I’ve had the same supper for 10 years
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
My grandfather would take me along and we'd go to the neighbour to fetch eggs. He had a plastic bucket that he put them in with some old newspapers scraps in the bottom. I heard that before the war they didn't even need money. He'd simply bring a bucket of milk, and he'd get a bucket of eggs in return. But it was of course a lot simpler to bring money. It was far cheaper than in the store too.
My grandfather knew what all the birds were singing. Every bit, plus their behaviour. He'd especially heed the magpie, because it's a smarter bird. If it warbled this way, it meant that the weather would stay warm. If they warbled in another way, it meant that it might become rainy. He said that the birds knew, because their lives depended on it.
Another more commonly known sign is dependent on where the magpie makes its nest. If it it's high in the tree, then it will most likely be a warm and sunny summer. But if it is tucked way down in the tree, the summer will be cold and wet. It makes sense. There's more protection from the elements further under the leaves, but it's also colder there. If I were a magpie, I'd want to make a warm and nice nest for the summer, but all that could be ruined if I didn't heed the weather.
One day, the grouse was seen perching atop the family house. When I told this to my grandmother, she went silent at first, and then she told me that it means someone will die in the family. This was of course terrifying news to me. But it also turned out to become true, because my grandfather also died that year. May he rest in peace.
Do you actually believe the grouse perching on house was foreshadowing??
Does the Grouse know? Probably not. The grandmother would though.
One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy, Five for silver, Six for gold, Seven for a secret never to be told.
We would say "Crow" instead of "for".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_for_Sorrow_%28nursery_rhym...
Someone I know from Scotland sings a song with the same sort of pattern but about crows proper (like 'Ten green bottles' but for crows - "the last craw wasna' there at a'").
One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told, eight for a wish, nine for a kiss, ten for a bird you must not miss.
EDIT: It seems the 8/9/10 lines are from Magpie, a British children’s TV show: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie_(TV_series)#Theme_son...
Later that summer, during an especially hot and bright night (it's midnight sun where I come from because it's above the Arctic Circle) I saw that grouse on the tractor road further down the fields of the farm. It silhouetted in the midnight sun. It surprised me to see it standing in the middle of the road like that, like it was mocking me, so I got angry and chased it off the property.
It went off into the property of my grandmother's sister. And later that year, also she died.
But look, there's probably a reasonable explanation for it. When farmers grow old and sick, they often move away from their cabin, and in with their younger family and children further away, who take care of them. So when the house becomes derelict, wild and otherwise shy animals dare to move closer. But of course, old people would only move away from their farm if they were in a bad shape. And there's your omen and the logical explanation for it.
While Gracie Miller survives her terrible burns, who knows what happens to her after the novel? A ref I know you'll just love is:
It was written in 1885 by Holger Drachmann as a midsummer hymn (midsommervise) called 'Vi elsker vort land' with a melody composed by P.E. Lange-Müller. Singing this surrounded by people and in full view of a flaming witch on a bonfire can feel very surreal. Burn the witch. Love the land. Burn the witch. Love the land. Drink some beer.
During Sankthansaften/midsommer burning the witch spirits to rid the land of them is a cause for celebration, and along with keeping shoes pointing up at doorways and chanting 7-9-13 after boasting or saying something good (to prevent jinxing it), helps keep the good luck flowing and the harm away. We can respect these parts of cultural tradition and belief, as we respect the people to whom they mean something. :P ;) xx
But it's a nice reference.
But maybe Sankt Hans is an exception. But other things, like 7-9-13 why do that? It's not tradition. If you travel, you'll still catch yourself saying it, maybe under your breath if in another culture. But you'll feel weird if you don't do it. You'll feel you bring yourself some bad luck. Even if a person doesn't "believe" that it could be the case, on another level they do believe that, because they'll feel weird if they don't do it. It's a belief that it will affect things. It's not easy to admit in this context, I'm not asking you to "admit" it, I'm just saying it's part of who we are. We believe these things.
Have a happy (and safe!) Sankt Hans this year! :P ;) xx
when I read your comment I was like, "wow coming to the defense of calling other people crazy and not seeing the universe with wonder." yeah, only what you know, or what you're told, can happen, nothing outside of that. all vaccines are safe. only conventional medicine works. there's nothing we don't understand. a little arrogant much? extraordinary conservatism leads to extraordinary ignorance. i believe in astrology, and i love it. i reckon homeopathy definitely works. i don't want to get vaccinated. i'm guessing you enjoy hating on people who don't share your opinions, and you're sure their stupider and you're smarter, but you can't admit that, because it's about "facts". thanks "asiachick"
"those kinds of beliefs", "those kinds of people", "those countries", sounds pretty high-horse judgemental and discriminatory. but also hypocritical. here's how i see it coming across...so beliefs like your mother really cares about you and doesn't resent you? beliefs like praying at the temple is going to help you? and grandma is not supid for doing so? beliefs like what dragged our ancestors out of the incomprehensible universe and gave them a bit of reassurance? oh, now we have a couple "facts" a bit of science, just throw all that away? Because we've become so sure? Beliefs like indigenous people have a spiritaul connection to a piece of land? who cares, log the fuck out of it. beliefs like that scrap of sweater you carry around form when you were a kid is somehow special or lucky for you? beliefs like your worthless life has any meaning beside being a collection of atoms? Oh, yes, science, please account me and sum up my worth and give meaning to my life? without beliefs "like those" we're rootless. maybe you hate that part of your humanness, but you can't "science" your way outta that. you'll face to face it, or be perpetually uncomfortable in your skin and in the thousands of years of human culture that died before you to bring you the privilege of where you are now.
but we can't add it up, and measure it, so chuck it all away right? i'm glad you have solved the riddle of truth in the universe. what's it like being god and knowing everything absolutely? please enlighten me in your infinite wisdom and rid my life of uncomfortable uncertainty and pesky ambiguity and unknowns, actually, nope, i'm comfortable in all that, and i think i prefer a mystery. plus, i could never understand anything significant. my feeble human mind is just not up to the task of grokking reality. i can just tell you what i see.
Quite ironic you hoisted yourself on a high horse to write that comment.
you dont think stories are interesting intellectually? they're the most effective way to convey meaning.
how intellectually curious is it to assume that you know everything, can dismiss all hidden connections and have contempt for the beliefs of others? that's not great, you're defending your contempt of someone's belief in the context of a story about their relatives passing. and now you try to define what this space is, and I suppose you live by that, do you? the irony is you don't even live by what you say it is.
you, dude, were already up on that high horse before i got up here to address you.
you want me to address you from the ground? yeah, i get that's where you'd like to see people...you just wnat to say your peice and have everyone silent... but if i see you push someone, i push back and now you don't like that, that's a big irony: you're the one up on the high horse. that's the irony, you don't like it if someone comes up there to address you. Ok for you, but not others? if you can't take it bro, don't dish it out yeah.
apophenia : the tendency to perceive a connection or meaningful pattern between unrelated or random things (such as objects or ideas)
I learned the word on account of http://apophenia.info which is open source software used for the book "Modeling With Data" by Ben Klemens. His "21st Century C" is more commonly encountered.
