's saying is similar to the way that the open interval between 0 and 1 has no end when viewed as an open set in real analysis. Which is nice, but the only time I felt that I could advance time by infinitesimally small increments I was on mushrooms.
While that sounds romantic and liberating, the reality is that our experience in the present is shaped by the events of the past and anticipation of the future. The greatest sources of fulfillment in my life are the result of thoughtful consideration of the future that took place in the past.
The most important thing for humans, is other humans. That gets left out of these types of discussions a lot, I think.
I'm not one to hark back to the "glory days" of primitive society, but original humans operated in relatively close-knit groups, even when those groups were nomadic.
I don't think we've moved on, psychologically, from that. There's a lot of cliches that touch on this, like "social media isn't the same as real relationships," but ultimately I think what Haunted needs is to just pick one place and find a community. A real community, not just girlfriends to drink with once a week.
In our modern, complex society, it's not as easy as it sounds, since we don't all get a community by birthright like a lot of rural communities in the 99% agricultural days did, but there are tools and such to help you find an interest and a community.
In her case, as someone who also aspires to write, there are writers seeking community with other writers in nearly every town in the USA, and definitely every major city. It sounds weird to say you can fix your problems on meetup.com, but there's no substitution for consistent human contact and real friendships that go beyond work functions or weekend softball games.
but there's no substitution for consistent human contact and real friendships
This. Some of my friends just wouldn't eat alone - they'd rather starve than eat a meal by themselves. I, on the other hand, have been eating alone for the last 15 years. I didn't understand why it is such a big deal, when I was younger - now, I am beginning to think my friends were right. Friendship, when it is simple/without strings attached/genuine, is a beautiful thing to have.
The problem I have with this answer is it basically denies the problem exists.
Sure, in a sense, everything is subjective. All suffering is caused by the lens through which we filter reality. I believe Viktor Frankl writes persuasively on this topic after his experience in a concentration camp.
But that’s a non answer in any practical terms, and telling someone their suffering is all in their head is rarely a solution for anything.
This person made a series of choices over many years that has led to being 35, with no partner, no kids, no career, and no artistic pursuits. This legitimately sucks and is a hard problem that can’t be fixed overnight. It’s certainly not going to go away by denying that it sucks and all you need is an attitude adjustment.
The person who wrote this response has a husband, kids, a prominent column and a book deal. She should be ashamed for her response.
The person writing in can change their life, and all those awesome experiences will be of use and enrich the future. But the change toward the life they want will probably require small, incremental, consistent steps, hard work, and honesty.
> But that’s a non answer in any practical terms, and telling someone their suffering is all in their head is rarely a solution for anything.
Hm I disagree with this but am open to be shown why I'm wrong.
> This person made a series of choices over many years that has led to being 35, with no partner, no kids, no career, and no artistic pursuits. This legitimately sucks and is a hard problem that can’t be fixed overnight. It’s certainly not going to go away by denying that it sucks and all you need is an attitude adjustment.
You are assuming that this sucks but I would then ask why does it suck?
I imagine there are people who also have no partner, kids, career, or artistic pursuits and are happy living their lives that way.
My understanding is that the unhappiness stems from her own expectations. She's unhappy because she wanted something and doesn't have it.
But the reality is that even if she gets all the things she talks about, she may still be unhappy because she wants other things. It is like people who continue to make more money but also continue to strive to have fancier and fancier things.
So I guess I disagree because I think an attitude adjustment is indeed the right thing to do here. Don't get me wrong, there are very real problems that this person is facing like her finances or lack of close friends. But things like having a career, artistic pursuits, and arguably kids, are not things that are required for living.
Anyone else read the Dear Polly part ...and just couldn't bring themselves to the Dear Haunted / advice part?
I felt like just trying to sit in that situation; sort of ponder the whole thing without coming to any conclusions. How many people do I know who could be Haunted? How many times have I been Haunted myself? What got me out of that space?
I just couldn't read the advice part.
I think to the points when I've been in that dreadful place like Haunted. A few friends reaching out asking "how are you?" without offering any advice and especially not sharing a fucking story riddled with survivorship bias. Those little acts seemed to clear the fog; and even better, I knew that they just wanted to reach out and ensure that I knew they were thinking about me.
IMO, most of the advice given to to the stuff Haunted says is usually the same no matter who the advice giver is. "Just be yourself", "If you stopped being so negative all the time you would be happier", "You can do whatever you want to do", "The only person holding yourself back is you".
I've read a lot of this stuff and it generally feels like a wash. Like someone who has already overcame their problems and is at the high point is giving you these answers and to be honest, there isn't really much advice you can give unless you know them personally. There isn't much you can give a person who is feeling empty and disheartened.
I agree. It's impossible to fix these type of problems with advice. Deep problems of identity.
"Be comfortable with yourself" is advice that is technically true, but to get from here to there, so to speak, requires putting yourself into a messy, vulnerable personal relationship with another human being, who cares about you enough to break through and force you to care in turn. "Advice" is useless when it comes to deep interpersonal problems like this.
Also, you can give easily advice like this without having ever fixed yourself: Just repeat platitudes.
A while back I worked at a company I really liked. I made lots of good friends there and it was, I think, the best time in my life to date.
A few days before I left that company, people have taken me out for farewell drinks. We hang out until late at night, having fun, drinking and eating and chatting and so on. Until it's like midnight and we all have to go home.
One of my friends is the new girl. She's pretty attractive, and new in town. She's also from the suburbs and hasn't figured out the basic safety steps to being able to walk through downtown SF safely late at night, so she asks if I can walk her to her apartment. I say of course.
As we start walking, she starts bawling. I take it things haven't been going to well in her life and she's got some demons to grapple with. Well that's fine, I'm not going to ignore a friend in need when she calls for help. So we sit and I listen as she goes for about two hours, telling me her problems.
What were her problems? More or less the same as what was written in this article. She had just turned 30 and was starting to realize that she had nothing to show for it and the time available to her to settle down was quickly evaporating.
It broke my heart. She was a really cool person. She was smart, and pretty, and yet still down to earth. Unlike a lot of people I'd met in SF, she wasn't snobby or arrogant. She had a lot going for her. But at the same time, she was on the same path as OP was and I didn't see her getting off it any time soon.
Her big thing was travelling. She loved to travel. She'd been all over the world. She'd done backpacking, she'd done hotelling. She spent a few years living on a boat the Caribbean doing scuba stuff. She spent a few years living in an expat community in Asia. She had had a lot of experiences. But unfortunately, experiences are expensive, and it's really hard to put down roots when you're constantly on the move. And she was being made miserable by the conflict between her desire for an exciting life and her desire for a stable life.
I didn't know what to say, so I tried my best to be a good friend in the moment. I haven't heard from any of the folks from that company in a few years. I hope she's found the life she wanted, and that she doesn't end up like OP
>made miserable by the conflict between her desire for an exciting life and her desire for a stable life.
I think this perennial human conflict raises its head in this post and discussion. It seems that how it presents itself in peoples lives depends on personality, upbringing, culture of influence etc. However, I get the sense that its a real thing in most cultures but with varying degrees of mutuality between 'adventure' and 'stability'.
I'm currently halfway through a period where I miss a lot of life as I'm studying while working full time. My time commitments make it very difficult for me to do many activities, I'm often too tired anyway and I really cannot commit to a serious partner for another 2 years despite the fact I prefer to be in a relationship. I occasionally have periods where I feel like life is slipping me by but I refocus and remind myself that this is only temporary and that I'm working so hard for my future with concrete short-term goals.
On the other hand, I'm quite lucky. I have two children who I have more days than not, so I don't have the fertility pressure the author of this article has. I suspect her biggest issue with her life is her fertility, as she sees an entire path her life could have taken fading away rapidly. I've dated a lot of women over the last few years and the one thing I've noticed is that women over 30, and especially 32, often seem more focused on finding a father for their children than a partner. The author even touches on how hard this makes dating, the pressure these women feel to get serious and start a family in a very short period of time.
I'm 33 now and I have a large number of female friends who are reaching the point where things are becoming urgent. They've had these amazing lives so far, full of travel and hitting career goals, but they've neglected to find a stable relationship and now they're looking at their own fertility. I recently attended a small reunion of some college friends and of the 4 women, only 1 had children while 2 are 33+, single and childless and both of them seemed to want a partner/family. These are great women too who would have a lot to offer in a relationship but it's just hasn't worked out that way.
In either 12 or 24 months, my ex-wife and I are moving to another city nearby where her family is. It's smaller, cheaper (I could buy a house immediately), has a really amazing beach culture, etc. I intend to plant roots hard and put in a lot of effort to meet new people and make solid friends
At least this person can communicate and can open themselves up emotionally. But it sounds like this person would have mental health issues no matter what their current situation was. A partner or job isn't going to fix that.
Anxiety is living in the future. Depression is living in the past. Wanting a good experience is a bad experience. Accepting a bad experience is a good experience.
Thats actually a very good summary. I found Vipassana mindfulness meditation helps immensely to achieve happiness by detaching the self from outside influences that would otherwise make me unhappy.
The holidays are an emotional meat grinder. Its the hap hap happiest time of the year alright. This time of year is the lowest for most people but it is demanded of us to hide our desperation. Unfortunately it also distorts are situation. The situation really is better than we think it is. A lot of us get irrational this time of year. It will be better in the spring when the holiday hysteria is long gone.
I’ve always thought life is a balancing act of “building” and “experiencing.” Building relationships, communities, homes, organizations, education (your self) and experiencing other countries, different jobs, lifestyles, foods, etc.
Western culture as a whole has gone a little too far in the “experience” direction. You can see this in little ways, like the fact that Legos are sold as pre-planned structures and not generic building blocks, or how electronics today are replaced and not repaired.
We really need a revitalization of a “creator” culture to combat the present consumer one.
> We really need a revitalization of a “creator” culture to combat the present consumer one.
Yes! I agree so much. As Hannah Arendt wrote in "The Human Condition":
> The ideals of homo faber, the fabricator of the world, which are permanence, stability, and durability, have been sacrificed to abundance, the ideal of the animal laborans.
I’d argue that the appeal of the licensed Lego products is precisely an experience. Instead of starting from zero and building everything yourself, you’re given a premade story, world, and characters. It’s similar to the difference between writing your own fantasy novel vs. reading Lord of the Rings.
> like the fact that Legos are sold as pre-planned structures and not generic building blocks
This is completely tangential, but to be fair they're sold in both ways. I'm what most people would call a grown man, but I still can't help myself (or my girlfriend sometimes) and we pick up the odd set.
You can still buy large sets of mixed blocks, as well as the models. I've got a few models posted around my place because I enjoy them, but we also have [at least one] classic creator kit[s]. Even as a "grown up" it feels good for the soul sometimes.
I hear you, but this isn't a new conundrum in creative fields/play.
Artists' studios have long worked in a similar way, employing others to continually emulate an original ideal that an artist would ultimately brand.
I understand it's a little different, but we don't regret people admiring da Vinci as much as they do. People haven't stopped painting since the works of masters, and in many cases are inspired to see what is possible— and people still paint as a creative act. With reference to Lego— I covet that Apollo Saturn rocket model, and I'm often in awe of some of the creativity and skill that has gone into many of the models designed in their studios.
