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Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

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Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#61

Post by bckr »

ultramegachurch wrote: post #6
tayo42 wrote: post #3

I wonder if the "midlife" part of midlife crisis does some harm. Other then me not being in my midlife (well i hope lol, don't think i want to die at 60) a lot of those issue resonate. Shrinking of possibilities, empty feeling as i pursue things. Ive felt this way on and off since my 20s and have talked with friends about similar feelings.

Yeah, this hits home. I'm only 28 but can feel my life becoming more and more predictable and stagnate. At the same time, I'm too afraid and money-conscious to make any bold changes (e.g., quit my job, start a business, go back to school, live in a van for a year, do something weird with my life). This is an incredible source of anxiety and depression. I've started therapy and have made some progress. If I can become…

The way I think about stability is that it's actually how I can not stagnate. Stagnation comes from going around in circles trying to fix the same problems over and over again. Stability allows me to make incremental progress over a long period of time toward my dreams.

Love that you started therapy. Feel free to reach out to me (email in bio) if you want to chat about this in general.

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#62

Post by tw600040 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #15
tw600040 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure once you hit 2m it will then be 10m :)

I don't know, $2 million invested at 5% return would equate to a post-tax income of about $75,000 or so per year which meets the threshold level of being able to own your own home (in a region with relatively depressed property values perhaps) and engage in whatever (relatively low-cost) activities you wanted to for the indefinite future, be it gardening or programming or art or whatever. Of course, that's all predic…

The devil's in the details. 2m doesn't convey much. 2m in what? 401k? Then it's inaccessible until 60. If not, then all earnings are going to be taxed and need to account for that. And is that 2m including primary residence or excluding primary residence? Also need to bring in mortgage into consideration..and if you do retire, given that health is tied to work in US that adds extra complexity..

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#63

Post by strogonoff »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #50
strogonoff wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it rings true from first principles that involving others in your life leads to higher satisfaction. If we assume as true that consciousness/self-awareness requires others to arise in the first place—that your own model of yourself is an outcome of modelling those around you (since that implies modelling their model of you)—then it seems not such a big leap to assume that taking others out of your life, becomin…

> If we assume as true that consciousness/self-awareness requires others to arise in the first place—that your own model of yourself is an outcome of modelling those around you (since that implies modelling their model of you)—then it seems not such a big leap to assume that taking others out of your life, becoming a leaf node in the network so to speak, would lead to various negative effects. I think this assumption…

If you reject the assumption that self-awareness is inherently social, then feel free to disagree. I guess I’m not actually arguing from first principles and we can’t properly get to the bottom of it here.

> there are autistic children lacking theory-of-mind while ostensibly being conscious and self-aware

I can’t speak for that. I don’t think this is a great example because they still exist in social context.

> I'm conscious and self-aware even when I'm isolated from others

We still exist over time, not discretely—if you are isolated, it doesn’t mean you lose consciousness immediately. However, I suspect that after a prolonged isolation from human contact (which would be a highly unethical experiment, of course) you’d likely exhibit behaviour consistent with waning self-awareness; and I would doubt that a human that is somehow (this is even more unethical) brought up in utter and total isolation could be considered conscious in any human sense of the word.

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#64

Post by bckr »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #59

These kinds of discussions remind of this passage from Mere Christianity by CS Lewis: Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in lov…

I think he's got the right idea, except that Christianity doesn't hold a patent on transcendence.

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#65

Post by ccooffee »

yboris wrote: post #10

Seems like a good way to avert a midlife crisis is to explicitly make helping others a non-trivial part of one's life. Focusing on effectiveness on helping others is probably an important component as well. I recommend looking into Effective Altruism - "a philosophy and community focused on maximising the good you can do through your career, projects, and donations" https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ In my case I've…

I've done this for over a decade, and "Effective Altruism" does NOT prevent midlife crises. There's more nuance to it. (In my case, my day job that paid VERY well involved things that are very much against my ethics. Even giving away 20% of the money to good causes didn't stop the guilt. So now I'm "retired" but mostly just wallowing in guilt of enabling horrific things while lying to myself about "making the world better" on the fringes.)

