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The Animal Is Tired

robinhobb.com

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Re: The Animal Is Tired

#311

Post by SunlightEdge »

oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #303
SunlightEdge wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being downvoted I don't find Brandon Sanderson a very good fantasy writer. For me, The way of kings started well (even if the characters were all pretty 2-D) in book one. Interesting plot with it mixing ww1/dune computer game themes in a fantasy setting. But by book 3 it was an incredible chore to get through and I stopped after about 10% in. I even got bored reading the plot summary of the third book.…

I like Sanderson, I really do, but I wish he would aim for a bit more brevity. He has a really interesting story to tell, and built an incredibly creative world, but it's like he gets distracted by all the other stories he would like to tell. Just like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, Way of Kings seems to get slower with each book as more subplots are developed and explored. But I think my biggest complaint about Way…

Moorcook's Eldrich... Wait! I read Hawkmoon years ago by him and liked it. A light breezy read. I'll get this. Cheers

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#312

Post by SunlightEdge »

selykg wrote: post #282
SunlightEdge wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being downvoted I don't find Brandon Sanderson a very good fantasy writer. For me, The way of kings started well (even if the characters were all pretty 2-D) in book one. Interesting plot with it mixing ww1/dune computer game themes in a fantasy setting. But by book 3 it was an incredible chore to get through and I stopped after about 10% in. I even got bored reading the plot summary of the third book.…

Too bad you will never see the end of The King Killer Chronicles. It has been something like 10 years since the last book. Rothfuss is in the exact same situation as Martin for me. I won't buy any books of his until the series is complete. You may not like Sanderson's writing, but the man publishes books. He will get my money for anything he writes because I know I'm going to enjoy it (personally, I really enjoy his…

Unfortunately, I agree with you. The stone door I've almost given up on. And I was reading GOT way before it became famous on TV. Again stopped expecting a new book. He's passed away now. But I did quite like the British fantasy writer David Gemell. He knocked out books too. His books are violent and personally I like dark and gritty.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#313

Post by robscallsign »

earthboundkid wrote: post #289

> Me, and the animal I live inside. This dualism is unhelpful. You are the animal. You aren't a thing inside of yourself. Yes, sometimes your mind can be sharp and your body tired, but at the end of the day, you are the unity created by the synthesis, not some disembodied force. The worst thing about dualism is that people who think of themselves as not religious do it unreflectively, whereas when religious people do…

I take it you haven't read her fictional work. Exploring this dualism is one of the main plot and emotional devices for several trilogies.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#314

Post by neonological »

piva00 wrote: post #238
tidenly wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I definitely have this built-in feeling quite broken. I left the door open to perhaps consider forming a family at some point since my first girlfriend, over the years it's only got more clear that I don't enjoy kids, at all. I don't take enjoyment from being around kids, playing with kids or any kind of interaction with them, it makes me feel broken but I simply can't. Not even with my niece, my sisters get a lot of…

Interesting statistic you should note. When people are asked whether they are happier with or without children most people pick happier. There is a positive correlation between picking happier and how wealthy someone is.

Interestingly, when asking people how happy they are on a scale of 1 to 10 without bringing children into the picture what you see is that people without children are always happier.

What I'm thinking is this. People are generally unhappier with children but certain things in the brain block most people from realizing it. How effective this block is depends on how unhappy you actually are. A person in poverty will be more self aware of the unhappiness brought on by their two screaming kids then the rich person. Not all people have this thing in the brain.

I suspect you rate high on psychopathy so you're able to see truth where other people's views are clouded and deluded by an endorphin rush. Like I mentioned you should also ask yourself how rich you are, but I think this is irrelevant to you given how you mentioned you derive zero energy from being with kids.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#315

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

climb_stealth wrote: post #61
autarch wrote: 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…

Aw man, I just started a comment saying how this sounds really promising and was going to ask about it. Turns out I have actually read them. I might have to read them all again. I would recommend them as well. I'm a big fan of the Malazan series as well. I still think of the hair jacket when I come across someone with a smelly jacket and it never fails to crack me up. My recommendation for epic fantasy that is a bit…

If we’re recommending series in general, I recommend the Broken Earth Trilogy be NK Jemisin and The Poppy War series by RF Kuang. These series have a completely different approach to fantasy as a lens of society that I really adore.