I grew up in the age of Lego models, though less sophisticated than they are now— I did start with my mother's early 70's sets.
Maybe the issue lies elsewhere— not that the predesigned models exist at all, but the consumerist motivation to just buy up those [models] for children instead of first exposing them to the basics without any other aspiration and gradually increasing exposure. I mean, that's how we've done painting for a long time— the kids get finger paints, wax crayons and cheap newsprint first. Then later they can see some master works, and maybe get a paint-by-numbers to see that their hands are just as capable of producing the same with the right practice.
Well I have to say that I’m really not tackling it haha.
My girlfriend and I share a one bedroom apartment and it’s a touch small (having downsized for reasons not our own).
I do keep a series of bookshelves along one wall that are largely filled with books but leave some space for other things like a couple of models. Others sit on the TV stand. They’re just kind of peppered in places where they won’t get in the way but are still viewable
When I was a kid ~25 years ago it wasn't the "classic" blocks I was jealous of my friends for having though. It was something like the Forbidden Island (6270) set as shown here:
The 90s LEGO sets were maybe the golden age. Classic pirates were maybe some of the best that there ever were. I salivated over those sets back in the day
Much of the population (me included) has become just consumers and spectators, instead of producers and players. Just look at the amount of time we spend discussing sports or politics or movies, and yet, not playing even an hour of sport a week or even trying to make a painting (no matter how much we suck at these).
I'm astonished that the columnist didn't advise something that seems blindingly obvious to me: find a therapist to talk to - not someone who's going to automatically say "have some Prozac" but someone outside yourself to talk with about these issues. That letter just screams depression (or maybe bipolar on a downswing), but some of it may be just needing to figure out where and what you want to be.
> That letter just screams depression (or maybe bipolar on a downswing),
Um no. It sounds like someone with no people to spend time with, that's living paycheck to paycheck, that is one financial emergency from financial ruin.
That doesn't automatically equate depression. When you're worrying if somethings going to happen tomorrow that leaves you penniless that other people around you wouldn't even notice the cost of, and you don't have another human as an outlet and for reassurance, you get frustrated and angry and cold and distant and apathetic all at once. You have to or you go nuts.
I don't see her as depressed at all, and unless you are licensed to practice mental health you haven't any business armchair diagnosing someone.
See my parent comment in this thread, I'm not depressed. I've got a few hundred dollars to my name, a ged, no degree, have been rejected by multiple companies this year, will most likely contract and die of cancer before I die of old age, don't have anyone I can call to hang out with, don't have anyone to call if I have an emergency and need help, don't have anyone to ring me up and ask how my life is going without wanting something.
I'm not depressed, I'm fucking tired. I imagine she's not depressed either, just tired. Worn out. In need of something to go in her favor for a change.
It's perfectly normal to feel despair and frustration with your life, that doesn't automatically make you depressed.
Try walking in her shoes, or my shoes, are millions of other shoes. We get out of bed in the morning and ranger the fuck up because we have to to survive. Just because we aren't excited to run off to our shitty jobs and come home to our empty lonely lives doesn't make us depressed, it makes us disadvantaged.
Disclaimer: no medical training whatsoever - and because of it in perfectly happy to recommend. There's not nearly enough here for real diagnosis.
There's situation (which may be shitty, been there doing that even if I am playing life on the easy setting of straight white male) and there's also attitude /outlook/approach /how you feel. They influence each other, but they're not the same thing. Your situation may make you depressed, but it's not going to give you depression. On the other side, depression doesn't mean you're in a bad situation except that it includes depression which may make it terrible because it colors everything you perceive. No friends? Maybe, or maybe you can't recognize that people really are friends and do care because depression makes you feel that way. No prospects? Maybe, or maybe...
There are a ton of ways that people get medicated (rightly or not) for depression and for some that may help, but for other people therapy to develop the ability to recognize what's going on and tackle it is going to be enough. Along with developing those skills the simple act of discussing problems with someone may also help a lot, and paying a consultant sorry therapist may mean that you take more from it because you're paying for it.
+1, and just to add some more perspective, "depression" comes in varying grades. It doesn't always mean locked in your bedroom for days on end with the shades drawn. Sometimes a person gets caught up in a sort of miasma of low-grade self-doubt and anxiety. Still able to go to work, do the shopping, etc., but lacking energy for things like maintaining friends, and ambition.
It can be insidious, and without outside perspective -- either yourself years later, or someone who knows what they're looking at -- really hard to recognize (and fight).
She's in the gaslit generation; we tell you to live like a college youth; until you can't anymore; then "go away" for the next self destructive generation to arrive and take her place. What happens to the human debris? Who cares.
If you don't have a plan for your life other than reliving being a college freshman over and over every year, when you eventually hit the wall or get tired of the lifestyle with no way out, it'll shatter you, like the woman in the linked story.
This reminds me of The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.
It opens with an old couple who live in a land misted by a fog of forgetfulness. And one of them remembers they have a son they love very much. They haven't seen him in many years, because they had forgotten and they have to get back to him. And they set out to do so.
That feeling of, oh this is an important thing, person, event, skill, and why have I forgotten about it? Why didn't I attend to it? That is just part of the human condition as you get older.
I don't think your life is "wasted". Just accept that regret is part of all lives. Even the person who is happy, has thoughts and ideas about alternatives. Not that you would trade what you have, but you do play out alternative lives. Its perfectly natural.
This is not meant to sound like an off the cuff comment, it is not, a lot of thought has gone into this:
Remember this piece before you argue with someone that they should move away from their friends, family, their support systems for work or other development opportunities. It Takes A Village, and your local support system is not to be underestimated.
In the end, all we have is family and/or loved ones ("chosen family"); everything else is fleeting. Spread your wings, but know where Home is (and remember Home is something to be cultivated, and not to be taken for granted).
Recently a family member died who did just that: asked her father to move from the city where he lived to go nearer to her so she could take better care of him. They debated this for a while, he relented, moved to bf nowhere.
So far so good.
Then, three months later she drops dead of lung cancer.
It is very fortunate that I live nearby too, total coincidence, that branch of my family I have very little contact with. So now this 80+ year old guy that just lost his daughter, the only regular link to his past and provider of all his needs has to depend on me, the nephew he hasn't really seen in the last 35 years or so.
No more circle of friends, no walks about town, just some crap flat for old people and a whole day to wait for night to come again. Card games once every week and the occasional game of Scrabble. And the rest of the time you are just alone with your thoughts of life the way it was.
The good news is he definitely did not waste his life, but it is super hard on him and there isn't a visit that leaves me unmoved about how incredibly harsh life can be.
> Being compassionate is an act of resistance; it is different from being caring, or passive. Compassion, literally meaning ‘to suffer with’, is rooted in our loving desire to be alongside one another in our common struggle for a better spiritual and social reality. Compassion is an act of resistance because the compassionate cannot rest until all suffering has ended. Compassion is the recognition that none of us are free until we are all free.
-- Keith Hebden
For me it's also a way to expand my own life beyond my own life. That is, to take joy in the wellbeing of others, even though I can't feel their wellbeing as they do, still multiplies the joy I can have in life immensely. Compassion can bring sadness, sure, but I think it's more than made up for by the satisfaction it can bring, too. You might say I try to not always be selfish for purely selfish reasons.
In a rather free and bad translation, couldn't find it in English:
> Humans keep themselves in a passable height above hellish depths towards which they gravitate only by using all their powers and helping each other lovingly. Among each other they are connected by strong ropes, and it's bad enough when the ropes around a person get loose and they sink a little lower than the rest into the empty void, and it's horrible when the ropes around a person break and they fall. This is why one should stick with others. I suspect that girls keep us up high because they are so light, that is why we should love the girls and they should love us.
-- Franz Kafka in a letter to Oskar Pollak, 20th December 1903
It's from 1903, so I hope it's possible to enjoy the wisdom and cuteness without getting up on the last sentence :) Also "stick with others" is particularly badly translated and sounds weird, but keep the "lovingly help each other" bit in mind, don't hold my translation against Kafka.
This is all completely true. I feel like modern living has pitched this whole idea that it's worth putting yourself into debt to "have experiences, not things" (I have my doubts that this is a true Millennial preference and rather just a bit of clever marketing that has worked exceptionally well) and to avoid investing too much in anything lest something better come along. It's the same reason I look down upon tech people's effects on housing markets in SV pushing old-time residents out because they can't afford the rent, and look down upon people who scoff at moving to flyover land where they can afford to put down roots. This woman bought into a train of thought that's not really being developed for her benefit.
>Remember this piece before you argue with someone that they should move away from their friends, family, their support systems for work or other development opportunities.
Blood is certainly thicker than water as they say, for good and for evil. I used to think exactly as you stated the above and I don't mean to suggest how rigid you are but my recent experience with family is that relationships must go both ways, and when your attempts at expressing yourself go unheard or ignored then perhaps cutting ties is the right approach.
> I used to think exactly as you stated the above and I don't mean to suggest how rigid you are but my recent experience with family is that relationships must go both ways, and when your attempts at expressing yourself go unheard or ignored then perhaps cutting ties is the right approach.
I would encourage you to use this as a growth opportunity. I had a similar situation occur with a close family member who died unexpectedly, and years later, my heart still hurts every day because of it. Take care of your self, but grow emotionally to put yourself out there when you can.
I won't discount that cutting ties is appropriate under certain circumstances. For myself, it is a last resort. People are people, fallible to their core.
I appreciate your reply, but starting a message with advice instead of understanding leaves me wondering if you're more interested in being an advice dispenser than understanding where I'm coming from and then giving advice.
Forgive my reaction, my family is adept at that very thing: pretending to listen then dispensing the advice they think will fix you and your problems; I've now realized that empathy means simply listening actively, and generally the complainer will come to the correct conclusion on their own, they just need a willful listening ear.
At least, I've never been genuinely convinced I was in the wrong unless someone first recognized my pains then gave advice or I noticed someone else's example. My entire life has constituted shame-based discipline, and not even the direct "you're stupid for doing x thing" but "she's your mother, she brought you into this world." Like, yeah, but that doesn't help me not be upset, and I may have even agreed at the time but the point is my emotions are high and ignoring my feelings leaves me subconsciously believing that my emotional being is wrong or unimportant.
tl;dr I'm a big boy, I can get over it but understand me before giving advice
This is a great point, though it's also why I had bought into the move away from your network for opportunity mentality for so long.
Of course I'll leave my immediate family for opportunity - in my case, they're terrible people who posed a detriment to my future.
On the other hand I never learned how to function as part of a community of people (family, friends, whatever), and am left feeling like I have no support system. Which is apparently super important, but I only realize that now at 30 instead of earlier. :(
Absolutely. I've termed this emotional gaslighting, where I'm frustrated about something and bring it up and the family member I'm frustrated with deflects or points the finger right back at me as if they're the ones that were frustrated all along. This leaves me doubting my frustration as if my feelings weren't ever valid at all, which I suspect had a huge hand in my intense anxiety that I've fortunately largely overcome.