Remember that people see what they want to see in noise too. Clouds often look like something tangible, that doesn’t mean it’s a sign. If I squint, I can see shapes in pretty much any random pattern. And people tend to remember events that they attribute meaning too (in this case the old wives tale about the birds and then the family member dying) and forget the events that have no meaning to them (how many times did the person see said birds without anything happening and just forgetting about it?)
Nobody has yet managed to prove the existence of the supernatural, but many people have tried. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but it seems pretty unlikely, especially when other better-understood causes exist.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Blanket ridicule of such phenomena is just as irrational as are many superstitions.
It's known that animals can sense certain scents that can indeed be foreshadowing of death or health decline. Isn't it even the slightest bit possible that the grouse may have smelled something that humans couldn't begin to perceive? More importantly, do you have any proof or knowledge that would actively disprove this? No, that's not a requirement in science, but it is a handy discussion aid.
Now if I could find who decided to name them the same...
I buy into a lot of the “bird” wisdom. Science is discovering dogs can smell disease.
Our modern world isn’t more complex, just more distracting with asinine theory chasing. It’s always been ridiculously complex in ways we can’t imagine, we’ve just started realizing it in detail.
Turns out animals with their “lesser” cognitive powers are tuned into the hidden complexity in ways we barely understand.
Yet we deem ourselves the more advanced species.
Humans will surely kill themselves off and the specifically evolved for their ecosystem “dumb” animals will remain.
Here is a far simpler explanation. Our brains are evolved to find patterns even when they aren't there. Look how weak the correlation is. His family simply discarded all the times the correlation failed to apply and remembered the one time the bird cried not on the day his grandfather died but merely that same year.
It’s far fetched maybe but dogs can smell Parkinson’s and cancer before the person develops medically detectable symptoms. So maybe not so far fetched.
Doesn’t have to be a pet. Doesn’t detect when the person will DIE of cancer, yet it shows up later.
Birds have been shown to return to the same locations if they fit their needs. Perhaps it was indicating an illness.
Far fetched but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Statistics are not science. Science requires real world evidence and other animals offer at least some evidence they can detect fatal illness in advance.
Most birds and pheasants in particular have don't have as well developed a sense of smell as you do and aren't liable to be within 100 yards of people for long.
Even if they could smell impending disease why would they particularly seek out a high place to announce this and how on earth would you distinguish this from a call which announced it's desire to mate or warning about predators including yourself.
Birds make noise all the time. They can't smell you from far away ergo they can't smell impending death. It's like an ink blot test any meaning you are finding is smuggled in by you.
I’m not seeking meaning, I’m seeking falsifiable experiment to conclusively rule out the possibility.
Which is my whole point.
You have fun falling into the abyss. I’m gonna go see what reality is made of.
No reason to assume similar can’t occur between species.
Perhaps the bird “read his mind” in such a way as to intuit something was breaking.
Perhaps applying simple cost/benefit analysis is too reductionist to reach a conclusion?
I once pitched a tent somewhere in the deep forests of Sweden, on a trip with my mother and my sister. I sat the tent up on some natural cushions of dry peat, so the ground was nice and soft to sleep on. As it became darker I suddenly heard a large CRACK about fifty metres away as a big twig was snapped in half. The sound was followed by the deep sniffing of air and loud stomping, so I popped my head out of the tent to take look.
Atop the closest hill was the King of the Forest (that would be a moose), looking like he was pondering some deep mystery while on his evening stroll, his mighty antlers brushing away big branches like they were toothpicks. He wasn't too worried about his surroundings until he noticed my scruffy old head. He stopped dead quiet and opened his eyes wide in surprise. Then he snorted heavily in disappointment, like he was muttering a curse, and then he shuffled his heavy body around and walked the other way.
I got the distinct sense that this proud being had a very sincere distaste for people...
Bees too. Yesterday news included the Dutch training bees to smell covid.
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/oddly-enough/bees-netherla...
We’ve done absolutely nothing to “beat” reality.
Personally I’m leaning into the idea more and more that technology how we think of it, machines, will not be how we survive. I suspect some will be too useful, like nanotechnology and automated manufacturing, but consumer machines will become passé, maybe just too environmentally toxic to build at the scale we do. I doubt humans will make it “off world” for long if at all. There’s a scaling problem to the endeavor I doubt humans will maintain the momentum to overcome.
It took a very specific planet and millions of years of evolution to get here. We cannot possibly do better than reality itself.
Michael Levin’s bioelectrics, manipulation of electric fields to regrow limbs, could be an early peak at crazy future.
Why build VR if we can, for example, mix chemicals, drink it, effectively loading simulated experience like The Matrix, through fine grain manipulation of exotic properties of reality. Earth becomes a lot more sustainable if we’re not eating it up for phones and graphics cards.
I take this as another description of Moravec's Paradox.
Which I do not think of as a paradox, but as one domain knowledge set (information theory/computer science) not intertwingling (to use Ted Nelson's lingo) with another domain knowledge set (biology). The more we delve into the integration of the many biological layers, the more we appreciate how finely-tuned all that biological complexity is to reality's complexity. I bet the rabbit hole goes a lot deeper than we even believe in the common scientific narrative today, and we'll need every scrap of power we can bring to bear from quantum computing to help us understand it.
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.
It is when I read these stories that I truly consider how short our lives are. I can't stop thinking about how fragile our beliefs are once we hold them up against someone elses values, earthshaking.
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 matters is the wave. You get to ride it and wipe out. And that's it. I don't care if that wave is a composite of a million unknown ripples in the cast Ocean. It doesn't matter really.
A large proportion of your ancestors offspring didn't themselves have offspring.
The answer to that isn't having material wealth, especially when you get no time left over to appreciate it. So the problem is having enough time when you waste most of it toiling for the dreams of another man, and for next to nothing in return. Because that's the real economy. (If you do, though, then congratulations I guess, but then you're not in the position of most people anyway.)
I think, however, that you'd change your mind about things if you had the freedom, the space, and the ability to grow your own food. Then you'd see how foolish most city dwellers actually are. As for the philosophical musings about whether you should have children... Well, it's your life, man. If you don't want a shot at prolonging your true legacy, then that's up to you. But you're certainly doing a service for everyone else who do want their kind to succeed.
In terms of your moment in your 20s, the way I see it is that it goes beyond my conventional existence as a human: I'm not just the product of all my direct ancestors, but also of all the causes and effects which have effected those ancestors. It's obvious that I am the continuation of my great great great grandfather, however I am also the continuation of my great great great grandfathers lunch that fed him, or doctor that saved him, or the Sun that supported him. Reproduction is an essential component for continued existence of sentient beings, but so is food, so is warmth, so is water. I feel that the Sun is just as much my parent as my biological parents.
It is wonderful.
Tiring, taxing, exhilarating, inspiring.
It works for me. I make no claims for others.
Why speak low about him? You're content with your life, and he is content with his... it really is that simple.
You can't go up to an artist and say, "Hey, your painting is crap, you should change x, y, z," because it is the artist's painting, not yours.
