I am happy that in my 60 years of life to have achieved most of this, but would have been glad and better off having read it in my early 30s.
Nine things I learned in ninety years
81–90 of 405 posts
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#82Earlier 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.
> get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. Based on what, exactly? I think you have cause and effect inverted.
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't result in positive outcomes.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#83> "...happiness to become one’s default state of mind." I have read psychologists saying that "happiness as default state" is a social construct myth of modern times. You cannot be happy all the time, the fact of being unhappy sometimes is what drives you self-reflect and to chase meaning to your life. To feel pleasure you need to feel some pain.
I strive for my default state to be "content", with fleeting moments of happiness
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#84Earlier 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.
To take one of your examples, high school graduation rates vary from ~25% to ~98% in U.S. school districts. It's not because some districts have a lot more virtuous young people, but because some districts are poor and others are wealthy, among other factors. Even if one of those factors is virtuous parents, kids can't choose their parents. I'm not denying our moral agency, but it is often constrained by environment.…
People in all western countries can do all of these things without much difficulty. We can go off the theory that you are just as likely to have a successful life if you drop out of school, have children with many women and/or absent fathers, and not get a permanent job — but there is no data to support any of those claims, and we have been running this experiment for decades now with nothing getting better.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#85Nothing earth-shattering but quite true nonetheless (or it may be the reason all this is common knowledge is because it's true). This made me smile: > Harvard philosopher Christine Korsgaard It sounds like a honorific title to outline that this person teaches at Harvard, but it's in fact the opposite. It needs to be said she's from Harvard because most people have never heard of her. "Königsberg teacher Immanuel Kant…
Well, "der Grosse Chinese Von Konigsberg" was already attached as title to Kant by Nietzsche.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#86From a really quick read, good advice and a great read — though, as he admits in the introduction, luck played its role in how things turned out:
>>> That I’d survived thus far, scathed but in happy circumstances, was thanks neither to grit, determination, nor wise counsel, but mostly luck.
Would things have been different if he’d lived by his own advice earlier? Maybe. But it’s impossible to know. Pushing back a little: don't underestimate luck. It can be deeply unfair, and it can distort our sense of what is deserved or earned.
This is not to say that principles, effort, wisdom don't matter. But so does the randomness of where, when, and under what conditions we live and act.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#87> 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.
It's wild how much of what we chalk up to merit is really just the invisible scaffolding of luck: being born in the right place, with the right wiring, at the right time...
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#88> 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.
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.
For your definition of virtue I assume?
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#89I am happy that in my 60 years of life to have achieved most of this, but would have been glad and better off having read it in my early 30s.
Reading something like this earlier might have helped, sure, but sometimes you have to live through the detours to really get the message.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#90I enjoyed this piece, including references to the Stoics and Spinoza. It preaches serenity, goodwill, composure, etc.
As someone in their 30s with children, work and a generally busy life, I wonder if anyone can recommend some pieces with more direct application - that is, in this vein, but perhaps an operational / how-to guide. Sometimes, it's hard to translate principles to action.