I don’t think the message “35-year old is still very young” is useful.
Life is really hard and is contant suffering. You might die at 95 year-old, but you might die tomorrow. Taking responsibilities instead of blaming the world is often the only way to go.
I think taking responsibility is important but it is also easy to take too much responsibility, be it at work, in the personal lives and choices of others, or in you own success - ultimately leading to anxiety and depression.
A concrete example that I think will echo here is the impostor syndrome many engineers face. We know it is technically possible to sit down and grind huge amounts of value in software in a relatively short period, and we believe it so strongly that we feel crushed if we don't do it each and every day.
Expectations. I think Haunted believed it would be easy to have it all.
>But your concept of yourself makes no sense. You got it from a rom-com.
Bingo. Everything is a trade-off. On top of that, our best-laid schemes often go wrong. Sometimes years or decades of sacrifice to a career, relationship, or family makes one worse off, not better.
I don't know if a perfect system exists for living one's life but here's a nugget or two -
1) Love is a choice, not an emotional state (learned by watching my Dad.)
2) Reassess often.
3) Don't fear changing things, including yourself.
4) Most people will die having achieved little that others would consider worthy of praise. That includes the others.
5) Having lived at all is something 99.99999999+% (by mass) of the Universe will never experience. Though maybe I'm wrong here - stars, nebulae, and galaxies may actually be alive for all we know.
I think a lot of people are ignoring the gendered context of the narrative she's presenting: the cultural notion that, as a woman, your value is measured in terms of your attractiveness and fertility.
Those decline as you get older, and so does your value. When you are in your 20s you need to "make hay while the sun is shining", leveraging that to get where you want in life before the clock runs out.
It's not a healthy narrative, nor one I agree with. But you can see why she might feel the way she does; she has really squandered the opportunity provided by her youthful beauty.
I feel it myself (as a 36yo transwoman), compounded by a tech industry I work in that also has weird ideas about the value of youth.
She needs to not just "get out of a rut" - she needs to realize that her value to the world is not being attractive, fertile, or wealthy. She needs to get to a place where she feels like she's providing value to others that goes beyond that.
It's an uphill climb, as some of the posts here make very clear - there are a lot of people who view a woman's worth in a similar fashion.
The painful truth is that reproductive worth is something that the woman is facing right now. Its fleeting and nearly gone.
Its also a type of worth that stands above most.There are very few jobs or hobbies the average person would be willing to die for in the same way they would for their infant child.
The saddest part of this story to me is how easily some people can discard friends on a whim.
I have made it an important part of my life and my decision making process to treat my friends like family. That means if I consider a move or any other big change, they are at the forefront of the "is it worth it" question. At 38 it's increasingly hard to make friends (note: not acquaintances), and at this point it's why I have zero interest in leaving Colorado, regardless of the opportunity.
Wow, so much HN hate for Polly? It's my opinion that Polly is a national treasure. Her shameless wit and sense of humor make me smile. Her profound love of humanity makes me deeply happy. Not only that, but her writing is so poetic and lovely. Truly a gem.
On the topic of this question/answer, I assume most of you are young? Or at least younger than I am. I can tell you now that the way you feel now will not last. Change is absolute. There will be a time where you will look around you for reasons to be thankful. Make as many reasons as you can. You will need them.
I get the sense that there's a lot of embittered-male, "rubbing it in" type comments in this thread. Mixed-gender communities seem to have much more balanced and meaningful discussions for these kinds of topics: https://www.metafilter.com/171539/I-did-everything-you-said-...
MetaFilter has its own problems. One common trope there is the angry, lonely person in their 30s-50s who paints the isolated life as beautiful and meaningful in order to feel better about themselves and possibly lure others into it. You see this the more you know the stories behind the usernames. The writing there is very nice at times, and I love that the small IRL communities have formed, but the discussion here is more honest and the advice is better.
I don't know if anyone here knows who Polly/Heather is? If not, check out the suck.com archives (and her weekly cartoon Filler) for your 90's dot com boom era culture flashback.
I agree, things change and sometimes you can't go back. Doors are always opening and closing, but the rate is never equal.
There was a nytimes article about a famous author giving advice to young authors about keep trying, you can do anything. Meanwhile he didn't say he lived off a large inheritance. I think in the arts world its often the only real way and its a problem that people are encouraged to follow their dreams.
Eh, I think most failing artists would do well to learn a lot about business.
Very few people care about what's best. Yet so many artists strive to do the "best" something. Write the best story. Write the best song. Paint the greatest painting, and so on...
That's fine. But you've got to know very few people actually care about "best". They care about new, different, someone who's creating art just for them. The ones that actually do care about quality, they're hard to reach, and everyone has different tastes. So no matter how good your art is, a lot of that small group of people who cares about quality probably won't like it still. It's all subjective!
If you want to make a living as an artist, and you don't have an inheritance to live off, stop trying to win the artistic lottery. Start thinking of markets, how to differentiate yourself, how to create something you can sell, how to carve out a niche of people that will buy your art and pay for your living, how to grow that group of people, and over time, maybe you'll grow a big enough following that you can create the exact type of art you want to create.
Until then, create something you can sell or starve. Fantasies are for stories. Life isn't easy.
I sometimes feel like I've won the lottery. The win being absolute absence of urges to travel, make memories or relationships. I just want to be alone and work on my stuff, which also happens to make me financially independent.
I'm old enough to know it's not just a phase. It's just who I am.
Sometimes you can get distracted (for years) and cut yourself off from the world.
This can be because of adventure Travel, creating a business, or focusing all your energy on one person and then having that relationship fall apart.
I moved cities to be better positioned for my Startup. Ignored all friends and family for 4 years, and ultimately the company failed and I felt very similar to this woman.
The prison system is developing "re-emergence" programs to help inmates reintegrate with the world after being isolated for 20 years. If they can come back to happy lives, anyone can.
But I think there should be more books/classes and programs focused on integrating back with your own life after a period of isolation.
I've been doing something similar recently, and it feels really good tbh. Instead of adding to the note/list, I just reach out right then and there and send them a message/email. It's worked wonderfully to reconnect with family and friends.
This is a path one can choose. Another is to rediscover the childlike wonderment by becoming a keen observer of nature. It strips away the ego.
We do not really invent anything. We mimic nature. All our Mathematics, Science and Technology already exists. Our egos are unjustified.
Just pay attention to who is actually driving your car or riding your motorcycle. You will realise that it is not the conscious you. There certainly is an autonomous supercomputer in our brains. Can we control it?
The best data storage mechanism known to us is the DNA. No SSD comes close. We haven't even really figured out how our brains really store "videos" and "images".
Also pay attention to things like premonition. I have had it. Most of us have had these experiences. Talk to people about these. There is no scientific explanation for these experiences.
We are connected to everything else. Our lives in isolation have no meaning.
So many people here are happy to point out that you should not look at anything about yourself -- and that you should try and make a difference out there.
That's very Zen of you, but it is SEVERELY missing the point. Burnout and depression do not ask for a new reason to live. They ask for a break from the negative experiences that caused -- and now maintain -- the initial burnout and depression. They also ask for sources of energy and optimism.
Amortizing your already tired lower back while voluntarily cleaning a local park won't give you that. It's very likely it will make you less capable of overcoming your burnout and depression, even. (Well-targeted workout can still help though.)
I am disappointed at the massive virtue signalling in HN sometimes.
If anybody empathizes with the post, what helped me was volunteering. Helping others and working with a group to help others gives me a lot of appreciation for all the little things that I have. Also, going out of my way to make someone else smile helps me stay happy. Compliments are a great way to start, I was inspired by a cool article about giving the perfect compliment - https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/sex/a6271/how-to-complimen...
Being nice to others in a genuine way builds trust. And building this trust in people around you can help dissipate some of the emotional pain.
Wow. That article is from 2009, and it really shows. Giving random compliments to strangers in 2018 is just a really bad idea. Doubly so in any kind of professional environment. Save it for your mate or your dog.
"We should be more honest about the real tradeoffs between endless wanderlust/adventure-seeking and putting down real roots. The things that make for a great instagram feed or Bumble profile are very different from those of permanence that help us live well." (Friend's comment on article)
Polly's reply is so shameless (including promoting her own book in the reply) that it's incredible just how badly it missed the point.
> If you want to build a life with a partner, and have a more satisfying career, and maybe have children, you need to treat yourself like a treasured child starting today. If you had a daughter who was 35 years old and felt like all of her traveling and moving was a giant mistake that embodied everything BAD and shortsighted about her, what would you tell her? You’d tell her she was wrong. You’d say, “Your life is just beginning!”
This doesn't help the author and it doesn't help onlookers, either. There is a time window on opportunity. There are serious tradeoffs that need to be pondered when you reach adulthood, and almost none of them are helped with a "you deserve it!" attitude. And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you, like your children will.
I agree that this is bad advice. I'm 35. I've got a wife, two kids, and a weird house with tons of maintenance projects. My parents live five minutes away, and I spend most weekends at Home Depot or hanging out in my parents' living room with the kids. I work too much and don't sleep enough. And I'm blissfully happy.
I say this is bad advice not because I think what makes me happy will make everyone happy. I know lots of people would find a life with kids in the suburbs stifling. But the "treasured child" type of advice makes the same mistake in the opposite direction. Our culture glamorizes a life of travel and adventure and experiences, but I think it dramatically underestimate the percentage of the population who find such a life unfulfilling and would be more fulfilled with roots and neighbors and a sense of place.
"What would you tell your kid?" My dad traveled the world, visiting dozens of countries helping bring health care to the developing world. He told me that the most fulfilling thing he did in his life was raise two kids. That's very uncool to say these days. But kids are always best served by honesty. They will find fulfilling whatever it is that they find fulfilling. Maybe they'll live a life of experience and die happy. Or maybe the best thing they will ever do will be to make you grandkids. But you're not helping them figure things out by trying to sell them an aspirational version of reality.
>I agree that this is bad advice. I'm 35. I've got a wife, two kids, and a weird house with tons of maintenance projects. My parents live five minutes away, and I spend most weekends at Home Depot or hanging out in my parents' living room with the kids. I work too much and don't sleep enough. And I'm blissfully happy.
Something that seems to come out in what you're saying is personal growth. To be a decent spouse, to be a decent parent, to work through home maintenance projects, and find new ways to interact with your parents as you both age, all of these require you to push yourself to learn and grow. It may not seem like it over 3 months, but over years of ups and downs you realize you've changed and grown a lot, hopefully with purpose.
With jobs and moves, it's easy to change jobs and places just because you get bored. But change isn't equal to growth. Sometimes it's just change and it feels meaningless.
I don't mean to say family is better than career or vice versa. But lots of people (me included) can wander through different jobs without feeling there's any thread of continuity or purpose to those changes - it's just a change. Maybe it's easier for people who can actively manage their career and always have their next move/job be another way for them to grow.
>I say this is bad advice not because I think what makes me happy will make everyone happy.
Agreed it won’t intrinsically make everyone happy, but ignoring the suburbs/kids aspect, what you are really describing, I think, is stability and that is a prerequisite for mental health and happiness.
Lack of stability, at any age, but particularly for children is significantly damaging to mental health.