For my part, I enjoy modal editors so I think vim is better than emacs and I like the GPL over BSD.
We need more fuel on this fire. What's your take on spaces vs tabs?
Calm down, Satan
It's also a failure of empathy on OP's part - we look at the world through our own lens but we should at least try to look at it through other peoples before accusing them of choosing "lobotomy".
"Yeah, but villageboi is a lobotomized mole. I am sophisticate. You have no frontal lobe"
The peak of discourse. Hahaha. And then depending on which lifestyle you have chosen, people will pick some arbitrary thing to argue about.
"You said villageboi. Actually, I am village girl. And it's not village. It's farm"
"You said lobotomy. Actually, it's a corpus callosotomy"
That's what makes it so entertaining. The idea that people think they're being all this sharp when really they're just offended that their preferences were made fun of.
But you're clearly an Emacs user. See you on your way back from the RSI doctor, nerd!
This valley dwellers will be there long after the ruins you created swallowed all you touch.
Why not? By definition it would leave you happy, what does it matter?
We are mere Spatiotemporal blips of information in the infant universe with delusions of grandeur. So if you have to tell yourself deep in the night that you actualising your reproductive prerogative makes your sad little life more meaningful than the farmer, please grasp at those straws.
How did that really influence you?
We can look back, we are not a magic generation unique to all the other generations before us. We know what's going to happen with us and our legacies.
We have alot more data now, but I am not sure how durable it all is.
I have quite a few DVDs and hard drives that no longer work.
Print the book version on vellum, and you'll preserve it for a few thousand years (or ANSI paper with the infinity sign, which supposedly lasts for at least 750 years).
My mum is the only one who likes to look through our holiday pictures.
They will be there and no one will care.
Only some ml tool to potentially tell my future Familie members that I might have been depressed based on pictures and the ml notes it down for potential medical relevant information.
No one will know what I liked and disliked. No one will see that my life had ups and downs.
I really thought Facebook would be a great thing. Sharing and seeing what my Familie is up to but no one is using it for sharing family pictures. And I myself I'm sometimes annoyed by too many WhatsApp pictures.
I do get why it is like this but realizing and accepting it took a bit
Humans might survive past earth, but oblivion will come for us all the same. We just get to play around in our little imagined worlds of purpose and meaning a little longer all to no avail beyond living one's life.
And that's all any of us can really do, chose how to face existence knowing there is no grand scheme in which each of us is some how important or matters. Choosing to live is equally as valid as choosing not to. We are evolutionarily engineered thinking emotional machines where certain states make us feel good(love, friendship, self actualisation food...., accomplishment) and certain states make us feel bad (sickness, loss, pain...)
All we can do is live a life we are happy(good state) with, be it building stone walls that last or having kids and raising them.
Certainly this could lead one to be a little more circumspect about grand pronouncements.
It seems like you’re saying some people are being tricked by our brains, but others (like yourself) are able to pull aside the veil and truly understand our place in the universe. Perhaps we’re all being tricked.
Regardless, in a universe where nothing matters, truth and knowledge have no more value than children or stone walls.
I make no such claim. We interpret and navigate the world with the mental models and toolsets we have. If you can do math, you can calculate, estimate, plan, budget....etc. Similarly, some toolsets give you access to insights and paradigms eg: religious toolset might make you interpret the world differently. I merely have a certain toolset which lets me look at the world in a certain way, does not mean this toolset is exclusive, leads to authoritative interpretations or it's acquisition is special in any way.
I could just say "In my humble opinion"
>Regardless, in a universe where nothing matters, truth and knowledge have no more value than children or stone walls.
As always value is in the eye of the beholder, there is no objective value beyond what a subject is able to get out of it. So if you feel truth and knowledge are important, they are. If you feel faith is more important than truth, it is, to you at-least.
One problem I've noticed with the way human beings communicate is that for any given situation, there's no way of knowing whether the person speaking is doing so with an implicit "imho", or whether they mean the things they say literally. In this case, I thought that you were speaking literally.
I wonder how much this phenomenon (and others like it) contributes to the amount of polarization and disharmony we are experiencing in the world right now, or in the past for that matter, all without our knowledge or interest.
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?
For now, we are an incredibly young species who has time and again demonstrated our penchant for chasing after short term incentives at the cost of longterm harm. We are making the earth unliveable faster than we are progressing towards being a multi-planetary species (which seems like an insurmountable leap given the candidates and the cost structure we have to work with). But humans are inventive and resourceful so here's hoping we grow beyond living on earth.
What's the benchmark?
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov © 1956
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?
We're very far from where we started. We're here because of both people that had kids and because of people that built stone walls. In many cases they were the same people.
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?
With the current pace of change, having children may no longer be the obvious winner it has been for all of history, but it might still be...
Does that mean we shouldn't just bother, absolutely not, we are given this gift of experiencing life. Something rather than nothingness...etc. But we can do with a little more perspective on how utterly inconsequential we are in the grand scheme of things. Having kids seems consequential in the context of human existence, but when human existence is inconsequential (there is no lasting impact or transmission of information beyond our temporary side-effects on the environment) it puts our existence into perspective.
The fact that we've hit upon a certain arrangement of matter which yields consciousness and the ability to manipulate the matter around us is something which seems worth preservation.
I contain the information for how to give life to inert matter. I've done it three times now, and I think it's worthwhile.
It's a consequence of evolution. Right now we are limited yes. But nobody knows future.
> If we don't experience our existence in geological/cosmic time scales
Feel free to experience your existence without deriding others existence.
I'm completely at peace with the thought that a century from now no-one will think about me one way or the other.
I mean statistically the chain of events that led to me ever existing as me was so small that after winning that hand, it's time to leave the table and enjoy it.
You don't need to leave something behind of course, but the species benefits from it.
So assert that life has no meaning, as alluded to here.
These are axiom-like statements that cannot be proven. Everyone has a faith as to which of these assertions is true.
Life can have meaning because we choose to give it such.
(Passive voice is more apt.)
Imagine if someone looked at your comment and denigrated it "oh wow you had unprotected sex with your partner and managed to not kill your kids before they turned 18. Congrats on the achievement!"
Still hope the old man wasn't just trolling me.
This guy at least got an article written about him, what have you done?
I always wanted to do ancestry for my family (family tree?) And I realized and still realize how far away people really become.
My last grandpa will die soon. I know his stories everyone knows but I don't know what he would have voted, what his favorite food is, what music he liked.
He has dementia now and forgets that he is at home and asks go go home.
What do I know from his life really?
He will end in some online tool as a name, two dates an image and lines connecting him to other family members.
I thought about making a legacy somehow and if I would make children I would create a family book and create rules which would share my thoughts with every future generation and everyone gets reached to follow it and enhance it like having Familie values and keeping them.
But at the end of the day I do realize for myself that this will not work as imagined and it doesn't matter at the end anyway.
What kind of awful garbage take is this? It's objectively false, people who willingly don't have children are saw as society as second class citizens who are thought of as pathological. The VAST majority of humans have children at some point in their lives. It's true that there's a larger amount of people who willingly forgo having children than in the past, but it's still an incredibly fringe way of life.
