It depends on what you mean. Some people will age slower than others but that doesn’t necessarily make the process of declining any easier. In fact it may make it harder.
The first time a human experiences a permanent disability it is nearly universally devastating, and it is an experience almost all of us will have at some point.
Human life is a state of perpetual want/dissatisfaction. This is coupled with/related to an endless ability to accommodate to new “normals”, such that as soon as one want is satisfied, a new baseline is created and a new want takes its place.
I see this perpetual accommodation collide with the realities of aging all the time. As our bodies fail, worse than not meeting our ever increasing wants, we actually are forced to regress to states that are inferior to our baseline. Not surprisingly, humans do NOT adjust to this well which explains the high rates of depression among the elderly.
So really, I can summarize human life as follows:
You are born. If you are lucky, you are healthy and your parents meet your basic needs. This becomes your new baseline.
Then you grow throughout your childhood and teenage years and experience an ever growing series of wants - toys, electronics, cars, friendships, romantic relationships, etc. This becomes your new baseline.
Again, in this best case scenario, you reach adulthood, and the parade of ever increasing wants continues: independence, marriage, job, career advancement, house, family, vacations, etc. Again, this becomes your new baseline.
Then, uh oh, you start getting old or you get sick. Suddenly, all of those assumptions and hard wired systems that continuously moved the goalpost forward get violated.
You start losing function. You start losing independence. You start losing relationships. And it just keeps getting worse as time marches on.
Eventually, a critical malfunction occurs within your body and you cease to exist.
Throughout your lifetime, again in the best case scenario that being human has to offer, you will have experienced no peace, an abundance of dissatisfaction punctuated by only brief, ever fleeting moments of satisfaction, followed by the slow and miserable decline towards your inevitable death.
Put differently, childbirth, to me, is analogous to condemning someone to a life sentence of misery and suffering (with maybe a handful of brief pleasant experiences), followed by a death sentence.
I cannot imagine doing that to another person.
#grownostr
#thinkdangerously
#getoffended
#childfree
Globally, it will only take 21 million or so luddites with about $30k each to create their own financial system.
The tiny fraction of 8 billion this represents is one of the most incredible things to me.
If you know something is broken (let’s call this “A”) and have found a better alternative (let’s call that “B”), why would you keep measuring “B” in terms of “A”?
Seems pretty dumb, no?
#grownostr
There are many ideologies I am willing to die for. There are very few ideologies that I am willing to kill or harm someone else for.
A not very surprising circumstance where I would be willing to intentionally hurt someone is if they broke into my home while I was there. That would just be really inconsiderate. Still I would only kill them to neutralize the threat they pose and would absolutely exhaust any other options prior to doing so.
I feel death would be too good for someone who breaks into peoples’ occupied houses. A true punishment would be seriously injuring them and condemning them to a long life of disability and interaction with the “legal” system.
Unfortunately, in either scenario, I too would be stuck having to interact with the legal system, which is pretty much the worst thing imaginable to me.
Yeah, let’s make a system where a bunch of thugs can make money off problems that they themselves can create without consequence.
Seems real smart.
#thinkdangerously
#grownostr
You post some interesting stuff Sir.
I will spend some more time reading through your posts.
“The unexamined life is not worth living” has some truth to it in my opinion.
Do you smoke? Stop smoking.
Are you obese? Lose weight.
Are you supposed to wear a CPAP mask/have you been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea? Wear a CPAP.
Do you have seasonal allergies? Use a nasal steroid, oral antihistamine, or both.
Or you know, healing crystals and essential oils are popular on social media.
Just stop using their money.
It’s the only protest that matters.
Maybe they just don’t want to talk about it in person though.
I always deny owning any in meatspace.
This is a very measured and reasonable response. Thank you Sir.
For the most part, I write stuff to work out thoughts in my own head. I certainly don’t claim to know what’s best for anyone other than myself.
If one’s goal is maximum happiness, there are likely many paths to get there. :)
Thanks again for the reply.
Very cool. Making and building things is such a great way to spend one’s time.
Hopefully you’ve got a good respirator for the paint/solvent fumes. Restrictive lung disease from repeated chemical injury is a pretty awful way to die. :(
It’s interesting to me that humans generally seek “meaning” in their lives once their basic needs are met.
And we do all kinds of crazy shit to that end like believe in fairytales and force life upon others.
Why do we even need meaning though? It’s just so arbitrary when you think about it.
Just as reasonable in my opinion is to abandon the quest for meaning and instead just try to enjoy life for what it is: a largely random series of experiences that can be either pleasant or unpleasant based solely upon our perception of them.
I think the latter approach requires a lot more agency and effort. Since we are fundamentally lazy though, it’s just easier for many to rely upon reptile brain instincts like reproduction or alternatives to thinking for oneself like religion to check the “but my life has meaning!” box.
A meaningless life can be pretty awesome though. And you won’t have live with the guilt and mental gymnastics required for having kids or believing in some silly God to enjoy it.
#grownostr
#thinkdangerously
Unpopular opinion: not buying this book. At least not unless it’s offered for sale in sats exclusively. Sorry Lyn. Doubt you’ll miss the Fiat.
The true enemy is usually the one pointing a finger at some poor person 5000 miles away.
It’s a new platform.
The other ones you have been on previously literally turn you into a product. In exchange, they offer you the illusion of the “benefits” you describe.
An open source social media platform will require some measure of work on your end to filter out the inevitable noise. Is it seamless yet? Far from it. But are the other platforms any better? They are so deeply flawed in my opinion as to have never been worth it in the first place.
#nostr is the only path forward if you value the reasons for which it was invented namely privacy, censorship resistance, and native #bitcoin integration.
Serious question for anyone willing to answer.
If you believe in God, how do you chose which ones you do or don’t believe in?
How do you view people who believe in different Gods? At what point do you say, no that God clearly doesn’t exist, but mine does for sure?
Genuinely curious.
#grownostr
#thinkdangerously
I try hard to understand what any of this means because I like to try to understand perspectives other than my own. But in the end, I just can’t see why people make such a big deal over any of it. I mean seriously, people throughout human history have died fighting over this kind of thing?
I have had a great life so far, like really great, and I’ve never once needed to believe in anything like this. Where does the need to believe this stuff come from? I’d really love to understand even just that part of it.
Even beyond all the mystical nonsense and absurd inconsistencies, it’s probably hardest to get around the fact that every religion just seems so… unnecessary.
Put differently, the second you’re sure of anything, you should know you’re wrong.
There is definitely something to the “be the change you want to see in the world” adage. :)