I used to work briefly in dependency court (where the state intervenes when children are abused, abadonded and neglected). These children are subjected to psychiatric evaluations and they all say the same thing, lack of stability in the home devastates a child’s mental health (but also does the same to adults).
Travel/adventure are great in the context of a stable life, but on its own suggest a likelihood instability and thus mental health problems that make happiness damn near impossible. On the other hand if this person were to have sacrificed their travels early on to plant roots, that doesn’t really guarantee stability either, especially in this day and age where even if you do everything right odds are you might face the instability of employment, income, health, relationships, etc...
I guess the point, in general, is not to follow somebody else's story or the story that society narrates to most.
The point of life is to go with your true will, whatever that is.
For the comment above, it seems like he is blissfully happy because he has funded and followed is true will(as personal and empiric as it is).
In the case of the author in the article, seems like root is the unsatisfied purpose in her life. The depression for the past, the anxiety about the future doesn't help with the present and like a snowball, it just gets worse with time.
Agreed, sounds like the advice is to put your fingers in your ears, and sing as loudly as you can to drown out the doubts and questions, instead of solving them. Saying that no, the life path you are on is great, stop doubting yourself, keep doing it. If you refuse to acknowledge you've made any mistakes you don't have to deal with reality.
Some things take time and sacrifice to build. Family, friends, community. Most of us really need these things, but there is an opportunity cost to pay to get them. Sometimes we have all of it dumped in our lap and we take it for granted until it's gone. If you are willing to pay the price in time, effort, and emotion, you can rebuild it, but no guarantees.
Conceding your every point for the sake of argument: what use is any of that to 'Haunted' right now? It's hardly going to come as a surprise that adult life involves tradeoffs; she's speaking from a place where she has belatedly recognized that fact, and feels as if she's made every one of them wrongly. If the purpose is to help 'Haunted' - or those reading along who find 'Haunted' painfully relatable - make more of the years ahead of her than she has of those behind, where do you see this sort of thing making success in that purpose more likely?
"Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does." — Jean Paul Sartre, (French existentialist)
'Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.' — apocryphally also Sartre, but really who cares? Wisdom is wisdom.
To your quote: responsibility, sure, but its corollary is authority, and they exist together in precisely identical degree. Just as we bear the burden, if it is one, of the stories we write of our lives - we do nonetheless retain the ability to write whatever stories of ourselves we choose.
Sartre may consider that a condemnation. I can imagine no more liberating conception of life.
Perhaps advising other young women from her own experience? Then those years will not have been wasted. On the other hand, if no one learns from her mistake and makes the exact same mistake, then her years will have been wasted.
One that at least makes a credible attempt to justify privileging brutality, as in the sort of 'brutal honesty' on display here, over kindness. I have no preference over whether such a justification proceeds from pragmatism or principle, but I would like to see one attempted.
I don't see what's wrong with the quoted reply. Why is it so wrong to not settle down before 35? I have friends who were settled down, had kids, and divorced by 35; should we seek to emulate their experience over being single at 35? Of course not.
Nor do I see what's wrong with responding to a question with a relevant and timely personal anecdote.
> And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you,
Apple outlived Steve Jobs. Hamlet outlived Shakespeare.
And anyway, why is it anyone's obligation to create something that outlives them. That's hubris.
Arguably, the sole purpose of life is to procreate. You can live a purely unfulfilled life and die the most miserable wretch possible, but if your children have children, and their children do as well, and so on, it doesn't matter - genetics doesn't care (barring some kind of recessive hereditary illness responsible for this original misery).
And perhaps this is why so many people get divorced, and even why there are so many bastard children and deadbeat fathers/parents: in some inherent way, such people have already fulfilled some unnamed biological goal and have no real incentive to pursue it further. Because a family, being a committed parent, is a societal abstraction that many need not bother with. Certainly you can see this in other animal species.
The book is relevant to the topic being discussed, because the author talks about it to describe how she herself -- purportedly a successful published author -- has to fight off feeling inadequate, even though she's being paid by her publisher to travel cross-country to promote her book.
Take out the mention that she's on book tour, and you no longer have a frame of reference about her self-shame.
> It's more like "Hey! I wrote a book on this exact issue. I really hope it helps"
Except that's your notion and not what Polly was doing with their book mention in the article. There it served as a way to kinda say, "Hey, I also share some insecurity issues with you, caused this by book I'm touring on right now, and oh, here's the link to it". There was no other nudging of Haunted to read the book.
I can totally understand this, and it seems that a lot of the blog posts that make it to the top of HN are in some way self promoting the writer's work (be it music, IT consulting, their web-product, their music, etc).
I guess it is a hard balance to strike between self-promotion and good content. Perhaps if the writer could be more open about the promotion stuff in the beginning of the article it wouldn't feel insincere.
I’m reminded of a story an English tracher once related to us. A friend of the group decided to go off and teach English in Spain, had lots of fun and few worries, life was wonderful and friends back home felt “jealous”. But this person returned one day, many years later with little in the sense of career accomplishment and security (dunno what prompted the move back, age, money, career, crisis?).
Moral was when they got back they realized all that “fun” time accomplished little but transitory happiness. They came back asking friends for job favors and so on.
There are many people in the world who will never know happiness. Life itself is transitory, 'accomplishment' is not a substitute for it, 'security' is a dream. Old men may say 'Youth is wasted on the young'; I say bravo to the young who drink life to the lees.
When you sell today, can you be so sure of tomorrow?
I think it's fair to say both viewpoints have merit. Building for the future allows one to accumulate resources and deploy them for meaningful goals, and is prone to a failure mode where one forgets how to be alive, or what is meaningful, trades away special capacity for enjoyment youth brings, and gambles against life ceasing before the building is done. Living for the moment leaves more room for present joys... and has a failure mode where one becomes unprepared for likely futures and arrives there to find the moment miserable.
Does a wise person minimax, or do they balance?
Does wisdom figure in, or do people simply externalize a neurological temperament?
I guess thr issue with this person (and many others) is that they didn’t have a network, experience, etc., to fall back on in order to take steps to get back on track. Basically they would have to start from scratch. Teaching ESL in some far away place doesn’t buy you much either here or even there (unless you wanna continue in a dead-end job). Also, ESL teachers tend to be young. Older ones are rare and kids don’t prefer them-they like hip “older kids” to “teach them” not “dad”.
"treat yourself like a treasured child" isn't going to help with anyone's concerns or goals. It's vacuous.
Women have a ticking clock here in a way men simply do not. I'd tell her "I've been telling you to hurry up and start a family for TEN YEARS"...
It's imperative to discuss with your partner your relationship requirements early, otherwise they're unlikely to meet them. If they don't coincide, either make peace or find someone else.
We're not boomers, this generation will rely on their children much more than their parents generation needed to rely on them. Those without children are going to have a much harder time into "retirement", especially if they're living paycheck-to-paycheck.
>Women have a ticking clock here in a way men simply do not. I'd tell her "I've been telling you to hurry up and start a family for TEN YEARS"...
I'd argue men still have a ticking clock in some senses. Sure you can still get it up and produce children, but your capacity to engage with them and raise them goes down over time. I certainly would like to be hale and hearty enough to see my kids graduate college and be able to travel to visit my grandkids, for instance.
Producing loin-fruit isn't the end-goal unless you have some kind of royal titles to pass on. For most of us it's just about raising a family.
> I'd argue men still have a ticking clock in some senses. Sure you can still get it up and produce children, but your capacity to engage with them and raise them goes down over time.
I used to work with a woman who was 47 at the time, in a long-term committed relationship, and still pre-menopausal.
She told me once that she and her partner have discussed the idea of having kids before she hits menopause, and they both ended up agreeing that it would be a bad idea because by the time the kids turn 18, she'll be 65 (and I don't know his age, but I met him a couple of times, and he looks to be around her age), and they wouldn't want any kids to have do deal with elderly parents at such a young age.
I think that you and Polly are both correct in different ways.
Your points on the time window of opportunity and the basic nature of tradeoffs is well-put and correct, and is the better advice to give younger people in the context of hearing this woman's story and reflecting on what the lessons are for them.
I think Polly's advice is way more helpful for the actual woman who wrote the letter, though.
"The things that make for a great instagram feed or Bumble profile are very different from those of permanence that help us live well."
Maybe it depends on the mindset and intent. After all, what is truly permanent in this life?
If you approach traveling as a practice of impermanence and presence, then it can be a very broadening, empowering experience. Traveling can be an excellent lesson on the transient nature of life. Any one of us can lose everything in a moment without warning, no matter how well established or solid your home is.
So from that perspective there actually is no trade-off because it's all the same.
I think it's worth quoting the author's book promotion in context (underscores added to show the size of the link):
> Let me be more concrete: Promoting a book — which is what I’ve been doing since __my new book__ came out last month — is fun and exciting. You get to travel and meet new people. But there are aspects of it that feel a little corrosive. Too much focus on the self, on presentation, on sales numbers, on whether or not your work matters.
The columnist is doing the relatively rare thing of going beyond vague platitudes (It’s not easy for anyone, no matter how many deep roots they might’ve nurtured.) and referencing her specific personal circumstance: that even as a touring author -- they kind of life every aspiring writer would kill for -- she has a constant fight against doubt and shame.
Because she doesn't elaborate on what her book is about, nor mentions it again, I had to click through to find out -- a compilation of her "Ask Polly" columns, specifically on the topic of self-improvement. Polly's entire response, according to `wc`, is 2,337 words -- 1,700 of those words come after the link to her book.
Sure, I can agree that she should've taken the time to link to her publisher page, instead of the Amazon link she seems to have bookmarked for sharing. But if she's trying to be honest about her life situation, how is she not supposed to mention being on promotional tour? That's what a writer's life is consumed by after publication: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/10/th...
"Polly's reply is so shameless (including promoting her own book in the reply) that it's incredible just how badly it missed the point."
I think that was the point, given that the whole article was about letting go of shame.
Making a subtly different point - "...are very different from those of permanence that help us live well." Who's to say what "live well" actually means? I mean, you & your friend may have an idea about what it looks like, and I may have an idea about what it looks like, and chances are they might even align. But that doesn't mean that every person needs the husband and kids and career success and creative accomplishments in that image. There's a strong revealed-preference argument that the original letter-writer wasn't actually into that; she should own those choices rather than assume her life needs to look like everyone else's life.
> And there are some things, like travel and careerism, that will not outlive you, like your children will.
Earth is changing rapidly, I don't think it's a bad idea to travel and experience certain facets of life before they're extinct. Places or things you want to see in the future may not exist by then.
But what is the long term value of seeing places and things, if the person experiencing them expires leaving nothing behind?
I went on some great adventures as a young man, backpacking round the Middle East and later in a job that involved a lot of world travel. I always thought I'd do more of those things, and while I have enjoyed family life I felt I lost something when I settled down and had kids and a career.
However, now that my kids are teenagers I can share my experiences of the world with them. We've been on some great holidays together, and have more planned. Those old adventures now have value, because they made me the person I am today and I can share that and leverage it in how I bring up my own children and shape their introduction to the world. Those experiences and the stories I have to tell and lessons I learned have acquired a new value, beyond merely myself.