>I would know, because I grew up on one.
Not saying that nobody should ever raise children in a rural area but the majority of people I know who grew up in rural areas got heavily involved in drugs and/or alcohol during their youth out of boredom. So there's downsides as well.
The world doesn't have an infinite amount of farmland, you can't raise "a lot of children" on a farm and have their children raise "a lot of children" on a farm indefinitely without running out of farmland. That, by definition, makes it not "ideal."
She was very, very happy with her way of living (she lived to about 85 or 86), almost no medical problems in her entire life (apart from the last couple of years), why would she have wanted to give that all away? For some fancy trips to the seaside? That was not what she considered a good way of living.
Unless they go into debt. Then the bank owns them and the farm, and the debt turns into stress and you have the city experience, out in the great outdoors.
Hopefully your children will learn how not to judge others for different life choices, perhaps they will be more humble and not assume superiority over others just because they had children.
In case you had not looked around the world recently, having children is no great achievement. Any idiot can have them.
As for children: being a parent myself, I think it's best not to instrumentalise them by viewing them as a legacy that you'll leave behind after you. They're their own people. They don't owe you that obligation.
Ignoring the fact that you are probably not correct scientifically speaking, I think that the constitution of your descendants is figuratively, symbolically, if not scientifically, yours (please pardon my English). It's yours because you played an entirely crucial role in creating this lineage. Whatever path it took after your role in it, that path was shaped by your involvement. You don't have to believe in the spiritual importance of lineage to acknowledge that your actions, and simply being, have some important, significant impact upon it. I find this outlook a bit too modern and nihilistic for me.
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 own full lives, hopes and dreams. Do you even know their names ? Let alone what they were like, what they cared about, what their life was like ?
They are forgotten, just like you will be, regardless of how many children they had.
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 ago. As an example, for most human history life expectancy was no more than 30 years. Nowadays we are around 70 and quite some countries already over 80. Poverty was common some centuries ago, with around 90% being considered poor. Nowadays it's only around 10% of population. Literacy has also advanced tremendously, with now around 90% of people under 25 being able to read and write.
And all of that has been happening thanks to those that were here before us. Yes, the ones we have forgotten their names, but for whom we live now in the capable and free societies that are most of the western countries.
Having children is an extremely important part of that legacy. They are the immediate inheritors of the ideals and visions of the ones that were here before us.
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.
We are having this convo because someone had a child.
If someone really thought and believed life isn't a great thing (equating a stone wall to a human being) he'd be either a dishonest person or a weakling to be alive educating us.
For if he truly believes children and humans are all nothing, then, why toil in vain. Why procrastinate, why suffer at all for nothing.
Why is it that the majority of the humans that live and has ever lived chose to toil and provide for their family? Why is it that many folks that has ever lived are happy to have kids and nurture them. Is it ignorance that has given our ancestors the joy they experienced in child bearing and nurturing?
An "intellectual" that is enjoying the wealth of our ancestors turns to proclaim it all nothing because we cannot remember their names.
Because suicide is vastly different from never having been born at all. Like every animal people have an extremely strong survival instinct. So strong that people have to be under extreme physical or mental pain before they consider taking their own lives.
This is not an argument for procreation but against it. It adds to the absolute horror that is life.
Sleep is good. Death is better, but the best is to have never been born.
Heinrich Heine 1797-1856 Morphine 1835-1836
Nature is being destroyed, we polluted our planet enough that it affected the climate. The air we breathe is filled with ultrafine particles. The water is full of microplastics.
Sure, we are able to afford more things, and we have made advances in the medical field. Our expected lifespan has gone up, but are those last few decades worth it ? Spending your last years in adult diapers and being regularly tortured by doctors in an effort to extend your life as much as possible doesn't seem like a big win to me.
Our good years are spent working longer days than ever, doing unhealthy, stressful work to the point that we have to spend our little free time exercising to keep our health. All the while the majority of humans spend their lives in cities that resemble ant hills more than a space designed for humans. More people than ever suffer from anxiety and stress-related mental health problems.
Is life really a better experience now than it was 100 years ago ?
> what's then the maximum number of people that should live on this planet according to you
I would say about 10 million people globally.
The improvements to duration of lifespan have also come with improvements to quality of life.
My father’s final year of life started with a cancer diagnosis, and while it was an extremely long way from “fun”, tech gave him mobility, and he’d only lived that long because of half a lifetime of treatment for disease-induced epilepsy.
My mother had a few years of Alzheimer’s — still essentially untreatable, and yet tech made it easy to keep her entertained, and GPS tracking made it easier for us to look after her without her getting lost due to a moment of intention on our parts.
Our good years involve less and easier work, in better conditions, than 1972, much better than 1921, and insanely better than 1871. When did we start mandatory schooling? When did we end actual slavery? Conscription? When was polio vaccination introduced, when was smallpox eliminated, when was anaesthetic easily available for childbirth? So yes, life is much better than it used to be.
Of course, I actually like living in Berlin, metro area population 61% of what you think the entire plant should have.
Why wouldn't older folks' quality of life continue to increase as we develop new medicine and technology? Cancer and Alzheimers will never be cured? We'll never be able to induce cellular regeneration like many other species can, or artificial body parts will never advance beyond their current crudeness?
How many people spend their working years doing mind-numbing or back-breaking manual labor compared to even a century or two ago? How many people back then would have been radically oppressed from birth but even today can pursue their own dreams? Life is still relatively "nasty, brutish, and short" but it is getting better and I see no reason to expect that progress to end, let alone regress.
While you despair over a grim dark future, I look forward to a garden Earth, resplendent in biodiversity, home to fifty billion humans free from disease and material needs, yet with less footprint than we use today. Technology can do this for us, as long as we don't get stuck.
Consider how much man has cost every other living thing on this planet today.
In fact, having children significantly increases the risk that what you leave behind is actually detremental to the world overall.
It takes a special lack of irony to write a comment like this. One of the most closed minded comments I've ever read.
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.
I’d argue having children is the same. You can do it with zero effort, or you can do it with intention, to leave behind a better off generation, and devoting yourself selflessly as a parent to that cause.
I believe the lifelong quest of high-quality intention is what ultimately is the greatest achievement of life one can chase. Whether that is intentionally treating others with kindness and leaving pleasant memories, or intentionally raising healthy and inspired children who will continue to take up noble intention.
How many children are optimum?
I'm glad that you've found satisfaction in having children, but that's no reason to put someone else down.
I imagine the farmer you're telling us about doesn't want attention, material possessions, or any kind of excess at all. This person is happy to build something slowly over time, in small increments. They're happy with what they have, who they are, and that they exist.
I think there are elements in your portrayal that we can all strive for, whether this person was a farmer, carpenter, or programmer, doesn't really matter.
A rich man is not he who has a lot, but he who needs little.
>A rich man...who needs little
This guy is rich in several ways. A farm in Wales is still a pretty valuable asset, especially in a valley rather than on a hill. Owning a farm gives you a lot of financial independence, which can take a lot of stress away!
