461–470 of 780 posts
This guy doesn't really farm. If he did, he'd be in much better shape. I had family who were serious farmers (many chores everyday) and they were lean/skinny like runners even in old age. This guy overeats and doesn't get much activity.
I wonder if his eating routine might be linked to it.
Four sandwiches for lunch, that quite and amount of white bread for a single person, every day.
This guy doesn't really farm. If he did, he'd be in much better shape. I had family who were serious farmers (many chores everyday) and they were lean/skinny like runners even in old age. This guy overeats and doesn't get much activity.
As someone from a family of farmers, yes, people can be fat and work on farms. I know people who are in the fields everyday and with beer bellies like you wouldn't believe.
This man is 72. The fact he's working outside well past the age of retirement for most people shows he's not in completely terrible shape.
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A man living in the same place all his life has no basis for comparison. I would be more convinced that your great-grandfather's village is something special since he experienced elsewhere yet still returned.
Don't most migrants have nostalgia for their country of origin? Where their roots are, no matter how much of a globetrotter they were. Sure, if the country you grew up in a beleaguered place, you wouldn't think of going back. But I've heard so many migrants say things along lines of: "oh, man, once I'm retired... ". "Disclaimer": migrant myself. Not necessarily my dream to go back "once retired". But my wife yearns f…
Sometimes I feel a bit of nostalgia, but along life I've learned that you tend to remember the good things and the bad things get opaqued by time.
So when I feel a bit nostalgic I have learned to get a bit rational and think back to when I was there, and to the times I've come back to visit parent and relatives (holidays etc).
I then rationally remember all the reasons why I left and all the reasons why I decided to stay where I am. And nostalgia vanishes, almost immediately.
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Here (in the UK at least) you can buy little jars of paste, often made from some kind of meat or seafood. It seems the intended use case is to spread it on bread. I personally have never tried it nor plan to but see for yourself via James May: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVdodVA3qTk
Liverpaste is popular in Scandinavia. It's great on dark rye pumpernickel. It's really quite tasty especially topped with some sliced cucumber and fried onions.
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> One day, the grouse was seen perching atop the family house. When I told this to my grandmother, she went silent at first, and then she told me that it means someone will die in the family. This was of course terrifying news to me. But it also turned out to become true, because my grandfather also died that year. Do you actually believe the grouse perching on house was foreshadowing??
Does it matter? This is an old belief told from one generation to another. And in the instance of my family, it certainly turned out to be true. Later that summer, during an especially hot and bright night (it's midnight sun where I come from because it's above the Arctic Circle) I saw that grouse on the tractor road further down the fields of the farm. It silhouetted in the midnight sun. It surprised me to see it st…
I’m not trying to be mean, but there is a chance this guy has some deep anxiety and self-esteem issues which means he doesn’t even think to look outside of his comfort zone. Routine is a way of not stressing yourself out with newness and the possibility you might not cope, and fail.
I married into a traditional small town Indian family last year.
One of the biggest idealogical challenges I've faced is the duality of ambition. My family in law live similar to the farmer. Low entropy. I know where they will be every day every 15 minutes, what they will eat, with little exception.
It's such a stark contrast to my personal life, which has been characterized by the constant need to improve, challenge, and adapt. I don't know what I'll be doing 15 minutes from now let alone 2:00 - 2:15 a year from now.
I personally am not an absolutist, and so I don't think there's a particular lifestyle that is wrong or right, but it's an salient dichotomy and something that I've found challenging to reconcile in practice.
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> One day, the grouse was seen perching atop the family house. When I told this to my grandmother, she went silent at first, and then she told me that it means someone will die in the family. This was of course terrifying news to me. But it also turned out to become true, because my grandfather also died that year. Do you actually believe the grouse perching on house was foreshadowing??
Does it matter? This is an old belief told from one generation to another. And in the instance of my family, it certainly turned out to be true. Later that summer, during an especially hot and bright night (it's midnight sun where I come from because it's above the Arctic Circle) I saw that grouse on the tractor road further down the fields of the farm. It silhouetted in the midnight sun. It surprised me to see it st…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I’ve heard that humans had a long period of time after we became sedentary and started relying on agriculture that the average height decreased significantly, and it was only in recent centuries that it has gotten back to normal due to more varied nutrition. So even if you can technically survive on a very limited diet, it can still have negative effects. It's not the variety of the diet but the quality of the food…
> It's fine, however, to eat nothing but meat and many societies did this for hundreds of thousands of years. Other than those who live in the arctic, which societies did this? You have sources? Thanks!
Then there was a shift towards agricultural societies, where people relied on their plantations and domesticated cattle. I don't think the cattle meat would be enough for most of their meals, probably the most of them would be bread and soup.
This is just a vague recollection from A Brief History of Humanity, but it makes sense to me. Eating just meat sounds terribly "costly", you have to actively ignore all other sources of food around you.