Obviously, there is a tradeoff between the two ends of the spectrum that you've labelled travel and careerism...
Here is another tradeoff for you to consider: One between telling an inspiring lie in order to pick someone up and being brutally honest about their life choices.
If your "advice" is "you missed your chance, you're screwed", then that does not help anyone else either. Advice is as much about inspiring confidence and fostering a change in perspective as it is about dealing with the hard truths.
I was going to say this. She mentions her own art and how it has lapsed, but the letter she penned is full of promise when it comes to the art of writing.
Not sure it would help her but I can confirm at least one thing: she has a good writing style. That's not a given and proves she doesn't have everything wrong as she sadly seems to think.
She's in her mid-30s. It's hard when you are at such a point of despair, but it's not too late to start a career, family, meaningful social activities, etc. Making progress on any of these fronts may seem slow, but it can pretty remarkable how it all adds up when you look back 5 or 10 years later.
As long as you don't become an active shooter, criminal, terrorist, serial killer, psychopath, or end up committing suicide, then technically your life was not a waste.
Our modern consumer culture infantilizes both sexes and keeps them "young in spirit". This is by design I now realize.
Remember the magic 18-35 demographic? Think about what would happen if the advertising industry could, say, move that out 5 years? 10 years? 15 years? (50 is the new 30!!!).
I'm convinced, either by design or the simple aftereffect of youth worship in America that is what is happening. Consumerism lulls you into a life of minute distractions in empty things, and prevents you from reflecting and appreciating long term / difficult things. AKA having kids.
For men, well, they can sire children pretty late, with some side effects of slight increases to defect rates.
The amount of focus a person engaging too much in social media can cause this despair. Not saying it's Instagram's/FB/Tweeter's fault, but comparing yourself hourly to the 'fairy tales' out there can break even the strongest spirit.
In fact comparing yourself to others is quite a double-edged swords with it's highs and lows, and throws your emotional states off-balance.
I had a similar (but much less pronounced) experience in the first couple of years of reading HN. What was I doing? Comparing yourself to all these super-unicorn-entrepreneurs daily was taking it's toll on my appreciation of what I had already accomplished.
What's missing is meaning in life. It provides a sense of purpose, a system of values, and goals to strive for. If it's not family, then I recommend volunteering somewhere. Helping others is incredibly fulfilling and usually works for just about everyone who is in this position.
Also, there are billions of people with far worse lives than you can imagine. Humans just like you and me that live in misery and will never experience a fraction of the freedom that you enjoy. That thought alone should be a sobering realization that your life is not that bad, and it's time to get up and do something.
I might have started from the "I’m drinking too much" part and raised that as the most important thing to address. Sometimes it's the result, sure, but more often it's the cause.
I dunno. There seems to be many ways to be miserable. The only distinguishing feature of this might be that the possibility of doing it this way is rather new, and more relevant to HN. Suffocating in Podunk, Nowhere is an older thing. I think there is a happy middle ground somewhere, although it's probably individual.
Not that I'd know. I struggle with this exact problem right now, I'm just younger and less extreme.
Anyway, "Merry Go 'Round" by Kacey Musgraves is a great song.
I think the actionable part of the advice is the idea of externalizing an emotion and treating it as an object to hold up and examine. Something that is outside of yourself and subject to analysis. To treat a feeling as being something you have, not something you are.
This is a skill and it takes conscious effort to acquire it.
Her story is sad. She seems lost, and I do not think she was helped very well by Polly. A lot of people feeling lost nowadays end up on the wrong side of 40 with little to show for it. It is heartbreaking to watch and must be terribly difficult for the families and people involved.
This is a very common experience. Sooner or later you get out of "survival mode" in your life and start to wonder what's left. I think this used to be called a mid-life crisis.
Speaking generally, I've seen people find their way out of it by making their lives be about something other than themselves. That can mean kids, a community, a cause, or anything that requires setting their ego aside.
I don't think this is a flaw of western culture, as many characterize it. I think our parents and their parents did a poor job preparing this generation for dealing with this because they were rarely prosperous enough to think about more than just survival. That could hit any culture that went through less prosperous times equally.
I had a similar experience, travelled a lot, many different jobs, changing relationships - but I see myself as a success, would not want to change that experience for anything. In my 40s now with kids and loving wife - still moving jobs and countries (but with my family this time) I couldn't be happier.
Yes, I had periods of desperations and self-doubts but I would have had those also had I stayed in the same place focussing on the "career ladder". I'm happy I following my urge to see the world and embrace chaotic life.
"Wasted live" is nothing but a question of perspective.
I don't have debt though - that part is indeed worrisome.
Advice from a dinosaur: Find a divorced dad who has custody of his kid(s) and is in dire need of help with raising them. Nothing is more meaningful that providing children with a good home to grow up in. Pour her soul into it. Make sure said dad is reasonably good with money, as she clearly is not. Don't be too picky about looks, but make sure it's someone who can basically float her boat. Forsake all others. Then follow grandma's recipe: Keep his stomach full and his balls empty.
Does that sound awful? Does it matter, if it works?
A great movie I saw recently that directly deals with the author's situation is Oslo, August 31. Grant it, there's little in the movie that the author would find comforting, but overall I found it to be a very realistic, if harsh, portrait of someone who has misspent a large portion of their adult life and the struggle to correct course.
I'm a 29 year TCK who has moved around a lot because I don't actually have a place to call "home". I planned my life around trying to get Permanent Resident status in New Zealand, but now I'm struggling to find a job.
My latest idea is to study a certification. Has anybody done this before, and does it work? Will that help me start a career?
what was your motivation for choosing NZ? I think NZ could be a very lonely place for a newcomer without an ethnic immigrant community. Your best bet is picking up a trade. You'll not find a large enough white collar economy in NZ.
Ok, which trade? Is it possible to get a student visa to study that trade? I figured out how to find certifications that are in demand; is there a similar way to find trades that are in demand?
Lots of trades in demand in Australia. Not sure about NZ. You can get PR simply by being a bricklayer or panel beater. Not sure if you can without any experience though. Consult a migration agent or lawyer if serious
However if you're a software engineer or IT just do that
> My latest idea is to study a certification. Has anybody done this before, and does it work? Will that help me start a career?
Maybe? I suspect it depends partly on where (the company) you want to work, partly why you haven't been able to find a job yet, and partly where you do (or want to) live.
1. The sort of company you want to work for
Some places want certifications, degrees, etc. so if you identify those places as somewhere you want to work, and they need certifications to apply, or to improve your chances, then you need the certifications.
The places I have worked, and know about (hosting, SAAS, all UNIX based), are mostly interested in what they can get out of you. What you can do for them. As a result even though I have no certifications, I've managed to do well. I did have to start out pretty low on the ladder, Tech Support for a couple of years, but with hard work and motivation I now work from home as a successful contractor/consultant. It should be noted that I've got the jobs I have ahead of people who have certifications or degrees, mostly because I have convinced the people I interviewed with that have something to give. Where you want to work I believe will be an important deciding factor in wether certification will be helpful.
2. Why you haven't been able to find a job yet
If you haven't been able to get a job yet but the reason is something other than certifications then it's questionable how much benefit certifications will help. Try to work out why you didn't get a job or where you failed. Ask the company why you applied to, they might ignore you, they might help.
Are you shy? Do you undersell yourself? Do you present badly in person (disheveled, or strong smell for example)? Do you come across as a mis-understood, hard done by and unfairly shunned by the world? (the answer to that last one is yes, subjectively, from my reading of your medium post[0]. People complaining about how hard done by doesn't look good.
I've seen skilled people fall at the last hurdle, job in the bag except for the final in-person meeting, only to blow it by being a miserable fucker.[1]
3. where you do (or want to) live
I know someone who has a tech job in NZ, it doesn't pay well. NZ is pretty small, are there enough jobs? Are your expectations and/or demands too high? I started out in London, but now work remotely further North. If I were starting out from scratch it would be much harder to get where I am today by being in a much more regional place. It's harder to climb the ladder if there's no ladder around.
Some closing thoughts.
You got a paid internship that seemed to get extended, can you get a job with that company? If not, why not? Can you get another job locally? At least that way any company you apply for will know that you're at least employable. Social Proof. You need to prove yourself. I've met great programmers without a degree (or an unrelated degree in photography) and some terrible programmers with relevant academic backgrounds, having a job and being good at it might actually help persuade people that you're any good.
It might also be that you just can't go to NZ. It sucks. I want to sail around on a yacht and live in the Mediteranean instead of the UK, but kids, a wife, elderly parents etc. make that dream constantly a bit too far away to grasp. You might need to scale your pland and dreams back, or at least move them around a bit.
Good luck.
[0] That piece came across as a priviledged muddled whinge to me and if it were me I'd delete it, or at least rework it into something with observations and then a constructive conclusion. I doubt that campaigning for universities to run courses will help, it doesn't matter if companies want CCNA or whatever, if students don't want to study them universities won't offer them.
[1] If you're not good in person, practice. Go out to user groups, learn to talk to people, and listen.
I'm sorry that I'm bad with people, and wrote a "privileged, muddled whinge." I grew up in the countryside and I don't know how to meet people.
Please can you teach me how to get better? If certifications aren't the answer, do you have a better solution? I'll lower my dreams and take anything, anywhere.
> I'm sorry that I'm bad with people, and wrote a "privileged, muddled whinge."
Don't apologise to me! What you got was my take on how you have presented yourself. I've been responsible for hiring people in the past, and I'll hire people again in the future. Maybe my first impression could be useful to you.
All you need to do is take it (the criticism) or leave it. Defend it if you want, but there's no-one here interested in hearing that. Perhaps more valuably for you would be to try to work out why you came across like that.
> I grew up in the countryside and I don't know how to meet people.
I grew up having no friends at school and was bullied for 5 years. It took me until my 30s to recover from it. This included being incredibly shy and not knowing how to meet people. The process will never be complete.
> Please can you teach me how to get better?
I can tell you how I recovered, your path may differ.
After a year with no real friends in London (pints after work with colleages apart) I went to tech meetups. I learned to talk to people by just doing it. I realised that these people were very very similar to me. I persevered and eventually friendships just fell out of that.
Are you interested in reading? Join a reading group. D&D, join a… you get the picture.
I understand that it's paralysingly hard for some people to talk to other people, so I suggest gently pushing yourself to take small steps by surrounding yourself with relatively like-minded people, people who at least are likely to share a similar mental state.
I can now talk to people, go up to them, small talk. Even convince themselves that I'm outgoing. It's tiring and I need to take a break from it and it feels like an act, but it works, and I make friends and I have a better life because of it.
> If certifications aren't the answer, do you have a better solution? I'll lower my dreams and take anything, anywhere.
A better solution? Not really. Work out why you've not been getting the jobs. Getting a CCNA only to discover that not having a CCNA wasn't the reason you weren't getting the job will set you back $number_of_years_it_takes_to_get_a_CCNA.
The purpose of getting a CCNA is networking: not only the digital kind, but also the social kind. That could help me get a student visa to be in the right country, where I might meet the right people to help achieve my dream of settling there.
