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On Really Trying (2009)

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Re: On Really Trying (2009)

#61

Post by lo3jd4d »

noduerme wrote: post #9
zshn wrote: post #8

Strangely reading about high achievers having had a difficult childhood and how it might have actually "enabled" them to achieve what they did, is soothing in a way. It's nice to think of your own scars as a thing that helps you sometimes instead of only a burden.

I'm from a family that believed strongly in what some might call "useful child abuse", but that doesn't imply any actual abuse as it would have been defined even 20 years ago, and it isn't without love. Every one of my brothers will admit that our parents loved us deeply, but that our upbringing was extremely stringent and intellectually rigorous, with seemingly unjust punishments for poor grades or for words spoken…

[dead]

Re: On Really Trying (2009)

#62

Post by bgilroy26 »

arolihas wrote: post #60
bgilroy26 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you've made it this far, the new spectrum everyone is measured on is their magnanimity. It's okay that you didn't turn out to be that magnanimous, but don't lie to yourself and pretend that you tried as hard as you could You had more in your humanity tank than you knew you had

Is everyone really measured on their magnanimity? We all pick our metrics to feel like we’re winning or losing.

If you are considered to be rich in terms of ways and means and generous of spirit as well, you really have it made in the shade. Traditionally speaking.

Re: On Really Trying (2009)

#63

Post by forshaper »

bildung wrote: post #23
noduerme wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm from a family that believed strongly in what some might call "useful child abuse", but that doesn't imply any actual abuse as it would have been defined even 20 years ago, and it isn't without love. Every one of my brothers will admit that our parents loved us deeply, but that our upbringing was extremely stringent and intellectually rigorous, with seemingly unjust punishments for poor grades or for words spoken…

Empirically, the causality you state there is simply wrong, and clearly so. The psychological abuse you have suffered usually at least leads to anxious attachment, i.e. the inability to form healthy bonds with other people, as well as higher probability of social anxiety, depression and suicidality. You've just fallen victim to survivorship bias here - if you were one of the kids that got broken more severly by their…

Empirically, a lot of strong extended family & fictive kin systems suggest otherwise. If anything, atomization (weaker relationship bonds) go hand in hand with a lack of what I suspect you would call "abuse." Though I'm guessing you might call those strong bonds "unhealthy", as well?

Re: On Really Trying (2009)

#64

Post by polotics »

noduerme wrote: post #22
jl6 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So where did it all go wrong, to end up with you posting comments like this?

Ahhh, finally a good question. I've just been sucked into the same online shitstorm as everyone else, I guess. I'm posting right now directly after reading tonight's clickbait about the woman who got sentenced for child abuse for letting her 5 year old kid walk a few blocks alone in a gated community. Transposing that to all this, it makes me think about what impacted me, my family and my cohort and allowed us to be…

Glucocorticoids in your early amygdala? That's a bummer!

Blame the game, not the player! In today's kind spirit of early-internet you're also not a dog on the internet communities, there you go...

No warranty granted or implied: A bit of sarcosine in the morning, and a bit more glycine at night I say. :-)

Re: On Really Trying (2009)

#65

Post by noduerme »

n4r9 wrote: post #33
noduerme wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are taught that achievement means value. Circularly, we value ourselves for achievements and we inculcate this in our children. It is a value judgment . It's one that not everyone shares. It's surprising to me that a majority of people find it to be a controversial. I think what's actually going on here in this thread is that people think any value judgment must be a bad thing. Right?

I'm not saying that any value judgement is a bad thing. (Although such a statement would be amusingly ironic). I'm saying that you're viewing your upbringing strictly through the lens it handed you. As far as I can make out, your argument goes like this: Strict parenting is good because it produces high achievers. I think achievement is good because I was conditioned to think it was good. I was conditioned to think i…

I think achievement is good because it is objectively a good thing for humans to achieve things. The trouble here is that you're claiming that's just my subjective formatting. Do you have a definition of "good" by which achievement is NOT good?

Re: On Really Trying (2009)

#66

Post by 63stack »

noduerme wrote: post #16
n4r9 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have high expectations of them and are gravely, mortally disappointed if they let us down That sounds like a recipe for long-term psychological complexes. I know plenty of high-achievers that don't constantly feel like they have to prove themselves. And I wish I didn't have to work so hard to challenge that feeling in myself.

I don't know any high achievers who don't feel they have to prove themselves, so maybe I'm in the wrong cirles. It absolutely is a recipe for all kinds of long term complexes. But when you do work hard and you are satisfied with yourself, that satisfaction comes from something greater than yourself. Having no goal is worse than having an artificial one... and achieving something to make your dead parents happy is bet…

Achieving something rather than nothing is obviously better, full stop. Bringing dead parents into this is just self help book literature.

Re: On Really Trying (2009)

#68

Post by xyzelement »

akho wrote: post #52
noduerme wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really the news. Guy grew up in Russia with no indoor plumbing, forced to drop out of school at 12, has 7 brothers and sisters killed in a genocide, flees conscription at 15, broke on a train to Holland then a boat to Argentina where he speaks no Spanish, ends up in America at 21 and becomes a Spanish translator, works as a cloth cutter and a bartender, buys a farm on a patch of arid desert, sends his kid…

sob stories of your gramps life have nothing to do with you

Not the person you are replying to, but I was greatly influenced by my grandparents who were themselves greatly influenced by how they were raised and their life experience.

That seems very common and normal. Of you weren't influenced by your grandparents that is a reflection of something too.

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