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Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

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Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#51

Post by cj »

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #48
ChrisRR wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realise that a lot of people have anxiety issues, but to call it abuse is just stupid. They are genuinely people looking back on their life experience and giving advice.

I wouldn't call this abuse either but there is a huge huge gulf between "that was the best time of my life" and "this is the best time of your life. It's at best just extremely rude to tell someone about their own life and how they should feel about it.

> It's at best just extremely rude to tell someone about their own life and how they should feel about it.

I have to disagree. My grandparents often have great perspectives on life situations that they readily share when relevant to the people around them. No one sees it as rude, and if they do, it’s usually because the advice hits a little too close to home. Like “when I went through my divorce…”

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#52

Post by bob33212 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #22
ggambetta wrote: post #15

My entirely unscientific theory is that like other cells, we're born with a limited number of fucks in our body. When we're young, we (instinctively, subconsciously) feel like our fucks reserves are plentiful, so we give a fuck about a lot of stuff. As we get older, our reservoir of fucks gets progressively depleted. The fucks are rarer, so we give a fuck less and less often. I've recently turned 40 and I can definit…

I think what you're describing is more down to desensitisation through exposure to stressful environments. When you're younger smaller problems seem larger because you've not been desensitised to larger problems. As you progress through life you generally experience greater stress and thus the smaller problems feel smaller. You could look at it like desensitisation to capsicum, salt, violence or pornography.

Disillusionment is real. Before you have achieved success you think that it is really important to succeed. Once you have succeeded, or see other people succeed, you realize that some of the happiest people are not "successful".

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#53

Post by 8fGTBjZxBcHq »

bm3719 wrote: post #37
yberreby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I decided my internal caveman was not my friend, and took steps to sideline his vote in decision-making. Could you elaborate on what those steps were?

I settled on the triune brain model as a good-enough approximation for my needs in relation to this (whether it's factually accurate is another issue). I would then categorize my thoughts and subsequent actions based on that model (mainly limbic vs. neocortex). It's pretty easy to tell them apart with some high-level introspection. Then, I'd short-circuit any emotional thinking once I spotted myself engaging in it, a…

This seems weird and bad. Emotion and "reason" aren't two ends of a spectrum. You likely aren't any more logical or less emotional now than you were before.

I believe you about better control over how you engage with your emotional responses but damn dude. If you were just getting too mad at stuff they got therapy for that you don't hafta roll your own psychic amputations these days.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#54

Post by exegete »

amarant wrote: post #44

Natural selection. At a young age, some people know how to control their feelings, others don't. The ones who can't then die from road rage or similar, leaving only the ones with at least a modicum of self control in the older age groups. Basically, it's survivor bias, but literally.

How many people do you think die from road rage (or similar) annually? How do you account for all the people who couldn’t handle their emotions when young and now can when older?

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#55

Post by rriepe »

kahrl wrote: post #26
Hitton wrote: post #9

> When older people say, “This is the best time of your life, enjoy it while you can,” that’s a form of abuse. I guess that these days anything can be called "abuse".

Are you kidding me?! Unsolicited advice can be mildly annoying!!!! I may have to just nod my head in approval just to move the conversation along, even though I might not agree!! HORIFFIC ABUSE. The author just appears to use complete hyperbole to get a reaction from his students and readers. Not to be taken seriously.

It shows contempt. It might not be abuse itself, but it's definitely something abusers say. If he's confusing those things he probably deserves your compassion, not your indignation.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#56

Post by halgir »

ggambetta wrote: post #49
hnlmorg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you're describing is more down to desensitisation through exposure to stressful environments. When you're younger smaller problems seem larger because you've not been desensitised to larger problems. As you progress through life you generally experience greater stress and thus the smaller problems feel smaller. You could look at it like desensitisation to capsicum, salt, violence or pornography.

That's preposterous! I'm sticking to my "fucks are finite and biologically limited" theory. I'll use the TED talk to promote my upcoming self-help book around this mind-blowing new theory.

Surprisingly relevant to my post from last year, actually titled "Fucks are finite": https://halgir.com/fucks-are-finite/

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#57

Post by Kye »

amarant wrote: post #44

Natural selection. At a young age, some people know how to control their feelings, others don't. The ones who can't then die from road rage or similar, leaving only the ones with at least a modicum of self control in the older age groups. Basically, it's survivor bias, but literally.

All the older people who go on tantrums at retail and food service workers throw a monkey into this theory.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#58

Post by Gadiguibou »

Hitton wrote: post #9

> When older people say, “This is the best time of your life, enjoy it while you can,” that’s a form of abuse. I guess that these days anything can be called "abuse".

Maybe I understood the context improperly, but I thought "abuse" was used in the sense of "improper use of something".

In this case, it would be the improper use of your life experience giving advice that causes more harm than good.

Maybe "misuse" would have been better suiting here.

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#59

Post by Xplune13 »

Hitton wrote: post #9

> When older people say, “This is the best time of your life, enjoy it while you can,” that’s a form of abuse. I guess that these days anything can be called "abuse".

Nowadays, any simple comment can be interpreted on any extreme and everything in between.

Anecdotally, in my experience, this shift is really visible for 3-4 years now. I don't know what changed in these recent years or what caused that shift to become so drastic (again, in my experience). Internet gave a stage to these interpretation even though they were there previously in low volume.

But even on the internet, this wasn't the case until 5-6 years ago, at least not to this level (or so I think).

Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?

#60

Post by darkerside »

8fGTBjZxBcHq wrote: post #50
darkerside wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some might say that the true sense of beauty and wonder cones from doing how similar those two opposite ends of the spectrum actually can be

Who might say that and what would we have to do for them to commit to it? Are you saying it? Because I don't think it's true at all! But I want to wait until someone actually say it before I get into that.

Thanks for the invitation but I'm not looking to argue about it. Peace!
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