Well, if they're not offering the course than that makes it difficult, and if it turns out it's not the lack of CCNA that's preventing you getting a job then you've not done yourself any favours.
Maybe it will help, I don't know. Good luck though.
Have you seen the old girl who walks the streets of London,
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags.
She's no time for talking, she just keeps right on walking,
Carrying her home in two carrier bags.
So how can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you that the sun don't shine.
Let me take you by the hand and walk with you the streets of London,
Show you something to make you change your mind.
I've been reading Jordan Peterson's 12 rules and see a lot of applicability here, especially "treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping."
If I could, I might recommend his self-authoring series to a person like this. I've been working through the prompts lately and this was a first thought as I read the letter, myself.
I feel like there's the other side - the people who were groomed from childhood to pursue one career path (i.e. medicine or law), and end up actually achieving "success" in that field only to feel the exact same way - unfulfilled and feeling like they've wasted their life pursuing something that isn't actually meaningful to them.
Looking at something through the lens of 'art' is, to me, a way of avoiding looking critically at the issues and their possible solutions. At the same tike I agree that being ashamed about the situation doesn't help in analysing the issues either.
This was an interesting read. I guess I'll start with the response.
As has been pointed out by others, bringing up the book was a weird humblebrag. It kind of makes me think that Polly chose to answer this particular request for help because it was an opportunity to continue promoting her book, not that it somehow organically happened to fit in with her advice.
Also, it seems like a lot of the response kind of boils down to "nuh-uh!" and "cut it out!" with no shortage of affirmation-esque platitudes. From my personal experience, I have found that line of reasoning to be frustratingly valid only in retrospect for people that have already overcome the bulk of their depression/anxiety/existential dread. It's easy to be prescriptive or reductive when you have some distance from the issue that you're talking about, and that's not necessarily helpful for everybody.
Anyway, as far as Haunted's post goes, I can entirely identify with those feelings.
On my nineteenth birthday I had my house raided (and entirely destroyed) by the gang taskforce of the local pd. This was because in the middle of the night before, my house had been tagged with some gang related graffiti on the side of the house that faced the freeway. I couldn't afford to fix the place after the raid, and had no way of guaranteeing that the people that tagged the house wouldn't continue to do so.
So I had to move with only the clothes I was wearing.
At 20 I had to move overnight because a stalker broke into my mother's house (where I was staying) and tried to choke me to death. When the police arrived, I was almost arrested because the stalker had friends in the department (this individual moonlit as a kind of "high class" cocaine dealer to lawyers and a few judges in the area). Knowing he was certainly going to come back with no consequences, I moved again. This time I was able to carry my laptop and a change of clothes.
At 21, me and my then-girlfriend up and left everything that wouldn't fit in her car so that we could move in with her parents as a way to get her out of prostitution. When we got there, her parents changed their minds and we ended up selling everything including the car in order to get a ride across the state to an office building I knew we could squat in.
At 22, I was summarily kicked out of the living room that I had been crashing in because I told the guy whose house it was that I wasn't comfortable with covering for him every time he stole money from his wife to buy heroin. He kept my laptop and the bag of half my clothes out of spite.
I have since lived in much more stable circumstances, and the last two time I'ved moved, I've kept all of my stuff and relationships! For the first time in my life! That being said, it's made it difficult for me to shake the mindset of "Don't buy it or care about it if you can't take it with you given five minutes' notice." In fact, I don't know if I'll ever be entirely without that feeling rattling around in my head.
If put on the spot, I would have difficulty making a rational argument that my life hasn't been wasted. There objectively exists a number of periods of my life which I have nearly zero to show for. That being said, it's not a line of thought that I regularly entertain. That type of existential despair is simply too easy to wallow in. It's like quicksand. The idea of a ~Meaningful Life~ (and its opposite) is at once way too emotionally weighty and way too easy to mercurially define to be a useful focus for anybody, especially people that are already struggling with other issues.
As for broke, it is a tangibly anxiety-provoking and embarrassing thing. Every little setback (like schools you're applying for asking for surprise paperwork that you can't access, being "mysteriously" rejected by a school wholesale without an interview just for ASKING if they offer financial aid, not being able to afford basic resources to launch a small business, etc.) makes everything seem more and more like there is some sort of cosmic curse at play, or that the world is actually reflecting my personal worth. All I can really do is keep trying, and personally only the tiny victories help with that sort of anxiety. That's just me of course, others might respond to being broke differently.
As for "friendless", the only thing I can think to say to someone who makes that claim is "Are you sure about that?" I recently moved to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and have yet to make any close friends in the area, but I still have close friends from all around the country that I talk to on a near-daily basis. Group chats are great for this. Whenever I am feeling lonely, I figure that it's on me to reach out.
The friends you"ve moved away from probably miss you as much as you miss them, and while it's not the same as hanging out in person, an extended phone call or a nice text chain full of jokes and news snippets can be a healthy reminder that you haven't just "disappeared".
Sorry this got a bit long, I might've lost and then re-found the thread of my reasoning at some point ;)
Basically, I think it's good that the original author decided to reach out and ask for help, even if the help is from an advice columnist. I would encourage anybody else struggling with these things (like I currently am) to make an effort to do the same in whatever way works for them. Asking for help when needed, and offering it when capable are two of the most satisfying and empowering things a person can do.
Also as stated by many posters, therapy from a good therapist can also be a godsend.
Anyway I'm done rambling for now. If anybody wants to have a friendly chat about depression or isolation etc., feel free to shoot me an email! I am not a professional anything, but I'm pretty friendly and a good listener!
> Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren't yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
> Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup – they all die. So do we.
> And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and the sane living.
> Think of what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes.
-- Robert Fulghum, "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten"
Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of '99
Wear Sunscreen
If I could offer you only one tip for the future,
Sunscreen would be it
The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists
whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience...
I will dispense this advice now...
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth
oh nevermind;
you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded
But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself
and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked...
You are not as fat as you imagine
Don't worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday
Do one thing everyday that scares you
Sing
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts; don't put up with people who are reckless with yours
Floss
Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind...the race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself
Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults, if you succeed in doing this, tell me how
Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements
Stretch
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life...
the most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don't
Get plenty of calcium
Be kind to your knees, you'll miss them when they're gone
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't
maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't
maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding
anniversary...
what ever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either
your choices are half chance, so are everybody else's
Enjoy your body,use it every way you can...don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own
Dance...even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them
Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly
Get to know your parents, you never know when they'll be gone for good
Be nice to your siblings, they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future
Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get
the more you need the people you knew when you were young
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard, live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft
Travel
Accept certain inalienable truths:
prices will rise
politicians will philander
you too will get old, and when you do you'll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable
politicians were noble
and children respected their elders
Respect your elders
Don't expect anyone else to support you
Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse, but you never know when either one might run out
Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth
Man, she sounds like she hates her life. That truly sucks. My advice is to get to Burning Man. She needs to see another way of defining value in herself and others.
1) This feeling of longing, helplessness, and futility resonates with a lot more people than you might expect from sitting on a park bench watching passersby
2) Lots of HN people have hot takes, of varying quality, on how one should behave in light of such a situation.
(Edit: see, the internet alone is part of what is wrong with the world. I share that I feel completely alone and miserable and what does the internet do? Downvote. Did you bother to comment negatively or just provide some sort of reason as to why you don't like my comment? Nah, 'here have a downvote' because you're safe and comfortable in your anonymity where you can freely show someone you don't like them because they have a different experience or opinion than you and have decide their worth is less than yours)
I'm broke, friendless and have nothing remotely resembling a meaningful life.
I however have not moved all over the place, I live 15 minutes from my childhood home and spend 90% of my life living in the same 3 blocks.
As far as family I barely have any left. My mother and my half-brother.
The bulk of my social interaction is via emails with one individual. On the occasions they reply, they're very terse due to how busy the individual is. I've met them once, for all of maybe 25 minutes. Other than that I mostly just talk to bun, a purple stuffed anthropomorphic rabbit I've had all but a few weeks of my life. As a child I was only invited to a few birthday partings or outings, as an adult I occasionally get asked why I wasn't at so and so's event 'well, I didn't even know about it...' and I was invited to a wedding of someone I went to school with from kindergarten on a couple of years ago, I was even sat at the head table with her father, with the exception of her insisting on a dance with me not a single person talked to me with the exception of the bartender taking my order. At one point I simple gave up and stood quite literally outside looking in, literally in the shadows outside of the barn the reception was at until the bartender cut me off and my contacts were gone through to find someone to collect me and my car.
The few seemingly like-minded people I've found are famous multi-millionaires and billionaires that live thousands of miles from me that I have effectively zero chance of ever interacting with. Put a gun to my head and I wouldn't be able to begin to tell you how one makes a friend because the only person that believes in any amount is essentially a stranger that I've met once and likely may never meet again.
I don't even know how to talk to people. I'm 33 and I've never actually had anything approximating a proper romantic relationship. I've never had a best friend that I do things with. I've never been part of a group carrying on and having experiences. I've never had to deal with a breakup, or co-habitated, or fought with a romantic partner. I've never had anyone phone me just to see how I was doing. I get a birthday card from corporate and sometimes from my mother when she remembers and that's the extent of my birthday being acknowledged.
The last person I got close to romantically, shot and killed themselves after we'd had 3 proper dates.
At 33 I have a GED and no college degree, I've filed bankruptcy, I've been in the same job for 12 and a half years. I'm one mild financial emergency away from being fucked.
I might as well just be a robot although, if I was a robot I'd probably have more human interaction purely from curiosity in me.
If things don't change professionally, in very drastic ways, I'll work until the day I die. I'm lucking if I can put 2-3 grand into my 401k each year.
While the woman writing to this columnist says she hasn't even the energy to contemplate humanity... that's about all I have going for me. I sit back and think about the nearly 40 gigatons of carbon dioxide we will put into the atmosphere this year, the microplastics in the air we breathe and the water we drink, the myopic and manipulated views of the world technology is giving to the masses, the growing wealth divide. I suppose I have more in common with a hypothetical artificial general intelligence though as I lack most of the experiences humans share in common.
She's 35 and had a cancer scare. My father died of cancer 12 days before my 13th birthday, his mother died before him of cancer, my mother had thyroid cancer which is in remission. Cancer is a highly probable death for me too ma'am.
Oh the drink, I know the drink well. At one point I was drinking as much as a fifth a night just to chase that fleeting escape from reality where everything amuses you. It's a trap ma'am, run from the drink, forsake the drink, the drink is a lie.
She may be a ghost but she isn't alone and to be honest her life experiences sound like quite the upgrade to mine.
Sure, there's people out there with it far worse than us. Simply having electricity and being able to read makes us far better off than many millions. Knowing that doesn't make life any less empty and cold and lonely though.
After clicking around your comment history and blog for a bit... I see you grew up and live in Indy -- I did as well until I moved to Chicago earlier this year, and we're around the same age (I'm 30). Some of what you've written definitely reminds me of myself years ago.