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#66

Post by Jibbedeyeah »

heliodor wrote: post #34
wincy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 35 I started calling myself “middle aged” and my coworkers around the same age looked at me like I was insane and then a rather uncomfortable discussion ensued about age and average lifespan in the US. Nobody in their 30s wants to think that they are in fact “middle aged” and it might be the time to have a “midlife crisis”.

It's all about the culture of your location. In New York City, 35 is young and vibrant and full of life.

I wonder if this is the result of being surrounded by so much marketing.

Coincidentally, I read an article in the Economist about male fertility that said 35 is when a man's sperm starts to become less effective. So, slightly less than full of life, I would say.

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#67

Post by thegrimmest »

PuppyTailWags wrote: post #21
kelseyfrog wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if the "midlife" part of midlife crisis does some harm. As someone who more or less started a midlife crisis last year, this rings true. Among other things, there's a social double bind that lies at the root of this that must be examined. On one hand, young people are framed as unable to understand themselves and that they must suck it up and act like adults. On the other hand, when those that do "suck it…

I have a suspicion that the reason for the discouragement of midlife crisis is inflexibility in a society where people must work to earn money to live. If you're in your 30s and have dependents, quitting your job puts the QoL of your dependents in peril because there's no general societal-level support program for that sort of life pivot.

I agree. I think we've done a very good job at dismantling exactly the sorts of support networks that would normally fill this role - namely family and community. It seems as though these networks would generally step in during any sort of crisis experienced by a member and help keep things stable.

The state-run, compulsory alternatives seem a poor substitute, and I'm not sure we're socio-biologically equipped to make the transition. The only way forward seems to be to identify the cause(s) for the dissolution of family and community as reliable networks and revert/fix them.

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#68

Post by xhevahir »

I'm looking at journal articles about how age correlates with happiness and this sentence doesn't inspire a whole lot of confidence in the state of research:

This paper is the mirror image of Blanchflower (2020b) that examined unhappiness data and finds comparable evidence using twenty different measures for an unhappiness curve that maximized with controls at age 49 compared with a zenith of happiness estimated in this paper at age 48.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00148-020-00797-z

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#69

Post by trevithick »

bachmeier wrote: post #45
psyc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem that amount of money solves is having to trade your waking hours and obedience to bosses or clients in exchange for room and board.

Is this meant as disagreement with my comment? To disagree with my comment, you'd have to argue that there is no alternative to getting hit with a big pile of money in order to deal with the problem of a bad job. Without even giving it much thought, I can list a few: change careers; get a better job; marry someone with a decent job, which will expand your employment options; start your own company; live a more frugal…

I see the logic in your initial comment. But getting a big pile of money is as realistic as much of what you listed here. How is "Just marry someone wealthy" more realistic than getting a pile of money (not to mention that that suggestion is merely a roundabout way of getting access to a pile of money)? What if I'm already married? There are many reasons the other suggestions are virtually as out of reach for most wage slaves as getting helicopter money.

Re: Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

#70

Post by colinmhayes »

tw600040 wrote: post #62
photochemsyn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, $2 million invested at 5% return would equate to a post-tax income of about $75,000 or so per year which meets the threshold level of being able to own your own home (in a region with relatively depressed property values perhaps) and engage in whatever (relatively low-cost) activities you wanted to for the indefinite future, be it gardening or programming or art or whatever. Of course, that's all predic…

The devil's in the details. 2m doesn't convey much. 2m in what? 401k? Then it's inaccessible until 60. If not, then all earnings are going to be taxed and need to account for that. And is that 2m including primary residence or excluding primary residence? Also need to bring in mortgage into consideration..and if you do retire, given that health is tied to work in US that adds extra complexity..

capital gains tax at 15% would mean that if you sell 4% of your holdings a year your post tax income is 3.4% or $68,000. That's around $80,000 pre tax which is surely enough to live a middle class lifestyle in the right location if you can figure out the health care situation. Seems to me the questions are 1. How do you get insurance? and 2. Will the historical market conditions that allow for 4% yearly withdrawal while keeping up with inflation continue?
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