Wisdom through experience.
Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
171–180 of 288 posts
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#172My 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…
This is hilarious and yet right on the money in some way. As you get older, you start to see that everything is the same and goes through cycles. The important stuff of my childhood (ex: having clothes that were sewhar fashionable), becomes irrelevant. Who cares if I'm wearing the same style of sandals for over 20 years now? You start to focus on what's more important to you. F** are reserved for important matters li…
> F* are reserved for important matters like arguing on HN about the superiority of Linux :).
Linux has already taken over the world. Your advocacy energy is wasted on it.
Direct it toward promoting Rust instead :)
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
The last thing you wrote is something I indirectly think about quite a lot. Imagine a place (call it heaven if you want) where time and death don’t exist. What could you possibly care about?
I've deliberately cultivated this. As I often as I remember I adopt the perspective of someone who's 14,000 years old. I don't know why I haven't died, and at this point I don't expect to at anytime in the future. But I don't know I won't - so I'm still careful, and grateful. But I don't let things bother me, because I've seen it before. And all my plans are long-term, because centuries to me are the same as quarters…
"You think that thing you're worried about is going to matter in the long term? THINK, Mark, THINK!"
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#174At age 20 or so, I read a quote in a book (on day trading, IIRC) that went something like: "Master your emotions, or they will master you." After thinking about it, I realized that despite identifying as a logical-thinking individual, I was nevertheless at the mercy of the more primitive parts of my brain. Sometimes totally, but pretty much all executive functions were influenced by it to a large degree. That might b…
"Mastering your emotions" if you mean, controlling your emotions, is not balanced or healthy. Mastering your emotions means listening to them as a critical feedback to your environment and then rationally controlling your response.
Rational thought is complimentary to emotional thought. Rational thought is slow, reflexive, and highly focused. Emotional thought is affective; it is your mind telling you how something is affecting you.
E.g. Anger tells you some boundary has been violated. It's the rational part that allows you to analyze that feeling and respond appropriately (telling someone to back off or getting a snack because your blood sugars are low)
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
The last thing you wrote is something I indirectly think about quite a lot. Imagine a place (call it heaven if you want) where time and death don’t exist. What could you possibly care about?
This is addressed really interestingly in The Good Place. It starts off looking like a very by-the-book sitcom though, so you do need to wait it out a bit.
It’s a philosophy class masquerading as a sitcom. I liked the show a lot. And props to them for ending the show when it needed to. They could have dragged it out but didn’t.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#176My 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…
> My entirely unscientific theory is that like other cells, we're born with a limited number of fucks in our body.
lol. Well, there you have it.
Perhaps the outrage component advertises breeding potential in young humans, kind of like thick hair.
In the end, it's all bene caca et irrima medicos.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Babies in particular cry so much because whatever discomfort they’re experiencing is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened to them.
The thing with babies is that evolution comes in play here, and they often cry for no (internal) reason whatsoever... More crying = more parent attention = better rate of survival. I wonder when does this effect cut off.
There’s nothing funnier than seeing your toddler harmlessly fall, he thinks no one saw it, he goes on about his day, then a few seconds later makes eye contact with you and only then starts crying.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, thi…
My pet theory that fits the timeline pretty well is that when Tumblr died and they migrated to Twitter, what was incubated and contained on Tumblr dramatically changed the demographics of twitter and became more mainstream. Most of the last few years of change have been commonplace on tumblr up to that point, but we just kind of laughed and pointed out how ridiculous it was. Now it’s the mainstream
It might be. Personally I never had a Tumblr account, never even visited their website. It was just a name I'd heard. Tumblr was so far out of my life that I didn't even notice that Tumblr died.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
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, thi…
There's a feedback loop between: a) systems like Twitter giving people dopamine bumps and internet points for strong emotional responses to the most extreme interpretation of anything anyone says and b) peoples training their brains to have strong emotional responses to the most extreme interpretation of anything anyone says
Yes, but I don't remember all this being so extreme even until 4-5 years ago on Twitter.
From my experience, something changed around 2017 and now Twitter is a war zone.
Re: Why do older individuals have greater control of their feelings?
#180I'm 32. Control over my feelings has always been important to me as a way to survive an abusive household when growing up.
I've noticed it has become easier for the following reasons:
* I've been through worse.
* Time flies faster when you're older.
* Having experience means I have an explanation for most of the things I experience around me.
* I can assign words and concepts to what I feel, making it easier to understand what I experience inside of me.
* I've seen people die. I accept death as a possible outcome and rationalize it for what it is: part of life. Like a dreamless sleep, like before I was born, which wasn't so bad.