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The Animal Is Tired

robinhobb.com

171–180 of 439 posts

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#171
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My animal is only 33 and is very tired In life satisfaction surveys, your 30’s are the most miserable stressful part of life. Highest amount of responsibilities, lowest amount of consistent reward, and it keeps getting worse until your 40’s Apparently it gets better again in your late 40’s and early 50’s. By 60 you’re as happy as you were at 20. https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/scientists-just-discovered-mi... (am 33…

Really? In my 30s I felt on top of the world. Enough wisdom to put my knowledge to good use and a fit body that only had the occasional ache. Everything went downhill around 42 though. Eyesight, hearing, processing speed, memory, sleep apnea, weight gain, hair loss, ED... I have to be on some combination of marijuana to sleep and modafinil to wake up. Exercise helps but the gains fade fast so it's basically a 10% tax…

Exercise is probably the best thing you can do to improve your longevity. I don't have a source, but I don't think this is a controversial idea. Even long walks can help (though as someone who lives in the middle of nowhere, I can understand if this is not possible). I'm only 28, but I find that long walks on the treadmill (with my laptop in front of me, while I'm working) can really make me feel a lot better. I do have a general fitness routine I keep up with though, so that likely plays a role here.

One thing that has helped me immeasurably is taking up a hobby that gets me outside and doing some manual labor. I love gardening and I'd suggest it to anyone. I have shed several inches off my waistband since starting to garden and I find myself spending considerably less time in front of the computer screen just wasting time.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#172

I'm 35 and I don't feel any of the ravages of age that some people describe. I do exercise and eat reasonably well, but I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary. I have a desk job (programming). Am I unusually lucky? or just part of a silent majority that has nothing to complain about? Is doom just around the corner?

You are still comparatively young. Give it a few more years.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#173
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The causative factor for the result of the surveys is kids.

Really young kids especially. It's weird because having a baby is both one of the most fulfilling parts of life but also drains you massively. I suppose the fulfillment is part of a biological desire to reproduce.

Right - I think we get a lot of in-built satisfaction and pleasure from being around or raising kids, specifically to offset just how annoying and difficult the task of raising them is.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#174
post #33

Robin Hobb is one of my favorite authors. Her masterwork is a series of series (four trilogies and a quadrology) known as The Realm of the Elderlings. She published the first trilogy, which begins with Assassin's Apprentice, starting in 1995. I saw the books when they first came out and I assumed from the title and the cover that it would be a cheesy fantasy by the numbers, so I never bought it. But I kept hearing ab…

I picked up the first book of the assassins trilogy on a whim, and ended up discovering, like you, one of my all time favourite fantasy authors.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#175
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually sounds quite a bit like depression. Some inexpensive meds can make a huge difference. I know from experience.

I have tried prozac. Unfortunately, it made my tiredness even worse almost immediately. Doctor said this would go away after I increased dosage, but I couldn't stick with it long enough to see this benefit. I've considered trying again but, it's a hard pill to swallow when the solution takes weeks to work, and in the meantime, you're suffering even more. If I had to be honest, I question whether I am scientifically "…

I've struggled, and am struggling, with the same thing. The only thing that helps me is to keep doing... something.

Also, talk to your wife about changing lifestyles if you haven't already. She might surprise you.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#176

70? My animal is only 33 and is very tired. Writing this as it lays in bed, 3 in the afternoon, because even a standard chair sounds more exhausting to it. It seems to have no motivation or energy to do much besides lay here. If I force it, it will get stuff done but at a huge cost. It will yearn the entire time to just lay back down. It's interest in things seems to be fading quickly. What desire it used to have to…

Take a 1 hour walk outside every day.

Your 'wasted' hour will be given back tenfold.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#177
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the Assassin's Apprentice series through, but it didn't really satisfy, and I haven't read anything else by the author. I like the Malazan ones, and ASoIF, a lot more - partly the grimdark, but more so the overall complexity of the plot. While Hobb's work was pleasant it just didn't really engage me.

I really liked the first book and parts of the 2nd and 3rd, but man the 3rd book really threw me off the series. Just a really unsatisfying way to land a trilogy - all of the stress and torment that Fitz had gone through for a couple of thousand pages across the 3 books is given just a few pages at the end, not even in-character, to pay off. Wonderful prose but man the storytelling was a disappointment. Put me off he…

Re-read the Assassin books recently afte revering them/Hobb as a kid. They're still good but I found plenty to critique this time around. Like, Fitz receives constant physical and emotional abuse from everyone around him but he remains ever loyal. It makes for exhausting reading at various points and his choices becomes increasingly hard to justify. Especially since those around him move on with their lives while he remains stuck: always agonising but ultimately never doing anything for himself. I also thought the antagonists were rather one dimensional haters, with not very interesting arcs.

Anyway! I don't mean to complain. These remain cherished books for me!

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#179
post #166

Better food, more exercise, more relaxation... but I also wonder if it would have made any difference. Yes. I'm only half OP's age but working out and eating well (well for me means much more) has made all the little aches I started to have in my 20s go away and made me much calmer, I can also sleep pretty much anywhere and at any time. More interestingly though, Me, and the animal I live inside. there is no animal y…

Yes! Weightlifting is probably the number one best thing you can do for your body.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really liked the first book and parts of the 2nd and 3rd, but man the 3rd book really threw me off the series. Just a really unsatisfying way to land a trilogy - all of the stress and torment that Fitz had gone through for a couple of thousand pages across the 3 books is given just a few pages at the end, not even in-character, to pay off. Wonderful prose but man the storytelling was a disappointment. Put me off he…

Re-read the Assassin books recently afte revering them/Hobb as a kid. They're still good but I found plenty to critique this time around. Like, Fitz receives constant physical and emotional abuse from everyone around him but he remains ever loyal. It makes for exhausting reading at various points and his choices becomes increasingly hard to justify. Especially since those around him move on with their lives while he…

I just worked through them so it's a bit of a fresh wound. I wanted so badly for there to be a big satisfying payoff!
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