My (admittedly incomplete) impression of you is that you seem smart, but that you've got a lot of strong beliefs about things that don't seem to be working that well for you. I'm not sure I have any advice for that, but in my life I've found that my beliefs and values have changed and shifted over time. Usually those changes were started by external circumstances, followed by me choosing to let go of beliefs I was emotionally invested in (definitely not easy).
An example: I used to hold a pretty dim view of people, but I have changed this view over time and now see that most people are a mix of good and bad. The catalyst here was just trying to adjust my belief to be accurate -- people do a lot of good (in addition to the bad), and I couldn't square that with my existing belief that people were basically bad.
Probably the biggest external circumstance that forced me to change many beliefs was getting married, which will probably be unrelatable to you, but I'll try to relate it to you anyways: Getting into a romantic relationship changed my priorities because of the way it made me feel, and how all of a sudden I felt I had someone to really live for and strive to help in a way that I had never even really felt about myself. Things that previously seemed insignificant all of a sudden felt extremely significant. E.g. getting a better job, because I wanted to better provide.
Dating tips? Learn to filter -- go on as many dates as you can and figure out what kind of people you really work with. If you only go on one date every 6 months, you're not going to be able to figure out what it is that you really want in a partner. You might be able to do the same to find platonic friends? I haven't had a group of guys that I hang out with since high school, but my SO fulfills the friendship role mostly, and I'm too busy to even try right now.
>I did as well until I moved to Chicago earlier this year,
Go to the SafeHouse restaurant, it's on the magnificent mile!
I finally got to go aboard U-505 in October which had been a dream of mine since going up there when we camped at Dunes state park and then road the train up to the museum in scouts when I was a pre-teen, after I ended up at that restaurant. It's really goofy but was quite a fun experience from entering in a unique way to exiting in a fun way.
Do you get out much? I was friendless for a year until I went to the local Linux Users group. Now, almost all my friends (except one old school friend I re-connected with a year ago) are Ruby or Go user group people.
I get to see them all twice a month, I invite some of them to my birthdays, we get beers after the meetups. If it weren't for these people I'd have no friends either.
Oh, sure, no-one is going to get a girlfriend from attending these meetups, but it's a start. I now go climbing because of these people (one of the members has been doing it for ages), and the more things or groups you get involved with outside of tech the more exposure you have to candidates for a partner, or even just other friends.
I train at two gyms 4 days a week, aside from my coach saying hi to me and occasionally bye to me everyone talks to each other and I'm off to the side effectively invisible.
I'm an SCAdian. Every few years I'll email the baron or baroness and the seneschal and say hey I'm going to come to fighter practice, haven't been around, could you introduce me to people. They do and without fail 5 minutes in I might as well be a dust bunny in the corner.
Same at church. I go every weekend just to be around people. I don't particularly believe what they do, in fact I'm mostly team simulation hypothesis, but they are upbeat and cheery and friendly... yet again though I have a pew to myself, people will sit elsewhere even if it means in folding chairs. Without fail. Every single weekend.
I'm a Freemason, Lodge was always the same too. The casual hi to me, then everyone breaking off into their little social circles.
Without fail I can try and start a conversation, or insert myself into one, and I'll often get talked over which is an interesting thing as more oft than not I'm the largest person in a room.
It even happens in team meetings at work, it's like I've a damn cloaking device or something. You know in office space when, I believe Milton, keeps being passed the cake and being told to keep passing it... yeah, that, although it's generally more like I'm invisible. I can walk into rooms in plain site and finally say something and startle people if I talk because they were oblivious to my presence. I get the same thing at social groups.
Sometimes I wonder if people that have Cotard delusion think they're dead because they have a similar experience to me and their brain just interprets it as 'omg I must be dead'.
I don't know if it's because I simply lack in-person social skills and people on some subconscious level dismiss me like they would a cat or dog or what.
When someone does engage me though, and starts talking about something that interests me, I'll talk their damn ear off. I've had dates text me after the fact with shitty comments like I was so self obsessed and never once asked them any questions about themselves and I'm like, you brought up a topic and we had an ongoing DIALOGUE for 3 hours where we both said quite a bit...
I don't know, I just don't get people I guess.
I know there's other people like me out there. I mentioned one above, but for all intents and purposes they might as well be considered a god with the level of responsibility and impact they have and again they are a couple thousand miles away.
Try as I might, I can't find someone like that here or even someone that actually has free time for actual proper chats.
I suspect a lot of it comes down to I'm simply not interested in what many people are. I don't care about what the sports ball team did or what happened in such and such television program, I don't particularly care that your child got a ribbon at their intermural swim dance piano recital, if you need to vent about your relationship it's a wholly alien subject to me and I haven't a clue what you're on about or what to say, when you're reminiscing about college I'm just like yeahhh no clue. I care about the future of our species, what we're doing to our planet, how we're running out of time to save ourselves, the statistical hopelessness of finding evidence of another intelligent species in the firmament even if human civilization last a million years.
> When someone does engage me though, and starts talking about something that interests me, I'll talk their damn ear off.
I catch myself talking too much about stuff I'm interested in, it doesn't help. I have to rein myself in. Cut myself off, ask the other person a question. Also, I don't bring up computers or tech unless they did. Turns out it's a niche subject.
> I've had dates text me after the fact with shitty comments like I was so self obsessed and never once asked them any questions about themselves and I'm like, you brought up a topic and we had an ongoing DIALOGUE for 3 hours where we both said quite a bit...
Talking at great length about something you're interested in isn't fun for the other person, in general, even if they're interested in it too. Perhaps try this, ask them about what they like, then get them to talk about that. Ask followup questions. Remember the answers next time you see them as best you can.
"There's this place that serves your favourite pizza, do you want to go there" or "Hey, isn't that dog one of your favourite breeds?", or "How did you get on at the climbing gym the other day"??
Google "How to talk to people".
> I don't know, I just don't get people I guess.
I'm 40, it took me practice to get to the point I did, and I still have to work at it. It has been rewarding so far.
> I suspect a lot of it comes down to I'm simply not interested in what many people are.
Yes, me neither. I have (self diagnosed) aspergers and/or ADHD. I have to make a game of social stuff, though not to the point that I'm treating people like toys or subjects.
> I'm just like yeahhh no clue.
I just ask questions. Just simple ones, not argueing, or even discussion. Just exploratory. Even if it's something I don't care about. "So, what was it like at your college", "If you had your time agian would you choose the same place", "Do you stay in contact with people from that time?" etc.
It doesn't matter if you're not interested in the answers.
I suspect a good therapist could be a great help for you. As you said yourself, you don't understand why people react to you the way the do. The reason will probably be obvious to experienced therapist, and he/she will be able to create a plan for you to correct whatever's wrong.
Don't know if you've made the connection yet that first impressions can set the tone for the rest of your relationship with a group.
If you attend a new event like a church group, don't really get involved in any conversations or the ones you have go really poorly or awkwardly, and then end up sitting a table by yourself, it might actually build its own momentum and make people feel more awkward if five weeks later after coming 4 times and just sitting by yourself you try again and try to join a group conversation. It feels very weird to them because at that point they've already categorized you mentally as 'weird guy' or they mentally feel awkward when you join. First impressions matter a lot. As do a lot of the tropey dating advice about confidence, friendliness, conversational skills, etc.
And at that point, you really can't expect people to approach you if you come in and sit alone.
It's honestly better if when you join a new environment like that, you join a big circle of people, try to portray confidence, introduce yourself, try to hang back in the conversation a bit but contribute a little here and there - importantly, not just saying nothing at all or people might start getting weirded out. Maybe when you join these conversations you aren't smiling and being friendly enough. Maybe you don't know how to show people that you care about they have to say or they don't feel like you are interested in them.
Perhaps you haven't learned yet what's 'awkward' and what is not.
I have experienced the 'I may as well be invisible thing' many many times, but I can always trace back how things got there, because I can tell when someone has become awkward, and I usually kind of know why things got awkward. I might say something stupid or weird people out accidentally - but I'll at least be able to tell when I've done that.
Can you tell when things have suddenly become a failure? Or it's a mystery all the way through?
Another thing you could try to is to find some examples of socially successful people in media and try to emulate them. Act like them. Speak like them. See if communicating like they do leads you to better outcomes. And then learn to identify what those 'characters' are doing differently than the normal you.
You may also try a dating coach, but instead of having them help you with dating, you go to events with them joining you and join these group conversations, and afterwards have them debrief you on what to do differently.
You're intelligent, you're awake and have acknowledged the problems you face (as evidenced by the paragraph after paragraph you spent describing them), you're hardworking enough and diligent enough to retain your job for 12 years - that speaks to a certain type of strength of character. I googled you, found your blog, saw a youtube video of you and nothing about your appearance or your bearing was off-putting enough that you're incapable of making some friends.
Two of your biggest problems seem to be able to be categorized into career problems and friendship & dating problems.
As far as the career problems, I think given your intelligence and presence on this forum, you're likely already aware of many of the paths you could potentially take. My guess is your current position affords you _just_ enough comfort in life that despite your misgivings, your fears of the uncertainty of leaving it or undertaking something different is just too much of a risk for you to take. In other words, you likely have some vague ideas about alternatives you could follow, but you're afraid to take the leap. Otherwise, perhaps you'd already be studying at a university with free tuition in Germany or Argentina, teaching English in a poor enough place in Asia that even a GED is enough to get a job, working on a farm somewhere via the WWOOF program while you take stock of what you want in your future, apprenticed in a trade industry to a plumber or a carpenter or some other skilled trade, or something else people do when trying to advance from poor circumstances.
Or perhaps you really aren't aware of the paths you can take, in which case I would spend your internet cycles researching them.
The social problems are both easier and harder to solve.
Easier in the sense of - you have total control over your success or failure, there's no economic forces at work, no job market involved.
Harder in that the 'steps' to social success are not clearly laid out for us the way careers can be, because often you have no idea why a friendship fails to work out with a new acquaintance whereas at least you might have some idea what went wrong with a job application.
But the way to solve your social problems is to think of them the same way you'd think of any other skill you wanted to develop - to practice and put in work, evaluate what's working and what's not, and iterate.
Your failures are most likely due to one of a few things: 1) you're not actually putting yourself in the right places to meet people - that means on a Tuesday night you're sitting at home after work on the computer rather than going to where people are and introducing yourself or going to some sort of event where people work together or suffer together, or 2) you're at these types of places you might meet people but you're not taking some 'next step' - it could be the 'say hello' step, it could be the 'have a conversation trying to find mutual interests and if you do have a mutual interest engage them about it', it could be the 'ask to exchange contact info' step, it could be the 'follow up next week and invite them to another event or meal or for a drink or whatever else' step, etc, but at some point you may be dropping the ball, or 3) you could have some social tic you're not aware of that's off-putting and you're not iterating and experimenting with the way you portray yourself, the way you interact with people, the amount you smile or compliment people or make jokes or share something vulnerable or take it easy and be less aggressive - there's no way to know what it could be but you might not be modifying these variables and evaluating how they help or hurt.
But at a basic level, if you treat making friends or finding a person to date as a series of steps, and you spend your evenings actually taking those shots, and you change your approach, and you don't give up, and you lower your standards if it's not working, then you're almost inevitably going to succeed socially.