It was a lovely article, but...An old country man told me that the three rarest things were
1) a dead donkey 2) a red headed parson 3) a contented farmer
Here are the tests I would apply before I would agree he had reached some zen state of contentedness
1) how would he feel if a parcel of land came up for sale next to his. Would he itch to buy it. Most farmers would move heaven and earth.
2) How would he feel about me walking through his fields to share what he has got?
3) Is his stocking rate excessive?
4) If someone told him that by managing his flock differently he could damage the ground less and improve water quality in the river, would he take that advice?
5) If there was an awkward corner of his land next to my house that was not useful to him, but it was perfect for me, would he sell it to me at a fair price?
6) Why is there no succession plan. When he dies his sister will move into a home and the farm will be liquidated, the flock of sheep sold, the land broken up, the house sold off...because he didn't let anyone else in.
I'm afraid I have met enough like him to remain cynical.
Most of us race to increase our passive income, when maybe the healthiest choice would be to run to decrease our expenses.
A Japanese director made a documentary about one of the poorest regions in China.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GgWZDvgW9OA
There are English subtitles.
2) you can eat just sheep,
3) people lived just fine before we paid for massive bureaucratic buildings full of men to tell them they don't know what's wrong with them and full of facilities to keep people on life support.
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.
The delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe
https://www.pbs.org/video/the-farthest-voyager-in-space-qpbu...
The complete lack of variety in his dining routine in particular is something I'd never want to emulate. This man is basically a low tech Soylent bro, using food as just a source of nutrients. He raises sheep (and is not a vegetarian) yet never even eats mutton or cheese?
The fisherman proudly replied, “Every morning, I go out in my boat for 30 minutes to fish. I’m the best fisherman in the village”.
The businessman, perplexed, then asks the fisherman “If you’re the best, why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish? What do you do the rest of the day?”
The fisherman replied “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, spend quality time with my wife, and every evening we stroll into the village to drink wine and play guitar with our friends. I have a full and happy life.”
The businessman scoffed, “I am successful CEO and have a talent for spotting business opportunities. I can help you be more successful. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats with many fishermen. Instead of selling your catch to just your friends, you can scale to sell fish to thousands. You could leave this small coastal fishing village and move to the big city, where you can oversee your growing empire.”
The fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”
To which the businessman replied, “15 – 20 years.”
“But what then?” Asked the fisherman.
The businessman laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”
“Millions – then what?”
The businessman said, “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, spend time with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your friends.”
Unless that's sarcasm of course.
Rural: "I don't like what the city folk are doing. They should change."
Urban: "I don't like what the country folks are doing. This is how we should change them."
Rural: "The city-living ways don't work out here so well, but there's too many of you guys for me to even begin to tell you how to act or what to do, so as a compromise just let me be"
City: "Rural folk live really unsustainably/unculturably/deplorably but they don't know any better, its up to us to make them understand. Anyway the urban center provides more value than what the countryside provides, we should be dictating the path of progress in this county/state/country/continent.
The locus of power has always been around cities though, so that is where elites and elitism will always centralize.
Side note, you do know the definitions of the words "xenophobic" and "bigot" are right?
I enjoy a lifestyle similar to that of the fisherman. My humble little website works well, and though I could build other things, I'd have to start setting an alarm and making phone calls again. I'd rather not. If you reach a point in your life where you can stop turning the crank and still enjoy a good life, by all means do it.
I almost posted the "parable of the stonecutter" too.
When he gets heart disease in 20 years, he'll find himself in an underfunded public hospital too.
When his kids grow up and he wants to send them to uni, he'll find himself taking out a 100K loan.
Then he'll find himself fishing all day long just to pay off the interest on his debt/to stay afloat and he'll regret no capitalizing on his younger days, but it's too late because all the fish are gone thanks to foreign fishing trawlers.
It is a bit Pollyannaish, but I guess, it comes from a good place
This is just the story of the ant and the grasshopper in reverse.
I mess around with the soup occasionally trying new flavoring or techniques but its the same damn soup and I like it. Its easy to make, keeps well, costs nothing relative to output, and leaves me time to think about other things other than food. Also its very healthy.
At this point its just a habit. Sunday or Monday evening is soup making time. Two hours nets me two weeks of food.
2 bayleaves salt and pepper suit to taste. 2qt water cook/simmer for 1-2hr
I muck around with it sometimes... thrown siracha, hot peppers, sausage in it to varying degrees of tastiness.
I generally sauté the onions, celery and fennel together then add the rest. It can all be done in one pot for convenience.
Ours typically had pork and Polish sausage added, plus this type of pasta: https://www.google.com/search?q=Ditalini&safe=off&source=lnm...
It's similar to what Italians would know of as Pasta e fagioli (pasta and beans) but obviously varies by region, even village by village.
Better cook it separately and add it to the current portion you are eating.
If it's about heritage get it right, it's worth it.
I had a friend who asked me if he could freeze the soup recipe I sent him and while confused I told him it shouldn't be an issue.
Later on I'm visiting and he tells me he's making that soup. I walk into the kitchen to see a 40qt/37L pot being cooked. No wonder why he was asking if he could freeze it because the poor fella would have needed to eat 3L of soup a day to finish before it went bad if he didn't freeze it.
Then when you have something different and special, it really is special.
My family loves to have something great for every single meal. It’s very excessive and unnecessary - but I keep it to myself and let them enjoy it. It’s not a bad or destructive habit at all, I just wonder often if they value or appreciate it as much as they could.
Plus theres so much excellent food out there, created by culinary experts, that I love to try. I save the fun for the pros :3
Of course we are advised to have a varied diet but I suspect that is because most people have such poor eating habits. If you can squeeze all the nutrients you need into a single dish then why wouldn't it work.
Sure, he's an extreme and very few want to emulate it because there's a mild element of delusion. But, he's found the thing so many of us work our entire lives for only to never find.
Part of life is letting happiness find you, part of life is finding happiness, and part of life is pushing away things to find happiness in what you have.
I say, well done.
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.
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 centuries.
Why do you say he seems deluded to you?
It’s likely mild, and he’s likely genuinely happy with his life despite.
If I think of it as a strategy it makes more sense, i.e. "doing the same thing has worked well and will probably continue to do well, so I'll continue to bet on it". That hardly demands all the extra pre-conceived notions, but people view challenges to their ideas as a threat when they've made them part of their identity.
Just because there’s this modern idea that you need to travel and sample (trample on) everything, doesn’t make it more rational. Will going to Mars do anything for happiness? You haven’t been, you can’t know! That’s a fallacy, I’m not sure what, but it’s a fallacy because we know animals are adapted to their environment. We also are pretty good at knowing if we’re feeling alright.
You’re confusing scientism with reality. You can’t begin to claim to be right about some scientific thing without having explored a lot. But happiness can be found locally, in total ignorance. Your dog knows this. Only a human could confuse something like that through the curse of knowledge and modern culture.
What I will say is this man is rich. Not everyone, in fact almost no one, can afford to buy a farm in a beautiful area that’s surrounded by people and culture you like, with a temperate climate and natural beauty. He’s very lucky.
