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I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

theguardian.com

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Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#491

Post by LocalH »

usgroup wrote: post #286
telesilla wrote: post #266

"This valley is cut in the shape of my heart". I've known farmers like him, bachelors who are mild mannered and love their lives and the extended family that comes with living an entire life in one valley. He maybe goes to Sunday service for socialization and the local pub to watch the game, and as long as his sheep are healthy and the sky does what it promises (because he knows the day before always if it will rain)…

I appreciate the romance, but those of us who have children leave behind much more than stone walls we built in our 20s. He’s a 72 year old Batchelor who’s once stepped foot outside a Welsh valley. If happiness is a lobotomy then credit to us who don’t choose it.

Children are not the penultimate achievement of humanity. In fact, they're one of the core things that take zero learned skill and can be created and raised entirely via instinctual means.

I would argue that those who leave the most behind are those who are kind and thoughtful to those in their lives. They leave behind one of the most important and precious things that anyone ever could - pleasant memories in the minds and experiences of others. They brought direct happiness to others through their kindness. This is the type of person I strive to be, and I feel enriched and deeply fulfilled when successful in doing so. In some ways, the type of peace that can bring can be one of the few things that you can "take with you" in death, in that you will feel that happiness until your very last moment, which you will most likely not generally do with material possessions.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#492

Post by [deleted] »

mrphoebs wrote: post #438
tacitusarc wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you're wrong?

I don't know what specifically you are referring to but, the sun is going to be a red giant in 4.5 billion years, earth cannot sustain life. Deep into the future, all the stars will eventually burn out and there will be no more new ones born. The night sky will be dark. The only radiation emitted will be black holes slowly evaporating on a time scale so huge we can't even meaningfully comprehend it. There is no energ…

[deleted]

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#493

Post by mekkkkkk »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #413
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you did use the word "mild". but it made me wonder if not every person I've ever encountered that looked happy seemed like that a bit. The happier somebody is the more deluded they look to the rest of us. People in love are perhaps the most obvious. But it says probably more about the observer.

The specific happiness that we're talking about here is contentment -- with your life, with who you are. I think it looks so odd to so many of us because we tend to be an ambitious bunch, and I find ambition to be pretty inversely related to contentment. The sort of acceptance that this man displays feels like giving up, in a sense. And in many ways, it is -- but that's something that Buddhists have been teaching for…

"Giving up" seems to imply unfulfilled ambition, though. It only feels like giving up because we project our own ambitions onto him. If his ambition always was to lead a simple, predictable life close to nature, he's achieved flawlessly. Maybe I'm just re-stating what you said, sorry.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#494

Post by jawns »

sverhagen wrote: post #249
aeternum wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My father grew up on a rural Irish farm, then came to America as a young adult. At age 78, he hatched a plan to move back to his family home, where his brother and a nephew still lived. After three years there, he came back to the US, complaining that it wasn't the Ireland he remembered.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#495

Post by 867-5309 »

mrphoebs wrote: post #438
tacitusarc wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you're wrong?

I don't know what specifically you are referring to but, the sun is going to be a red giant in 4.5 billion years, earth cannot sustain life. Deep into the future, all the stars will eventually burn out and there will be no more new ones born. The night sky will be dark. The only radiation emitted will be black holes slowly evaporating on a time scale so huge we can't even meaningfully comprehend it. There is no energ…

we will have left earth (and inevitably our sun) long before 4 billion years away, most probably as a hybrid species by then

on the theorised heat death timescale humans have only been around for less than infinitesimal fractions of quadrillionths of a percent of their potential. what's to say we don't in that time escape it by transiting to a new, younger universe?

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#496

Post by rainbowzootsuit »

mrphoebs wrote: post #438
tacitusarc wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you're wrong?

I don't know what specifically you are referring to but, the sun is going to be a red giant in 4.5 billion years, earth cannot sustain life. Deep into the future, all the stars will eventually burn out and there will be no more new ones born. The night sky will be dark. The only radiation emitted will be black holes slowly evaporating on a time scale so huge we can't even meaningfully comprehend it. There is no energ…

A short story that explores this premise:

The Last Question by Isaac Asimov © 1956

https://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#497

Post by raffraffraff »

nly wrote: post #381
raffraffraff wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you. In not sure if want to be raising kids today. I had a moment in my 20s where I just stopped and thought, "Every single ancestor I had from my parents back to algae had offspring. What if I don't?" If you consider the whole Ocean as history, and the present moment as a single solitary wave heading towards the shore, and your life as the surfer on that wave, it doesn't matter what came before you. What matt…

Something like 10% of all humans that have ever lived are alive today.

They must be so fucking old. I bet they have some good stories. /s

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#498

Post by kaladin_1 »

mrphoebs wrote: post #435
krimbus wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, our very existence is a consequence of reproduction, even if we may have forgotten our ancestors. The only true delusion of grandeur is thinking that dwindling others' experiences against the vastness of the universe is enlightenment: If we don't experience our existence in geological/cosmic time scales, why waste time believing we are mere blips?

I'm not dwindling others experiences against the vastness of the universe. I'm merely pointing out the absurdity of the parent comment that somehow elevates the meaningfulness of having kids over building a stone wall. My position is neither is any less or more meaningful beyond individual experience.

Hmm... Since when did we reach this height of "enlightenment" that children (humans) are now being compared to a stonewall in relevance, no matter how sophisticated the wall might be?

Yes, it is more meaningful to have kids than to build a stonewall.

Aren't walls inventions of man, as such, an effect caused by man. How can an effect (invention) of man be equated to the inventor?

Do you compare the effect of human freedom to the effect of unconscious matter in history?

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#499

Post by II2II »

tirant wrote: post #481
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> those of us who have children leave behind much more than stone walls we built in our 20s Ah, yes. A planet completely ruined by overpopulation. That is your legacy. Also, your existence is just as meaningless as this farmer's. You probably remember your grandparents, at least you know a little about their lives. What about your grandparents parents, or your grandparents grandparents. They were people with their ow…

It saddens me to read such nihilistic comments here. Specially based on such clichés. Under which metric is the planet complete ruined? and why do you think it's overpopulated? what's then the maximum number of people that should live on this planet according to you, and based on what? Under lots of metrics, today's planet is a much healthier and prosperous place to live for humankind than it was 100 or even 50 years…

> Under lots of metrics, today's planet is a much healthier and prosperous place to live for humankind than it was 100 or even 50 years ago.

We have created healthier and more prosperous societies. It is difficult to argue that we have created a healthier planet, yet our long term survival depends upon the health of the planet.

Re: I’ve had the same supper for 10 years

#500

Post by quonn »

notjes wrote: post #356
telesilla wrote: post #266

"This valley is cut in the shape of my heart". I've known farmers like him, bachelors who are mild mannered and love their lives and the extended family that comes with living an entire life in one valley. He maybe goes to Sunday service for socialization and the local pub to watch the game, and as long as his sheep are healthy and the sky does what it promises (because he knows the day before always if it will rain)…

This man is independent. The powers that are, hiss in horror at his sighting, because they want him in a cubicle and in debt.

Who in particular?
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