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Children and Helical Time

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Re: Children and Helical Time

#111

Post by wasimanitoba »

nradov wrote: post #101
buttocks wrote: post #99

Life with young children is actually mostly dreary and stressful; the fun and excitement and reliving of childhood memories is 1% or less of life, in my experience. By time I realize I am having that <1% experience it is over. I still feel as though I am chasing after something vanishing and never catching it.

I didn't find that to be true. It might depend somewhat on the individual children. Your individual stress level is largely under your own control.

Physical Health, mental health, the economy, social disorder, family; we can influence these things that cause stress but often we can't "control" them.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#112

Post by nradov »

wasimanitoba wrote: post #111
nradov wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find that to be true. It might depend somewhat on the individual children. Your individual stress level is largely under your own control.

Physical Health, mental health, the economy, social disorder, family; we can influence these things that cause stress but often we can't "control" them.

You can't necessarily control external events. But you can, to a significant degree, control the effect those things have on your chronic stress levels. This requires cultivating a certain level of maturity and mental discipline.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#113

Post by lotsofpulp »

nchmy wrote: post #106
lotsofpulp wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puzzling reply (assuming ron paul is being used as a pejorative), considering your adjacent comment seems to agree with my sentiment.

no, not even slightly. Im very much in favour of socializing all sorts of things. Ron paul was used to describe the sort of (seemingly) libertarian "leave me alone, i dont want to know you. please go die" views you espoused.

I did not espouse such views. There exist resource constraints in reality which contradict the attitude presented by the post I responded to, unless they were willing to forego those socialized benefits.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#114

Post by NedF »

rr808 wrote: post #29

My kids go to a stem focused magnet school. I realize different cultures value different things but its depressing to me how many kids are pushed to dedicate their whole childhood to get into top Universities. We'd go to the beach and their friends couldn't come because they were doing extra APs or science fair or Math Olympics or similar. These kids got good grades but never went on a date, couldn't drive or go anyw…

[dead]

Re: Children and Helical Time

#115

Post by moultano »

codingdave wrote: post #49

> If you take this model literally, that your experience of an interval reflects what fraction of your life the interval is I don't accept that premise. I'm in my mid-fifties now, and a year is still a long time. They years get short if you fall into a routine and never do anything new, but it is easy enough not to fall into that trap. And I say that as someone who thrives in doing the same routine every day. I get m…

> This is where my reaction was: "Dude, wat??" If adult experiences make you resentful, something is really off. If a good experience makes you wish you could go back to being a child, I'd be recommending therapy because that is not the reaction most adults have to new experiences. I don't say that to be mean, either - if your childhood memories are that much stronger than adult ones, that is not the typical human experience, and I would sincerely be asking for medical and psych support to figure out if something is wrong.

I'm describing my impression of other people's experience there, not mine, (note the word "exclusively") the sort of downside I see of living an inward life of hedonism.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#116

Post by skjadhs »

sokoloff wrote: post #33
rr808 wrote: post #29

My kids go to a stem focused magnet school. I realize different cultures value different things but its depressing to me how many kids are pushed to dedicate their whole childhood to get into top Universities. We'd go to the beach and their friends couldn't come because they were doing extra APs or science fair or Math Olympics or similar. These kids got good grades but never went on a date, couldn't drive or go anyw…

I was partially (largely?) one of those other kids. Honestly, I loved it and, though it wasn’t perfect, I definitely wouldn’t re-roll my childhood if given the chance. Later in life, I managed to catch up in dating and other aspects, but kept a good streak of nerd pride and am totally happy about that. If you were to have observed my childhood and got depressed about it, that interpretation would have been misguided.

Stockholm syndrome. And also you were force to invest a considerable amount of time in a specific activity.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#117

Post by croo »

buttocks wrote: post #99

Life with young children is actually mostly dreary and stressful; the fun and excitement and reliving of childhood memories is 1% or less of life, in my experience. By time I realize I am having that <1% experience it is over. I still feel as though I am chasing after something vanishing and never catching it.

I am sorry that this is your experience. A newborn brings in so much responsibility and unknowns and there is no rest - as with anything with a lot of responsibility, unknowns and no rest, it can cause tremendous amount of stress.

For centuries we lived in large families and those within communities where everyone witnessed birth at home with multiple siblings and responsibilities around raising children from a small age. The current atomic families with two adult both completely inexperienced in raising a child is unprecedented in history.

I agree that reliving memories is not a large part, though it is impactful. But it's not dreary ... large part is also having fun and good time with your kids.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#118

Post by sokoloff »

skjadhs wrote: post #116
sokoloff wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was partially (largely?) one of those other kids. Honestly, I loved it and, though it wasn’t perfect, I definitely wouldn’t re-roll my childhood if given the chance. Later in life, I managed to catch up in dating and other aspects, but kept a good streak of nerd pride and am totally happy about that. If you were to have observed my childhood and got depressed about it, that interpretation would have been misguided.

Stockholm syndrome. And also you were force to invest a considerable amount of time in a specific activity.

You say "were force[d] to"; I say "chose to".

Only one of the two of us was there.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#119

Post by srean »

nchmy wrote: post #109
srean wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was asking whether your days were (over) packed with scheduled activities. My best ones had very loose to non-existent schedules. Other than that our experiences are different and that's ok. People are different. It's always a pleasure to meet my past self through those writings (usually emails to friend and family) and photographs I took or were taken by others in the trip. Agree with you on the part that it is ab…

i have never traveled with a schedule, even when i was being a "tourist" also, i probably didnt make this point nearly well enough, but the real point is that travel is completely unnecessary and will absolutely not solve any of your real problems. More likely it will just distract from them, or make them worse. Whatever genuinely beneficial things you and your partner experienced together while travelling could and…

Definitely agree with your point that travel will not solve problems. Wherever you go there you are. However, we disagree in the value of travel.

We are creatures of our surroundings environment and changing the environment definitely helps regulate/alter internal states. Can it be done without the travel, presumably so, but travel makes it easier.

Besides all this stuff about internal state, that's too new agey for my tastes, travels are fantastic for its experiential / dopaminergic value, especially if it's a place that offers beauty.

My brain responds to the sights and sounds in the serenity of mountains in a way that I cannot recreate in constricted crowded settings of clutter. Maybe some people can, I just simply cannot.

Can one live without traveling, of course one can. One can live bed-ridden, paralysed as a born paraplegic. But that was never the question.

Re: Children and Helical Time

#120

Post by ErroneousBosh »

rr808 wrote: post #29

My kids go to a stem focused magnet school. I realize different cultures value different things but its depressing to me how many kids are pushed to dedicate their whole childhood to get into top Universities. We'd go to the beach and their friends couldn't come because they were doing extra APs or science fair or Math Olympics or similar. These kids got good grades but never went on a date, couldn't drive or go anyw…

> These kids got good grades but never went on a date, couldn't drive or go anywhere by themselves.

One of my friends in high school was like that - always studying, always doing extra classes. Straight As even without it, good grades, six highers one year and another two and four CSYS by the time he left. Then off to Uni where he got a first with distinction in Business Management. He never did anything but study, although he did play football a bit.

In the intervening 30-odd years he's mostly worked as a deputy manager in a supermarket in a small town maybe an hour's drive from the slightly smaller town I live in. He's never done anything else. Moved a couple of hundred miles from where we went to school, got a job, worked his way up to assistant manager.

I see him sometimes in passing when I'm working up that way.

We must imagine Stephen happy.

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