But the hard thing is, all of us already know all of this - but we don't do it because it's hard. At least, when I'm in a position where I'm single and alone, or in a new city or a situation where I've gone from having several friends to none, or a few close friends to none, it's only through intense, really agonizing struggle that I slowly build back up the social life I want. And as we get older it becomes more and more difficult.
But it's possible. Many of us who were incredibly weird, or were very shy, or had a stutter, or who were too unattractive, or were awkward, or were virgins, or were friendless - at various points in our lives - we've overcome these things and still gone on to succeed.
Going back to the point about how having just enough comfort in our lives actually paralyses us from taking concrete steps - if you find yourself encountering these same problems, identifying them, coming up with tons of ideas about how to solve them, but then procrastinating on those next steps - then do this - start right now. Get online and RSVP for a meetup tomorrow or in the next few days, or go to a bar, sit down next to someone at the bar - not to hit on them but just to engage a fellow human - and start a conversation. Mention the weather, ask them about what they do, whatever. The point is, don't wait. Because if you wait, you will do nothing. And it will be November 29, 2019 before you know it and you'll be posting the same comment.
So, basically this[0] and this[1]. If the author just needed to vent and sympathetic ears, then the columnist's 2000+ words platitude is fine. However, if she really wants out of the situation, then a more pragmatic[2] -- tldr; treat finding a SO like a job; she already professed that she's found no fulfillment on her current job, so might as well -- approach would be more useful.
meh. this doesn't deserve HN visibility IMHO. it's a standard complaint and a standard answer. i give 10% odds that it's a real letter. if it is a real letter, i give 1% odds no literary privileges have been taken, that it's authentic.
OTOH, yeah it is well written, but great editors will do that for you.
I'm gonna skip the columnist response, and jump right to "stop getting drunk on alcohol" as step one. Then (re-)watch the episode of "The Good Place" where Chidi becomes a nihilist and makes chili with marshmallow Peeps.
"It could be that the purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others." -- "Mistakes" demotivator, Despair.com
That yawning void in your soul that constantly whispers to you, "your life is meaningless, and nothing you do matters"? That's exactly what connects you with every other human that has ever lived. Most people who start to notice it just cover it up with a concert poster, or a salacious pin-up, or a photo of a sailboat, or a religious icon, just to avoid looking into it, and hearing it, and having all vitality and joy drain away through it.
But it's still there. It's not wrong. Your life really is meaningless, and nothing you do matters.
"Man is born. Man lives. Man dies. And it's all vanity." -- "Thrills", Cake
There is nothing about your life that had enough inherent value to waste. It just is what it was, the sum of all you were before. And it won't be exactly what you wanted it to be, because of entropy and psychology. You can spackle over the hole with anything that comes to hand, and desperately try to forget it's there, or you can let it remain, droning that high-pitched whine, from all the substance in your life getting sucked out into its vacuum.
A lot of what people do is, in essence, lying to each other, to save one another from that existential torment. Listen to a song on the radio? That's 3 minutes you can't hear the Hole. Watch a movie? That's 90 minutes of not staring into the Hole. Raise a kid? Heck, that's good for almost 20 years. Your Hole isn't any bigger than anyone else's. It has exactly the same amount of nothing in it. No matter what you pour into it, you're never going to fill it up--alcohol, drugs, sex, religion, entertainment, politics; they all get swallowed up in the end. If you accept that it will always be there, no matter what you do, you can slowly acclimate yourself to it. Try it on for size. Tell yourself: "I'm going to die, and everything I am will one day be forgotten."
"Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." -- "Ozymandias", PB Shelley
So what's the point of living? Why don't we just lie down and never get up again? Why don't we lose ourselves in endless pursuit of cheap thrills and chemical highs? Because that's against the rules of the LARP game many of us play called "Being Grown-Ass Adults in the Real World". Some people do quit, and stop following the rules, and that's their choice. If you want your life to be yours, you'll just have to come up with your own purpose for it. No one is scoring points for being more noble or more visionary. You won't get judged by anyone or anything that matters for aiming too low, or not making enough progress on any given day.
Even if you don't come up with a purpose right away, you can still go through the motions of survival until you do. If you live another day, that still makes you just as good as any other animal. The cat gets it. Suck up to the human just a little bit, and they'll give you food and take away your poop. Suck up to the employer just a little bit, and they'll give you money to buy food and toilet service. If you can love your cat for doing nothing at all you consider important, some other human can certainly love you for the same level of accomplishment. (That is, if being loved is something you actually want.)
You don't have to be what other people want you to be. You don't even have to be what the person you used to be wanted to become. You don't have to live a life of greatness. You don't have to live a life devoid of meaning. The rules only apply to you if you want to play. Nobody else can be you but you, so you might as well get started.
What you're reading is an increasingly common outcome for young women without guidance and goals coming from a patriarchal society.
All that which entices young women these days - moving, traveling abroad, working in 'passionate' or artistic fields instead of real ones - correlates with moving further away from stable long term relationships, family, and financial security.
And a 3+ year relationship ending dramatically - this is the expected outcome if you don't move to invest in family and create a shared future. God forbid her partner wanted children, a stable life in one location, the security of his partner not going out and acting like a 20-something year old, etc.
But nobody ever dares speak any of this, and while previous generations enforced control, they never explained why, except cryptically through religion. So it's no wonder in secular western societies people just do what they feel, and end up like this.
Now at best this no-longer-young woman will try to reform, change her patterns and behavior, just enough to attract a partner for the latter half of her life. And I'm sure she'll find one, as there are many poor male souls as well who know that a large part of their life and opportunities have passed. But what a sad state of affairs that we glorify and waste our youths, and scramble to pick up the pieces like this.
The thing that struck me was her age. She's 35. I like to tell people that I went from being young to being old in one birthday. There was something really significant about that birthday for me, that seemed to carry me instantly across the mental threshold from "having all the time in the world" to "you're old now".
Of course, now I'm much older, and think of 35 and even 40 as being young, but I do remember it as being a big deal at the time.
This woman reached that age and freaked out, since she evaluated where she was at in life and decided she was behind. It's definitely an age where you do take stock of your progress. At least it was for me.
dated possibly this person. all checks out. if it is her let me tell you this -- she spent the whole 3 years passionately writing livejournal type things with strangers, kept a bunch of "fan" type guys around (you know the type) who shed never consider actually dating but she liked the attention, and I dumped her when I found some flirty shit between them. I dont know if she ever actually cheated but that's already well below who im willing to marry. she defended her position as "just missing making a connection". ok girl whatever I was emotionally and physically available but not a d-list twitter material. I hope it now finally clicks and you also got your eating under control. you still sound like the self-created crisis I left you as.
Artists care (actually DOING, not claiming) about creating a body of work, and this person cares only about herself. The author is a hedonist, not an artist. Important difference.
The top level comment didn't say anything bad? The person who wrote the article even mentioned they fit a cliche. All the comment did was point out that it's a cliche on the internet.
its entirely possible that certain beliefs common on 4chan strike true. This isn't so much about making her struggle a meme, but acknowledging that youth is fleeting and its particularly hard for women.
Coming to terms with this reality for a woman is even more terrifying than a man because her bodily clock is ticking and pretty soon she will have little opportunity to have a child and dare I say, attract her ideal man. Its a call for more traditional values, to acknowledging that the deal is different for men and women, and its a criticism of responses like this which tell women to embrace being a free spirit when all she wants is stability and steady growth.
Traditional values are truly counter culture in the west, and thats why pol will emphasize it.
EDIT: 4chan also likes it because it serves their tendency toward genetic determinism.
It rocketed to the front page without any relation to HN's usual topics. And it looked like something that the manosphere/traditionalist/right-wing-droning-youtubers would see as a vindication of their ideas. e.g. https://twitter.com/StefanMolyneux/status/974377252212346880
It is a little strange to have to take one person's letter to an advice columnist and use it as grist for which gender has it worse, but, that's their obsession I guess.
Even if we agree for the sake of argument that today, men and women have reached parity when it comes to career opportunity, that doesn't instantaneously undo the decades/centuries of traditional notion that a woman is not complete without marriage and motherhood. Men face the same pressure, but nowhere near the magnitude, nor the inherent limitations.
>I’m trying, Polly. I am. I’m dating. I’m working out and working hard. Listening to music
Yet she still refuses to lower her standards, apparently.
Empowerment can be a hell of a drug. Hell, she has dozens of articles explaining away personal responsibilit and rationalizing the wretched state of her life[1]. E.g. she has another post captioned "resist the urge to treat friendlessness as a personal failure."
I think we spent too much time teaching our generation to be confident, rather than teaching us to be competent and practical. Heather really has nothing but her own entitlement to blame, and she continues to be obvlivious.
I wouldn't call myself a believer necessarily, but I do believe in such things as many people now have dismissed due to utter faith in science. So, I'm not "Christian", but I think the bible is an important book and contains wisdom. If you haven't read Ecclesiastes, I suggest you do. It was written by some old, powerful man (no one really knows who), basically reflecting on his life and imparting wisdom. It's the kind of old testament book that has inspired great leaders for centuries.
Anyways, the idea of a church community really comforts me. I would be open with my own beliefs, and the reason why I'm attending church, and hope to build long-term relationships with those people. I also want to do some good outside of my academic work. When or if I have children, I would want them to attend church with me, with the understanding that they don't have to believe in God in order to gain something very valuable. I want them to grow up in a tangible, physical community of people who have their best interests in mind. Now that "inclusive" churches are more popular, I think I am going to find one.
> If you haven't read Ecclesiastes, I suggest you do. It was written by some old, powerful man (no one really knows who), basically reflecting on his life and imparting wisdom.
No one knows that it was written by an old, powerful man, either. The tradition is that it was written by King Solomon and contains his parables, and that the framing device of a third-person narrator reflecting on someone else's parable is a rhetorical device, but there are certainly interpretations that, whoever the subject is, the (primary, there are some parts that are generally accepted to come from a different author than the main body) author is (as the framing suggests) a third person narrator, relating wisdom sayings that came from, or at least are attributed to, another source.
What if at 55 she realizes she wasted her time reading folklore of non-existent super beings, time she could have used to advance her art or volunteer for actual charities and impact the world?
I feel like, if you strip away the outward trappings and dogma, this is what religion is good for. Not in a "believe in Jesus" or "trust in God" kind of way, but in a "how to orient your life" kind of way. Which is to say, the actually useful portion of religion generally teaches that your best life is probably not focused on you. It isn't about finding yourself, or being true to yourself, or really thinking about yourself at all. It's in being of benefit to the human beings around you. And in serving those around you, you become something that is worth being.
It doesn't matter who you are or where you live, there are poor people around you. There are parentless children, drug addicts, parks that need cleaning, animal shelters that need dog walkers. You can always do something meaningful with your life. Try that, and see what kind of relationships you make. Look at and actually see a homeless person. See how that makes you feel. See if your worrying about your own future maybe drops away, or gets morphed into something you can do something with. See what kinds of other people you run into that way. Focus on, if not bringing joy to other people, then at least making their lives better. See if that doesn't - as a pure byproduct - change your own self-worth. Or maybe just make you less focused on it.