It is hard to find a satisfying goal in life if you are living in a global, techno-industrial military complex, which we are. That is why so many find distractions like TV or try and achieve at work or sport. Failing that, there is always drugs and alcohol.
Thanks Leaf. I'm solidly in the philosophical pessimism camp - the question is how to respond to it. Responses vary: while both were pessimists, Schopenhauer recommended a life of ascetic withdrawal and Nietzsche recommended the polar opposite, a will-to-power laughing-at-the-universe defiance (even though both's real world actions went against their own philosophies, as Nietzsche had terrible health and Schopenhauer was the life of the party). I'm somewhere in between these two polarities; this world is a kind of Hell, but I'm doing what I can to make a way through it regardless...
Thanks for this. For me in retirement the goal seems to be shedding control in my family and finding balance in how much time I spend in the imaginary internet world.
Great essay. Question I have is about balancing focus on these areas. For example, I'm currently struggling to form enduring romantic attachments (as is most of my generation). Do I start treating this more like a day job and go on 4-5 dates a week like you recommend? Or do I pull back and focus on other areas of life that might more readily yield fruit?
Hi Joshua, thank you. Yes, younger generations today are having a lot more trouble forming romantic attachments than older ones had. It's not easy to offer personalized advice without knowing the details of your situation; I think you should take a gut check, as filling up the pie is different for everyone and requires prioritizing different things at different life stages. Historically many men chose to focus on establishing a career before focusing on romance, but that's a generalization... Perhaps one person needs to focus on work while young in order to gain confidence and life skills, and turn to dating later; perhaps another feels the lack of a romantic relationship acutely and it's something one want to focus on sooner rather than later. Each person's situation is different, even if the end goal is a balanced pie of life...
“What I would really hate for myself is ending up an old man, living in poverty, in poor health, no family or children with the older generations having long since passed away and haunting my dreams as ghosts, friends dead or gone, with a world that has moved on and forgotten me, feeling unfulfilled, not having fulfilled my potential and wondering about what could have been. What a nightmare that would be.
“Focusing on each aspect of the pie of life to try to achieve a balanced whole is the way to avoid this fate.”
…
Me too! 😂
To your essay on friendship, I replied with my belief that some people are more skillful at marriage than at friendship, and vice versa. I’ve invested nearly all my social capital in my wife these past 30 years; 5 children, but I wish we had 10. I mean it, 10, or as many as I could feed.
I do have some regrets about how little social capital I invested in friendship, but I was preoccupied with physical survival: food security & housing security 😂 - the basics in life - but I do regret still how fear kept me from investing social capital in friendships those first nine years of marriage before, finally, we took a huge financial risk in reproduction.
Because now I do enjoy food security & housing security, fxxxing finally! 😂, but I have not had a very close friend in over ten years. And at this age, 51, and isolated as I am in a fringe-rural setting in the greater Tokyo metro region, (I’m a farmer 😂), I fear that from here on out my wife & children & future grandchildren will be my only opportunities for deep connection.
But this problem is a ‘luxury problem’ compared to my personal struggle for financial survival on the GenX job market 😂 (till I gave up & moved my family back to my wife’s native Japan). And it’s a ‘luxury problem’ compared to what most Americans are dealing with right now.
There are two points I’d like to make here.
1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs adds the necessary vertical component to the horizontal component of ‘life balance.’
2. I see a whole lot of Boomers & GenX’ers heading for lonely ends in the Medicaid Concentration Camps for Abandoned Seniors. Will their friends take their cats in???
After pressing send, I’ll try to post a meme for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I don’t know if memes are permitted on Substack.
Thanks Gerald. What an interesting story you have, moving to Japan as a farmer with five children - kudos to you, that is super cool. Children are a blessing and the more the merrier, I think anyway - "be fruitful and multiply". Children were historically the "social safety net" that people relied on to take care of them in old age, replaced now by (as you say) the Medicaid Concentration Camps for Abandoned Seniors...
Making friends is likely harder as a non-native in Japan, which (I've heard) is quite insular. I'm aware of Malow's hierarchy of needs (your meme didn't go through, you can post a link to it if it's hosted elsewhere) and I agree with you that it would make a good compliment for the pie of life...
It is hard to find a satisfying goal in life if you are living in a global, techno-industrial military complex, which we are. That is why so many find distractions like TV or try and achieve at work or sport. Failing that, there is always drugs and alcohol.
