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How to rationally justify aging ?

Ziiirp

Ziiirp

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Dec 18, 2011
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Just to make the introduction short (sorry I'm sick) :

How can I honestly teach my child, that being an adult is any good ? I personally had a perfect life UNTIL I was 12, when I so-to-say entered the free society, because I could decide for myself. It fucking sucks since then compared to the good old times. Despite having sex with a beautiful virgin and a few beautiful non-virgins my life was a total waste since then. I can honestly say, I learned nothing valuable since then (having 2 meffkis papers). No drug experience >12 years old could match up to the natural rushes I had as a child doing sports (football, martial arts) or playing ultra progressive computer games (and getting them to run on an older machine).

Something must be wrong with that society, when there is no satisfying plan after childhood. I yaaawn the fuck out over most of those meeffkis.
 
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If 12 years old is the best time of your life then your parents definitely failed you.

I look at each passing year with my kids as another opportunity to share something with them. Those first M rated movies, how to set up a campsite and start a fire, teaching them to surf and drive a 4WD on the beach. None of these things are possible until they are teenagers.

Now I'm looking forward to taking them to their first psytrance parties in the bush or chaparoning them and their friends to a music festival. My biggest fear is an early death before I can show them more mysteries of life.
 
this isn't what you meant, but i had my reply all formulated....

uh, evolution. if you lived forever, you would be competing with your offspring for resources. children born to parent who die soon there after have a better chance of having children of their own. the fact that there are also no immortal animals flat out tells you it isn't an evolutionarily stable strategy.
 
How to rationally justify aging?

It's better than the alternative...
 
That's something most thinking people have asked themselves and even struggled with. I suggest looking at the answers other peopel have come up with and see if you can relate to any of them.
 
freedom, autonomy, sex, gained perspective and life experiences, creating your own family, having children of your own, knowing yourself better, not looking like an awkward 12 year old.

man i would never never be 12 again.
aging is a privilege, sometimes it kinda sucks i guess but im pretty happy to get the chance to do so.
 
Given the immense improbability of our journey to become Ourselves, we are lucky in many ways. If an ancestor had died 20,000,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, fucked someone else 300 years ago, died in WWII, was masturbated out of daddy a few hours earlier, we would not have been born.

So tell your children they are lucky they were not pointlessly jerked out over videos of lesbian orgies. :D
 
dude - you're really saying that your life has sucked since age 12? isn't that basically on you? i barely remember that time. and obviously many people lead fulfilling and dynamic lives til senescence.
 
Seems that attachment to the belief that life has to be a certain way is what brings suffering.

There's no getting around that we age and then we die, but... it's the story you apply to that which brings the suffering in.

Aging doesn't need justification, not if there's no story, not if you're in this present moment. Even the notion that age 12 was so great, is a story.

Where are you now and can you work with what's right here?

Think about the animals in nature, the trees and the plants. They just do what they gotta do. Maybe they die now or in 10 years, maybe they die quietly or they are violently killed by something. It's all temporary. Nothing you try to do is ever going to be permanent and getting comfortable with that where the real security is.

Telling yourself that life can never be X Y and Z because of something that isn't even happening anymore is kind of a cop out from facing yourself, if you ask me. Maybe what you really need is to get out of your head.
 
^ great post.

Trying to force wisdom and maturity is a fruitless quest. Just live and that stuff will take care of itself. I'm in my thirties now and in certain ways I feel no different at all to when I was a teenager and in other ways that all feels like a past life. People who get on your case for not doing this or that by a certain age typically are people drowning in their own regrets.

How serious can we take life if the only dress rehearsal for it is life itself?
 
Life becomes more complicated after childhood, but I wouldn't go back. For most of my twenties I would have said differently... I led an idyllic childhood. In my twenties I was unhappy with my life, but ultimately that was on me. I was in a bad relationship which was the main contributing factor to me not following my passions, and using opiates to mask my pain. I looked back in my memory to when the last time I was happy was, and it was when I was a child. So I thought, oh, if only I could be a child again. But now, in my thirties, I have moved past that stuff, made some changes in my life, and I am more fulfilled now than I have ever been. I get to be exactly who I want to be, I have the resources and mental development/maturity to pursue whatever I want, I get to have sex, be in love, and so on. Life wasn't perfect as a kid, we just look at it with rose-colored glasses. Life can be beautiful at any age. Also age gives us a certain perspective that allows us appreciate it more and more, and see the beauty even more powerfully.
 
Can someone kick me in the gut back to my 12th year of life ?
 
It would be interesting if time travel were possible. Of course if returning to the past were possible it would open up a whole realm of potential paradoxes, if it were possible none of us would be safe, the ripple effect from changing the past would be unpredictable at best. Maybe you mean more like a re-experiencing of the exact timespan, from within that mental context, like watching a movie. It would be really cool if that were possible, I feel like it would be more addictive than any other form of entertainment. I'd do it sometimes for sure.

But for real, it's possible to be happy now too. To me it's a balance between the ideal of living unattached and fully in the moment, the sort of living Foreigner talks about, and immersing yourself in the subjective experience that we are experiencing now. For me, I just try to do the things that make me happy, regardless of what other people expect of me. When I spend my time and energy on those things (for me it's music, art and being there for other people), I feel good about myself, and good about my day, and I feel a sense of purpose. And I try not to hold on to the past or future too hard because it's easy to forget the present which is all there really is anyway. We're always in the present, you were in the present when you were 12 too, your point of view was just different.

