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Nine things I learned in ninety years

edwardpackard.com

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Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#251

Post by l5870uoo9y »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #242

> The ancient Greek and Roman Stoics believed that it’s wise to contemplate death well ahead of the event. I suppose their idea was that it’s desirable to contemplate death’s inevitability so as not to be shocked when it’s staring you in the face. That seems like a shallow interpretation. Rather, contemplating death ahead of the event refocuses you on your life at the present and hopefully causes you pause to conside…

Many prominent Stoics advocated the use of “negative visualizations” for a number of reasons. One argument for using negative visualizations was that by imagining potential misfortunes, one could prevent and avert them. Another argument was that they believed misfortune strikes hardest those who believe life is a bed of roses:

> “But no matter how hard we try to prevent bad things from happening to us, some will happen anyway. Seneca therefore points to a second reason for contemplating the bad things that can happen to us. If we think about these things, we will lessen their impact on us when, despite our efforts at prevention, they happen: “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.” Misfortune weighs most heavily, he says, on those who “expect nothing but good fortune.” Epictetus echoes this advice: We should keep in mind that “all things everywhere are perishable.” If we fail to recognize this and instead go around assuming that we will always be able to enjoy the things we value, we will likely find ourselves subject to considerable distress when the things we value are taken from us.”

A third argument put forward by the Stoics is that the use of negative visualizations makes you realize what is truly valuable to you and appreciate it:

> They recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value—that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job. Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would. This technique—let us refer to it as negative visualization—was employed by the Stoics at least as far back as Chrysippus. It is, I think, the single most valuable technique in the Stoics’ psychological tool kit.

And a fourth argument is the one you highlight, that thinking about death makes us realize how precious life is:

> Why, then, do the Stoics want us to contemplate our own death? Because doing so can dramatically enhance our enjoyment of life.”

(All quotations are from the book “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy – William B. Irvine”, which comes highly recommended.)

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#252

Post by mfro »

getpost wrote: post #231
larsnystrom wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, many things attributed to chance are actually the aggregate effect of other people's choices. If we make choices based on not just what's best for ourselves but what's best for all of us, we will all suddenly become more "lucky". And vice versa, if we only think about ourselves that luck will diminish.

You're lucky to have that perspective.

What are you trying to say with this, that you disagree, or that it's an intelligent perspective afforded to those who are not hopeless? I don't see how anyone can disagree that the aggregate actions of your parents, your locality, your culture, your nation, play the largest role in the cards you are dealt from the beginning.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#253

Post by ayongpm »

biofox wrote: post #102
ayongpm wrote: post #101

What a beautiful writing. I can't resist the urge to typeset it: https://typst.app/project/p5Ivi8TSuNmFpkoSfoJ06r PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV-yxI4sBS5gg4belO6hXuFvSFW...

"Error: You do not have sufficient permissions to access this project." :(

I've attached the pdf if you're curious

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#254

Post by lvl155 »

criddell wrote: post #151
lvl155 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is also why people resort to crime.

What they said also applies to criminals.

Crime is basically your way of cheating the probabilities. If everyone is playing by the rules and you don’t, you basically made your odds better. I am not saying this is right. I am just saying this is why people deviate and commit crimes though crimes are also committed for different reasons.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#255

Post by bwfan123 »

hdgvhicv wrote: post #58
flanked-evergl wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish school, get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. We are doing a disservice to our fellow man by not telling them this truth.

You’re far more likely to have been born in rural China, India or Africa than in the west.

And you can have an enlightened life in any one of those places - for example, the ideas laid out in the piece are abstract, and not environment specific.

All sorts of folks have lived in all sorts of places across time. Trappings and environments have varied. Attributing things to luck in and of itself is an illusion. There is nothing that is lucky or unlucky. You play the hand you are dealt.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#256

Post by [deleted] »

Rochus wrote: post #106

Well. Reminds me of " Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations " from Monty Python's " The Meaning of Life ", just with more quotations.

[deleted]

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#257

Post by tim333 »

Stiffly6471 wrote: post #20

a completely different topic & question on this post. how is his blog made? I like the style (simple yet clear and beautiful). Anyone know what direction i should look at?

I don't know how he did it but it looks like it was typed in MS Word and saved as a pdf. Or similar.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#258

Post by medvezhenok »

vladms wrote: post #114
ropable wrote: post #36

> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.

While strictly true, I wonder what does this sentence generates in the minds of the readers. I personally would prefer other formulations, because while I agree with the core, I think this idea should just reduce frustration if you don't succeed, while I am afraid it can be used as an excuse for not trying. Yes, you need luck, but if you never get out of your room/street/neighborhood/city/country, you might have less…

Right. I would say the most apt analogy is from poker.

In Poker, luck plays an integral role in the outcome of any specific game or match, but skill does show up when collected over a large enough sample (that's why they say you can't prove something is due to skill over chance until you've collected a sample of 10,000 - 100,000 played hands of poker - at least if you're playing online).

You could also be a very good poker player and have bad luck on one important occasion (say in the finals of the WSOP), where the outcome hinges purely on luck. Similarly, you could be a subpar player and "luck out" and strike it big purely because of the right sequence of cards at a big event. But generally, most people who succeed at Poker are not there purely based on luck; you can be lucky once or twice, but you're unlikely to make it through a whole Poker career just by being lucky.

I think similarly in life - you have a certain hand you're dealt, and if you play it to the best of your ability (and make opportunities for yourself), you increase your odds of winning the hand / the tournament / life; but ultimately even with your best efforts the outcome could still be decided by luck.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#259

Post by mainecoder »

latexr wrote: post #172
flanked-evergl wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Statistically, having children before you get married is much more likely to result in worse outcomes. Maybe cause and effect is inverted, but maybe the better option is to not run a social experiment in fatherless children as we have been doing for the past couple of decades with absolutely no research to suggest that it can result in positive outcomes and loads of data to show that it's almost definitely can'…

Statistics without context can be misleading. It’s reasonable to assume that the cause is the prior situation which lead to it , not the act itself. Picture two scenarios: 1. A loving unmarried couple, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or child bearing, lives in an affluent neighbourhood, in a rich country, have steady incomes, and decide to have a child. After ten years they decide “I love you so much. I don…

Proof by analogy is fraud" - Bjarne Stroustrup Yes; page 692 of TC++PL. A good analogy is an excellent way of illustrating an idea, but far too often such analogies are not accompanied by solid reasoning, data, etc

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#260

Post by slfnflctd »

nervousvarun wrote: post #246
isolli wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing. This part resonated :) "Today, it’s all too easy to see all of the limitations and infelicities of The Cave of Time and its successors: a book of 115 pages that had, as it proudly trumpeted on the cover, 40 possible endings meant that the sum total of any given adventure wasn’t likely to span more than about three choices if you were lucky. But to a lonely, hyper-imaginative eight-year-old, none o…

These books were incredibly important to me as an 80s kid. Was a voracious reader in general but absolutely loved these because they had replay value! I remember scouring through these on long family trips in the car to find every possible ending. The parallels with modern video games are obvious.

The first video game (and one of the first programs) I wrote was a self-styled Choose Your Own Adventure on a C64 with ASCII art and maybe a total of 10 pages.

The only person who acted impressed by it was my grandmother - who had paid for the C64 - but that was enough for me.

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