Some of the effects of shortening days on human mood demonstrated here -- to good end, however.
With this great ikigai like philosophy post - are you moving on your substack gradient from pessimistic to optimistic?
Thanks Leaf. I'm solidly in the philosophical pessimism camp - the question is how to respond to it. Responses vary: while both were pessimists, Schopenhauer recommended a life of ascetic withdrawal and Nietzsche recommended the polar opposite, a will-to-power laughing-at-the-universe defiance (even though both's real world actions went against their own philosophies, as Nietzsche had terrible health and Schopenhauer was the life of the party). I'm somewhere in between these two polarities; this world is a kind of Hell, but I'm doing what I can to make a way through it regardless...
https://neofeudalreview.substack.com/p/philosophical-pessimism-a-denial
I remember well being touched by your essay on friendship, and thank you for today's balance-of-life pie post.
Thanks for this. For me in retirement the goal seems to be shedding control in my family and finding balance in how much time I spend in the imaginary internet world.
Great essay. Question I have is about balancing focus on these areas. For example, I'm currently struggling to form enduring romantic attachments (as is most of my generation). Do I start treating this more like a day job and go on 4-5 dates a week like you recommend? Or do I pull back and focus on other areas of life that might more readily yield fruit?
Hi Joshua, thank you. Yes, younger generations today are having a lot more trouble forming romantic attachments than older ones had. It's not easy to offer personalized advice without knowing the details of your situation; I think you should take a gut check, as filling up the pie is different for everyone and requires prioritizing different things at different life stages. Historically many men chose to focus on establishing a career before focusing on romance, but that's a generalization... Perhaps one person needs to focus on work while young in order to gain confidence and life skills, and turn to dating later; perhaps another feels the lack of a romantic relationship acutely and it's something one want to focus on sooner rather than later. Each person's situation is different, even if the end goal is a balanced pie of life...
“What I would really hate for myself is ending up an old man, living in poverty, in poor health, no family or children with the older generations having long since passed away and haunting my dreams as ghosts, friends dead or gone, with a world that has moved on and forgotten me, feeling unfulfilled, not having fulfilled my potential and wondering about what could have been. What a nightmare that would be.
“Focusing on each aspect of the pie of life to try to achieve a balanced whole is the way to avoid this fate.”
…
Me too! 😂
To your essay on friendship, I replied with my belief that some people are more skillful at marriage than at friendship, and vice versa. I’ve invested nearly all my social capital in my wife these past 30 years; 5 children, but I wish we had 10. I mean it, 10, or as many as I could feed.
I do have some regrets about how little social capital I invested in friendship, but I was preoccupied with physical survival: food security & housing security 😂 - the basics in life - but I do regret still how fear kept me from investing social capital in friendships those first nine years of marriage before, finally, we took a huge financial risk in reproduction.
Because now I do enjoy food security & housing security, fxxxing finally! 😂, but I have not had a very close friend in over ten years. And at this age, 51, and isolated as I am in a fringe-rural setting in the greater Tokyo metro region, (I’m a farmer 😂), I fear that from here on out my wife & children & future grandchildren will be my only opportunities for deep connection.
But this problem is a ‘luxury problem’ compared to my personal struggle for financial survival on the GenX job market 😂 (till I gave up & moved my family back to my wife’s native Japan). And it’s a ‘luxury problem’ compared to what most Americans are dealing with right now.
There are two points I’d like to make here.
1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs adds the necessary vertical component to the horizontal component of ‘life balance.’
2. I see a whole lot of Boomers & GenX’ers heading for lonely ends in the Medicaid Concentration Camps for Abandoned Seniors. Will their friends take their cats in???
After pressing send, I’ll try to post a meme for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I don’t know if memes are permitted on Substack.
Thanks,
Gerald
Thanks Gerald. What an interesting story you have, moving to Japan as a farmer with five children - kudos to you, that is super cool. Children are a blessing and the more the merrier, I think anyway - "be fruitful and multiply". Children were historically the "social safety net" that people relied on to take care of them in old age, replaced now by (as you say) the Medicaid Concentration Camps for Abandoned Seniors...
Making friends is likely harder as a non-native in Japan, which (I've heard) is quite insular. I'm aware of Malow's hierarchy of needs (your meme didn't go through, you can post a link to it if it's hosted elsewhere) and I agree with you that it would make a good compliment for the pie of life...
A good read and words to live by. Balance is everything 😀