I’m also a big fan of the Daevabod Series by SA Chakraborty. That is also hella.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#316

Post by remify »

robscallsign wrote: post #302
kkoncevicius wrote: post #283

The animal separation part is confusing to me. Not because of any "mind versus matter" dilemmas but because of desires. The author says that the animal wants to relax and lie down. But where is the distinction here? If you drink coffee when you feel the urge - that's on you, but if you relax when you feel like it - then it's the animal? Can it be that all those desires for working hard and having coffee and alcohol w…

> The animal separation part is confusing to me. Have you read her fiction, particularly the Farseer and Tawny Man trilogies? Her fantasy universe, and the main characters, involve bonding with an animal so completely that you are essentially one combined being that inhabits both bodies. An emotional peak of the series involve the slow process of aging, and eventual passing of one of the main characters, who happens…

Great explanation, thank you

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#317

Post by vagrantJin »

salawat wrote: post #281
piva00 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely have this built-in feeling quite broken. I left the door open to perhaps consider forming a family at some point since my first girlfriend, over the years it's only got more clear that I don't enjoy kids, at all. I don't take enjoyment from being around kids, playing with kids or any kind of interaction with them, it makes me feel broken but I simply can't. Not even with my niece, my sisters get a lot of…

It changes once you find or have something worth passing on. I don't have any kids or much materially, but I love to teach any of the skills or interests that I've picked up to any kid I get blessed with time with who shows even a mild interest. Children, after about 3, are so much simpler to be around than adults. Though it can be draining at times if you have too many youngsters around, but your mind is chewing on…

I like the way you out this, it resonates with my own beliefs and thoughts but I could never put it in those words.

Sort of like seeing your younger self in some kid and your advice being the cheat code.

Hao! Hao.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#318

Post by murph-almighty »

climb_stealth wrote: post #61
autarch wrote: 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…

Aw man, I just started a comment saying how this sounds really promising and was going to ask about it. Turns out I have actually read them. I might have to read them all again. I would recommend them as well. I'm a big fan of the Malazan series as well. I still think of the hair jacket when I come across someone with a smelly jacket and it never fails to crack me up. My recommendation for epic fantasy that is a bit…

I fell off of Dark Tower during the flashback sequence in the 4th book, but up until that point I agree it was a solid and off-putting story.

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#319

Post by selykg »

SunlightEdge wrote: post #312
selykg wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad you will never see the end of The King Killer Chronicles. It has been something like 10 years since the last book. Rothfuss is in the exact same situation as Martin for me. I won't buy any books of his until the series is complete. You may not like Sanderson's writing, but the man publishes books. He will get my money for anything he writes because I know I'm going to enjoy it (personally, I really enjoy his…

Unfortunately, I agree with you. The stone door I've almost given up on. And I was reading GOT way before it became famous on TV. Again stopped expecting a new book. He's passed away now. But I did quite like the British fantasy writer David Gemell. He knocked out books too. His books are violent and personally I like dark and gritty.

Check out Mark Lawrence if you like dark and gritty. He's pretty good at knocking out books as well.

Also, you've probably heard of it already but The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie

Re: The Animal Is Tired

#320

Post by Sargos »

sneak wrote: post #267
blfr wrote: 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…

> there is no animal you live inside, this is not a meat vehicle for something else, your body is you, it's not some machine you merely inhabit. I wonder how history will view such statements once we manage the ability to uncouple our humanity from our meat prisons.

Much of our humanity and ability to reason comes from our gut flora and various other parts of our body. Every year we learn a bit more about this complex relationship and how the brain is just one part of our consciousness and not the "CPU" as we used to believe so I become less convinced that we will achieve some kind of Matrix style integration within my lifetime. For what it's worth it seems most likely that we will figure out AGI before we lift consciousness into the digital realm and at that point it might be too late to go through the effort.
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