It's similar to anyone who has strong opinions about something that they don't have evidence (scientific or experiential) to support.
Again, the delusion isn't that he's happy with what he has, it's that he appears to have some strong opinions about what it's like to, for example, live in London having never been there. A more evidence-based position might be "I'm happy with what I have and have no inclination to see or do anything else".
Also again, his delusions seem pretty mild.
To even bring the word delusion is delusional.
My intended meaning was that there are beliefs here that aren't and can't be grounded in reality. Not necessarily more than other people tend to hold, but in the context of this article, which I thought romanticized the man's viewpoint a bit, it seemed relevant to pick up on.
Saying that bringing up the word delusion is delusional seems a little unkind in this context, though I think you're right that a milder term would fit better.
I think contentment is closer to what he's found, his world makes sense in his context and is comfortable and familiar.
Happiness is what you want when you are young, contentment is what you get if you are lucky later.
I think that is how it should be, it's a good progression since too much contentment when you are young would have made me less driven and been less driven wouldn't have helped me reach a point of contentment in my late 30's.
I have a partner who loves me and I her in return, a stable job I enjoy, money in the bank and time and money for my hobbies - it's not euphoric happiness but that never lasts, contentment can.
Searching for happiness or thinking that one needs to be happy all the time is not the path to any sort of lasting happiness. Contentment, much like discipline, is what has staying power.
And now we are fascinated by a man living in the same place all his life. It's funny how the concept of norm changes in 100 years.
"Disclaimer": migrant myself. Not necessarily my dream to go back "once retired". But my wife yearns for her motherland. And so do many.
Though not necessarily yearning, but more like "yes this was part of my history and you have a feeling of nostalgia"
Sometimes I feel a bit of nostalgia, but along life I've learned that you tend to remember the good things and the bad things get opaqued by time.
So when I feel a bit nostalgic I have learned to get a bit rational and think back to when I was there, and to the times I've come back to visit parent and relatives (holidays etc).
I then rationally remember all the reasons why I left and all the reasons why I decided to stay where I am. And nostalgia vanishes, almost immediately.
I have lived in the same place only once in my life for 7 years and it was an exception because we raised kids, even then we ripped our kids out of school to move them to a different country just for the sake of "experience" and so we wouldn't get bored and comfy (as parents).
In my whole life (close to 50 now) my average years in 1 place was 3-5. I could numerate _all_ the countries I lived in but it would look ridiculous and make boring reading (but it includes some crazy places one seriously wonders what could bring one from A->B).
Only last night I sat on the terrace of my an old friend from childhood. We downed a few Guinness (imported and considered a novelty where we are). It led us to exactly this conversation because he doesn't like anything "fancy" or imported but makes an exception knowing I love it and knowing I'd come he bought it. He is the exact opposite of me and I've always looked up to him because he got the roots (and everything that comes with it discussed here) that I lack. I'd love to have roots and in my most romantic day-dreams wonder what it would be like having never left and still among the same people. (and with my siblings not spread around the globe but in the same town)
He has also often wondered what it would be like living like me, hearing about adventures from Asia, sometimes war zones, or more recently South Eastern Europe, always "trying to make it in a different way", sometimes thriving but quite often literally just surviving.
Despite knowing another quite well, we're only able to look at each others reality in a romanticized / idealized way because we have no idea.
"The grass is always greener ...." most importantly I totally lack the basis for comparison to _his_ life as much as he does to mine, because I've been wired and set up to be me very early in my childhood (and so are my kids who also had no choice but had to endure going through the experience of getting ripped out of school and moved to a new place every couple of years).
I think we are creatures of habit. And braking them is very hard regardless if the habit is to never make any changes, or must shake things up every few years to avoid going nuts.
Spoiler alert: with that attitude you'll never make a choice and always search.
Statistically it's pretty much the best you can do.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time. -- T.S.EliotDas Runde muss ins Eckige.
https://www.deepl.com/en/translator#de/en/Das%20Runde%20muss...
https://www.deepl.com/en/translator#de/en/Die%20Ball%20ist%2....
And then most people spent a year at home. Strange times.
If we humans optimize by happiness, then we should have nothing but envy for a life like Wilf Davies leads.
During lockdown I relish the opportunity to clean the house and cook because they are straightforward tasks where there are clear goals and I always achieve success.
Software for me these days involves too much despair and worry over whether things are done the right way.
And if you got it wrong, and it wasn't good enough, you can take another stab at it later with the wisdom gained meanwhile.
This is the positive side (along with the salary) of being a tiny cog with no power to influence broader design decisions.
Worked at Microsoft and now I’m at one of the big AAA game companies (working on their online services side, not games directly) and both were/are very stressful. High expectations of commitment and personal investment in what I do.
In most occupations we are a cog in some huge machine working in a way forbidding us to enjoy this feeling.
Definition of done, demo's, releaseparties, well-defined delivery requirements, chopping up tasks, user stories, etc. All help a lot here. But all require effort to maintain, establish and improve. Continously and significant effort.
That said, all the other things are must haves, not just because of morale but because of effectiveness. Things don't get done without definitions of done, things don't get proper feedback and iteration without demos, etc.
The ones I'm talking about are ranging from "buy some nice beers and munchies and drink one in the office" to "hire a boat, bring a radio" to "have dinner together". Basically a friendly, shoulderpatting event amongst peers.
*Edit: obviously all pre-covid lockdowns and work-from-home.
I think the difference is internal vs external release then. Our internal releases were generally "nice job" and the like, as we completed sprints. It was still a clear recognition of something being completed. The actual external facing launch that the company cared about, the 'go live', was more what I was referring to, and which never really meant much, to me at least.
When I didn't have my CS degree finished and no IT experience, I've applied to thousands of factory and warehouse jobs and got nowhere. I only got a curier job through a family connection.
I believe I could get back to IT if I really wanted to, or needed to. Would need few months of getting up to date with all latest developments and living in the "land of the unicorns" I don't think getting well paying job would be a problem.
You could always start your own business too.
I'm rationalizing my decision to stick it out just a bit longer, but I have zero fucks left. I'd rather dig ditches than write software for one of the big companies at this point, but I'm not digging ditches.
I'll never forget how he explained the bliss of coming home, dropping your company-bag in the hallway only to pick it up next day before going to work. How he never had to read up on recent insights in the field of driving a tram on weekends. How he was finding joy in reading biology-books in the evenings, free of any pressure, again.
(If this sounds denigrating to a tram driver, it is not meant as such, at all)
Usually the first group is seen as more socially acceptable and usually makes more money, but the second group almost always has a superior quality of life.
Coworkers and the relationship with them matter. Its almost never talked about.
So I decided to learn all I could about lawn maintenance, which tools I need, and how to use them. And it became a point of pride for me and a challenge rather than a chore.
So mowing the lawn, the very act of it, is now a joy and something I look forward to. All my work (de-thatching, aerating, seeding, fertilizing, watering, pH balancing, edging, etc) pays off when I mow the lawn now and it makes mowing something I look forward to and never have to be bothered to do.
