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Comment by porpoisely | Hacker News Reader

Couldn't you write this stuff of anything? Ultimately, isn't it just empty rationalizations that we all have to go through as we grow old or what we do given any situation? What the fox in Aesop's story did when he could get at the grapes? Just rationalize and move on.

People can write the "Joy of Being in Prison", the "Joy of Being Homeless", the "Joy of Impotence", the "Joy of Losing Your Limbs", etc. But is that really joy or rationalizations?

I'm failing to see what the point of the article really is and also, what is "news" worthy about this?

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Couldn't you write this comment about anything?

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I personally found the above comment very insightful. There is significant difference between discovered joys and rationalized ones. Both are very valid, but I think this is an important part of the discussion.

The last part about being newsworthy was likely unneeded, though.

I didn't find the comment shallow. Shallow would be "what a dumb article".

That said, what the OP calls "rationalization" could just as well be "perspective".

It seems from survey data that happiness really does increase in one's later years, after a nadir around midlife. So aging can be a joy, and younger people - especially those reading this in their 40s - may find it reassuring.

That sounds like resignation or acceptance rather than joy. You see this with terminally ill patients or first time prisoners. They initially struggle with their fate, but eventually accept or are resigned to their fate. That is different from joy.

Who isn't a terminally ill patient?

This strikes me as very narrow-minded. Being old is not the same as being terminally ill or imprisoned, and only a young person would speak like this.

It's more like the difference between learning to play Greensleeves on a trombone for the first time, and giving jazz solos. When you're young in life your sense of expertise comes from not being aware of your ignorance, and when you're old in life your sense of expertise comes from knowing just how far you've come. There's a joy in this that's separate from the joy of being young and having your whole life ahead of you, and it's not at all a form of resignation.

One of the things I thought about a lot this past year is that when you're presented with a choice of "is it a big fake scam or is it this other authentic thing", the answer is often that it's both and whichever one you focus on blurs out the other.

Plus what 80-115 year old will dispute her claims?

My grandfather oscillates between depressed silence and complaining about wishing he was dead, so at least one person I know of.

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