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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

#291

Post by ks2048 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #162
darkwater wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you need to run any experiment. Being married or not is just signing a paper. What matters is if the couple live together and in harmony. You can do so without being married and having children, and it's everyday more common. That's why I'm saying you have cause and effect in the wrong order: children issues are tied to one or both parents not caring about them, and a symptom of that was having children…

> Being married or not is just signing a paper. If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years, then yes. If we redefine marriage to not mean what most humans that have ever used the word meant by it, then yes. But why would we do these things? If you call all relations between two human beings marriage, you gain nothing, you just lose a word. Marriage is a covenant between two people, a man and…

> If we ignore almost all of human history save for the past 50 years, then yes.

50 years ago was 1975.

I'm pretty sure there are examples of formalized marriage about as old as historic records.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#292

Post by [deleted] »

kinnth wrote: post #267

I really love reading the wisdom of older people. Society really dismisses everyone over 80, but I find myself having deep interesting connections with a few people much older than myself (38). Something society always neglects is that everyone goes through the same thoughts time and time again. We all make mistakes and we learn our own way, but when someone's 90, they really have done a lot of it all before. Even if…

[deleted]

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#293

Post by pests »

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.

Same. I would compulsively graph the options as I went so I could backtrack back decisions.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#294

Post by triceratops »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #204
james_marks wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is suggesting marriage means "all relations between two human beings". Only that there are many ways to demonstrate and be committed to a person. The legal recognization by a church or government is one version, but not the key ingredient.

> Only that there are many ways to demonstrate and be committed to a person. And we don't need to use the word marriage for all of them. > The legal recognization by a church or government is one version, but not the key ingredient. The covenant with god has been a key ingredient for centuries.

> And we don't need to use the word marriage for all of them.

But that's the only word we have for "lifetime-committed couple recognized by some authority". The meanings of words change and evolve. Tough luck.

We could use the secular "civil union" for all marriages performed outside of a church. But that would be unnecessarily clunky and pointless ("I got civil union-ed this weekend, it was great!"). And then of course people married under other religious traditions would object to the use of the word "civil" so you'd have to qualify every other union accordingly - "Jewish union", "Muslim union", "Hindu union", etc. Why?

You're basically arguing against free speech. I don't understand who it's helping. If the distinction is that important to you, just spell it out when talking about your marriage ("I was married in a church"). Leave everyone else alone.

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#295

Post by bigstrat2003 »

fifilura wrote: post #133
zwnow wrote: post #7

[flagged]

Folks, please try to separate opposing views from downvoting. I think zwnow raised som interesting discussion and apparently he speaks from his own experience whick is probably different than yours.

I would say he is being voted down not for his views, but for the extremely disrespectful tone "another old person who thinks they figured out life".

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#296

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#297

Post by [deleted] »

kinnth wrote: post #267

I really love reading the wisdom of older people. Society really dismisses everyone over 80, but I find myself having deep interesting connections with a few people much older than myself (38). Something society always neglects is that everyone goes through the same thoughts time and time again. We all make mistakes and we learn our own way, but when someone's 90, they really have done a lot of it all before. Even if…

[deleted]

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#298

Post by dillydogg »

mfro wrote: post #252
getpost wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I read it as in alignment with the previous definition of luck; meaning that a number of previous conscious decisions have created a world where they could come to this understanding of luck

Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years

#300

Post by danielmarkbruce »

gilbetron wrote: post #199

I dunno. I'm on the older end, but nowhere near 90, and I've read a lot of these takes, and heard similar from a lot of older people in my lives. While there are good thoughts, often they come from people who didn't do that in their lives and achieved great things because they weren't chasing peace, but chasing success, status, adventure, and the such. When I read something like this now, I ask if the person writing…

100% this. It's so bad in my experience that you should basically never listen to someone successful. While there are going to be exceptions, most of the time they either give you a wishlist as you mention, or completely misunderstand what happened.
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