It was a shabby lawn when I took it over and now it’s a thick, lush carpet that I enjoy very much.
You know that you have reached a level of understanding that if you ever did get the boulder to the top, you'd push it back down.
I would like to travel the world because that would give me the happiness this person has found just by staying where he is. That doesn't mean he should change his way because my definition of being happy is different that his.
I'm still not sure what the problem was. It was a dish basically consisting of lentils, onions, and shredded chicken, spiced heavily; I'd eat it spread over bread.
I admit, that sounds like a great meal to me!
If you only eat one dish, it better have everything needed and even then it can be lacking. No need to torment oneself.
However it doesnt feel like a good idea for nutrition reasons. So I try to eat as different as possible with minimal effort instead. Like getting the dishes I’ve never heard of when eating out.
Would it be less stressful and inconvenient if you could put the same thing in your bread every day?
Do you imagine that would make you more happy or less happy?
I’ve heard that humans had a long period of time after we became sedentary and started relying on agriculture that the average height decreased significantly, and it was only in recent centuries that it has gotten back to normal due to more varied nutrition. So even if you can technically survive on a very limited diet, it can still have negative effects.
The only thing you're really missing there is dietary fiber, which -- being indigestible -- doesn't have nutritional value. However, it does interact with your intestines as it passes through them in a manner which tends to promote their health.
So no, survival is not even a question that should come up.
Fiber does have a health impact as you say, and having good health is one of the main ways known to delay death. And what is survival but the delay of death?
My point is that by eating a larger variety of nutritious food, you are less likely to suffer from poor health due to a lack of something you need.
It misses iron, so it puts him at risk of anemia. Which is very real thing.
Scurvy and other vitamins deficience diseases are very real thing too.
So yes, if that food was literally all he eate long term, the question of survival makes perfect sense.
It's not the variety of the diet but the quality of the food itself. Bread is good for energy, but if all you're eating is bread, you're not getting complete proteins, omega 3s, and other nutrients. It's fine, however, to eat nothing but meat and many societies did this for hundreds of thousands of years.
Farming is anything but sedentary, especially in the 19th century and prior. People's height was stunted because food was not abundant enough. Agricultural societies tended to grow faster than farming productivity could keep up with. A lot of people were simply malnourished and therefore never reached their natural height capacity.
But as you say, the hunter / gatherers such as the native Americans were taller on average than the first European settlers to arrive in America. This is not due to a particularly diverse diet. Most cultures subsisted on meat from hunting (largest source of nutrition) and a select few vegetables. The difference is that hunter / gatherer societies tended to self regulate their population according to available resources.
Other than those who live in the arctic, which societies did this? You have sources? Thanks!
Then there was a shift towards agricultural societies, where people relied on their plantations and domesticated cattle. I don't think the cattle meat would be enough for most of their meals, probably the most of them would be bread and soup.
This is just a vague recollection from A Brief History of Humanity, but it makes sense to me. Eating just meat sounds terribly "costly", you have to actively ignore all other sources of food around you.
But in general, I think we know a lot less about the lives of people so long ago than many people (including academics) like to think. Research methods are often based on either assuming modern people's lifestyles are "just like" ancient people, or big leaps from extremely limited archeological evidence.
Grass-eating bison, aurochs, horses, goats, sheep, etc were our primary source of nutrition in the ice age, not to mention mammoths (as well as fish).
And this is evidenced by ancient cave paintings tens of thousands of years old depicting hunts as well as the bone remnants in the caves and homes of ancient humans.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2115127-ancient-leftove...
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/human-ancest...
But mostly what the conflicting theories with consensus that changes from generation to generation tells me is that it's very hard to know for sure how people 15K+ years ago lived.
Also the Maasai tribe in Africa: https://www.wired.com/2012/09/milk-meat-and-blood-how-diet-d...
The Sami in Scandinavia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1mi_people
So really all societies did this until the advent of agriculture ~10K years ago. And even then, the agricultural revolution was not evenly distributed and hunting or fishing as a primary source of nutrition was common even just 150 years ago.
Exactly, wouldn’t you end up with scurvy from the lack of vitamin C?
Your "not get scurvy" not levels of Vit C are really small. As in months on the sea small (or maybe college freshman small)
Could be genetics I suppose?
Glad he's found happiness though.
Both his food and shape are pretty much the normal shape for people living in villages doing small farming.
Besides ... you've heard of studies that have shown that the calorie expenditure of hunter-gatherers, walking around all day, is about the same as couch potato Americans sitting around all day... here's the link: https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2013/06/13/191036200/what-...
Perhaps diet has much less to do with health compared to physical activity than Americans tend to act as if.
You know, you are going to die. They're going to lower you into a hole in the ground. The worms will have you for dinner. That's it.
Right before you die, are you going to say to yourself, "boy, I'm sure glad I made sure to have a balanced diet with good nutrition" ? Will you say, "I'm glad I didn't enjoy cheese and bread with butter every single day" ?
70 years of pure joy, of every moment counting, of getting just what you want, is worth a million years of trying to extend your life and health. Don't live the life you think you're supposed to, and don't live for the future. Whatever you like, do it now.
Living in the moment doesn't mean ignoring the future consequences of your actions.
Or maybe I can just take basic precautions like eating more than three different foods? You make it sound like that is such a burden, but it really isn’t. It’s possible to enjoy your life even while taking care of yourself.
In fact, I have a much easier time being happy when my health is good than when I am sick, so I’d say these precautions are important for a good life.
The idea of not using an innumerable number of fruits, vegetables, meats, and spices available is crazy to me. We’re even excited to go back to the city try at various times of the year because different seasons bring different foods.
"My uncle, a bachelor and farmer like me, had the same food for every meal. He had bread, butter, cheese and tea for breakfast, lunch and dinner (although he would bring out the jam for visitors)."
It's not like we do this to because variety is intrinsically good and we have to force ourselves. It's more like we're addicted to variety; the more often you have the same meal the less appetizing it becomes.
So is tending to a farm.
We need some amount of stressors in our lives to keep from feeling bored and stagnant. Exercise is literally an imposition of stress, but increases our well-being. Really a matter of picking your poison.
Farming might be samey, but if something is hard work it's also stressful.
I married into a traditional small town Indian family last year.
One of the biggest idealogical challenges I've faced is the duality of ambition. My family in law live similar to the farmer. Low entropy. I know where they will be every day every 15 minutes, what they will eat, with little exception.
It's such a stark contrast to my personal life, which has been characterized by the constant need to improve, challenge, and adapt. I don't know what I'll be doing 15 minutes from now let alone 2:00 - 2:15 a year from now.
I personally am not an absolutist, and so I don't think there's a particular lifestyle that is wrong or right, but it's an salient dichotomy and something that I've found challenging to reconcile in practice.
>I will eat twice a day, breakfast and lunch four hours later.
>...
>I say, “Cows only eat grass and wolfs only eat meat”
>Modern society is so boring and there is so much food that we have to be stimulated by spices and chefs and different foods to eat. At sea in a small boat its different. Life itself out there is so interesting that I do not need stimulants.