My girlfriend is experiencing a bit of a crisis in her life, she has all these feelings of expectation about what she should be doing with her life, and it's caused her to have no idea what she wants to do, so she feels like she's just drifting and not really doing anything worthwhile. Sometimes she gets really sad and cries about it, like today. It can be hard for her to fully enjoy anything. Thing is, for her, she didn't have an idyllic childhood so I think she feels really lost sometimes, like it's never made sense. Her dad is pretty controlling (in weird ways) and basically forced her to go to college for art history, so she has a useless degree (because she has no interest in the field and can't really do anything with it without going into academia which she hates, or getting more education to do something like curating that she doesn't want to do either). She's told me she really wanted to study biology and do something in conservation. She loves plants and taking care of plants, it makes her happy. Unfortunately she is so traumatized by her experience at college doing something she hated that she doesn't want to go back, and she's so drained by life that it feels impossible for her to put the effort into focusing on something related to the pastimes that make her happy. Thing is, she could do it, if she tried. I hope she does. I see her eyes light up when she's learning about plants, or tending to them, or out in nature and identifying them, hunting for them, etc.

Everyone has stuff that makes them happy. Think back to your childhood, what did you do when you could do anything you wanted to? Do those things. After a while everything will feel better and start making more sense, and the way forward will appear.
 
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^This is such a refreshing view. Do what you love. Let the world work itself out around you.
 
One Thousand Words said:
If 12 years old is the best time of your life then your parents definitely failed you.

I look at each passing year with my kids as another opportunity to share something with them. Those first M rated movies, how to set up a campsite and start a fire, teaching them to surf and drive a 4WD on the beach. None of these things are possible until they are teenagers.

Now I'm looking forward to taking them to their first psytrance parties in the bush or chaparoning them and their friends to a music festival. My biggest fear is an early death before I can show them more mysteries of life.
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My parents are dumb, comfortably numb sheep like 95% of the population so I honestly cannot blame them for my fate since my 13th birthday. With 13 you should have a sufficiently developed intellect to live independently from your ancestors but I failed in that. They never physically harmed me directly, so I can be grateful in these times. It is my own "fault" or "fate" to not have been able to pull the right strings as a kid to pursue a free life and instead I adjusted way too much to my immature surrounding meffkis. Ya diiiig ?
 
Perception becomes your reality. I would urge you not to set in stone the idea that you're past the best point in your life now, because if you never decide that you're not, then you probably are. You're defeating yourself... our brains and lives are plastic, anything is possible if you make it happen.

I felt the way you do for a long time, I also had an idyllic childhood, my parents blindly follow the American dream, I basically didn't really have to work for anything, I had fun all day every day for the most part. Entering real life was a challenge for me and it took me a long time. Yet, today, at 33 years old, I consider myself to be at the peak of my life so far. It took a lot of effort and reflection and honesty with myself, but now it is just the way it is because everywhere I loom in my life, I see something good, because I made it that way.

And I don't literally mean everywhere... I have problems, too. There is one thing in particular that is a tremendous source of sorrow for me and is really difficult for me right now.

You speak as if you're powerless, when you're anything but. <3
 
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I didn't read the entire thread but I'm sure someone has said something similar to this already.

Christianity and theism in general fucked me up as a child. I was constantly in fear of death, as I was taught that God knows what is in your soul. I knew even at the age of 7 or 8 that my "soul" did not line up with the things I was hearing at church. I had many sleepless nights contemplating what would happen if I fell asleep and didn't wake up.

I'll cut to the chase. Just tell your kids that we basically won the lottery being born as humans. Any amount of life we might have as sentient, complex organisms is a luxury not afforded to most things. Take advantage of all the time you have. Try your best to leave behind some sort of legacy that you can be proud of. When your body dies it goes back to where it ultimately came from.

I wish someone I loved would have explained that to me twenty years ago.
 
Xorkoth said:
Perception becomes your reality. I would urge you not to set in stone the idea that you're past the best point in your life now, because if you never decide that you're not, then you probably are. You're defeating yourself... our brains and lives are plastic, anything is possible if you make it happen.

I felt the way you do for a long time, I also had an idyllic childhood, my parents blindly follow the American dream, I basically didn't really have to work for anything, I had fun all day every day for the most part. Entering real life was a challenge for me and it took me a long time. Yet, today, at 33 years old, I consider myself to be at the peak of my life so far. It took a lot of effort and reflection and honesty with myself, but now it is just the way it is because everywhere I loom in my life, I see something good, because I made it that way.

And I don't literally mean everywhere... I have problems, too. There is one thing in particular that is a tremendous source of sorrow for me and is really difficult for me right now.

You speak as if you're powerless, when you're anything but. <3
Click to expand...

My parents were very naive, because they grew up in a soviet besieged country, which was discarded shortly after I was born. And that was great. I basically was raised by teenagers/children in regards of knowledge of the political system. Today, 25 years later, there are many disadvantages, because I know more than my ancestors about the does and donts in our western society, but at that time it was great, because academic alumni in the east were considered 3rd class citizens (dictatorship of the proletariat meant academics are treated like aliens), which later caused a lot of initial euphoria, when the system imploded and they got the revenue (freedom of speech, to travel, to choose your employer), they deserved. I also profited from that initial euphoria, hence my childhood was extra crisp.

Today we're (I mean everyone living in western Europe or northern America) on a turning point, but my parents are not to blame at all. On the contrary, they provided an exciting childhood but today they tell, there are also a lot of disadvantages in our current model of society. And I am even more pessimistic than they are.
 
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