>My breakfast consists of one can of sardines, one slice of dense dark rye bread and muesli.
>...
>My lunch is the same as breakfast but no sardines.
We were on a camping trip so all we had in the car was two small cans of tuna and some multigrain bread. After getting out of the water and feeling completely exhausted, there was something satisfying about slapping the contents of the can onto a slice of bread and biting into the most basic meal imaginable.
Since gyms were closed, I cut for about 4-5mo at the start of lockdown. Everyday for those 5 months: sardines. Never got tied of 'em or felt like I was on horrific starvation rations.
And vice versa, wolves also eat plants sometimes https://www.dogsnaturallymagazine.com/feed-your-dog-like-a-w....
My dad arranged something similar for my mom in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. It is nearly impossible in the US, I don’t even know if you can still do it without being wealthy. It required long term care insurance prepaid for years, and it was still a nightmare of weekly paperwork to manage all the claims. The care for his sister, and treatment and recovery for multiple strokes - out of reach for many farmers around the world. This man is very lucky indeed.
I see a lot of comments that seem to see all the things you miss out on in this situation. But in my mind, it frees up a lot of mental effort, time and stress. If I ever get bored I can go to a restaurant and eat something wild and it will be all the more exciting given I don't optimize for excitement or luxury in my everyday steady-state.
When Soylent came out I was super excited about this idea. Don't think about three meals a day that you normally fuss over, and instead have two predictable, quick meals and optimize to make the third one amazing. Soylent was OK, and DIY soylent offered some hope too. The third meal WAS always amazing, in a relative sense, and tasted better somehow than when I had the same thing before this diet. Unfortunately liquid diets are just not satisfying to me and so frozen meals won out.
I'd love to find other areas of my life that can be similarly optimized. I have hope for bill management services to take the annoyance out of juggling payments etc., and roboinvestors or similar automated financial services. Doing these things manually offers no excitement and no added value beyond the transitively provided service so I don't think they should take up my life.
The amount of time wasted across the whole human population on things like preparing meals, choosing outfits and managing everyday responsibilities must be huge and that is all time that could be spent doing other exciting or valuable things.
I recommend decreasing your gadgets to just a phone (for when you go out) and a tablet or laptop for home. That is, no TV, no stereo, no games console. Assuming you live on your own, you can do all the same things you did before, just move your laptop screen to a comfortable distance. I suppose you could buy headphones if you also want loud audio, but personally I prefer to go out to a bar or nightclub or movie theater to get that experience.
You can also optimize most of the furniture away. The last few places I lived I just had a mattress in the main/living room and cooking supplies in the kitchen. Not only is the up-front cost less, but you can live in a much smaller apartment, cleaning the whole place is much faster, moving house is easy. Personally I like to work lying on my stomach, so I don't need a desk, but I suppose you could get a small table and chair if your body isn't comfortable lying down or sitting on the floor for a lot of the day. More available floor space means it's easier to pace or work out too.
Other recommendations... Best to live somewhere without carpet, so you can clean it with a broom - saves buying a vacuum cleaner. You can use toilet paper for the bathroom and also in the kitchen and also to blow your nose. You can use shampoo for everything in the bathroom, including washing your hair, hands, body and clothes (if your house doesn't have a washing machine). You can use dishwashing liquid to clean most surfaces in the house, as well as your dishes. You can avoid using lights for most of the day/night by keeping windows uncovered and using the ambient light from outside.
The upsides are exactly as you say - since you're not spending as much time and money maintaining your house, you have more time to go out and visit interesting places, and you can spend more money at nice restaurants or splurge for a comfortable hotel if you want to enjoy some luxury every now and then. But I find I don't really want to. Life is a lot more enjoyable, in my opinion. Way less stress than cleaning and maintaining a bunch of stuff.
I'd wager there's a rather large number of folks like GP intending to minimize the effort required to do drone-ish tasks rather than eliminate them. I don't deny that it's only a logical next step to eliminate them entirely, but that seems a step too far for social conventions. After all, culture defies logic rather often.
(Bonus with a furnished place - I don't need to worry about the kinds of bills that the OC was talking about because one flat monthly payment covers rent, water, electric and internet. My only other bills are phone and media/content subscription services, all of which are also flat rates, set up once and paid automatically.)
For me simplifying my life doesn't mean living with nothing at all, it just means living without unnecessarily complicated or laborious things. Clearly different people will draw a line at different places.
The point of my previous comment was more that it doesn't hurt to try eliminate things from your life, if it seems they're just a hassle. Who cares about the social conventions? I think a lot of people find themselves caught up in the rat race and take part without really thinking about why they're doing it, or whether it actually is worth all the effort. It turns out you can forego a lot of things and, actually, life isn't all that bad. That's especially the case if you are earning a decent salary, so you afford to can go out and treat yourself whenever you feel the urge. I think now is probably a better time than ever before to live simply, because we have immediate access to all the world's knowledge and art from a tiny computer in our pockets.
Living in Japan now, I had a few months with a padded mat + quilt on the floor as is tradition (and a damn cheap one), but upgraded to a mattress on the floor because the floor was too cold in winter as you mentioned.
There's as much to be gained from taking stuff away that isn't useful, as there is from adding useful stuff to your life.
But if you prefer the independence of minimal living, that's also advantageous.
Now I am back in the North America I think it's harder, because people build houses much bigger, and seem to associate not having much stuff with being unhappy or underprivileged instead of well-optimized and free.
I've found a bit more in common with the rubber tramp and liveaboard communities in this part of the world. They are very mindful about everything they buy because space is limited, so trying to find things that are multifunctional is a high priority. A lot of those things work in houses too.
On the other hand, I don't think their lives are as low stress as I would like, because they end up needing maintain an entire vehicle as well as the stuff in it.
Two other hacks, for women at least, is to quit makeup and shaving. I quit makeup about 5 years ago by accident forgetting to put it on one morning, and then I realized no one at work noticed anyways. Quitting shaving has been more of a corona era thing. I'm not sure if I'll stick with it over the summer, but I've been out a few times in shorts and it seemed nobody much cared. That cuts a bunch of unnecessary maintenance time out of my life, which I can now use for other things.
There are so many better things to spend time on than the mundane parts of life.
You’re probably familiar with auto bill pay (I think most services have it, and many banks offer it as well), and index fund investing with automatic transfers, so I’m guessing those don’t solve the problems you’re talking about. I’m interested what you mean then.
The index fund investing with scheduled transfers is exactly what I meant by automated financial services. I probably micro-manage it a little too much right now for no real benefit.
I do my best not to even log in to my account. One could go so far as to change one’s password to something impossible to remember, then delete it, so that signing in becomes a huge hassle of password recovery and identification verification at a banking institute (one of Dante’s levels of hell iirc)
Soylent is terrible for your insides.
But this experience of finding value in cooking is not really universal. I have some friends who legitimately, actively dislike the process. It's not that they're bad at it, they just consider it a waste of time. For them Soylent, or a food delivery service might be just fine.
I think the key is to aggressively optimize out the things in your life that aren't working for you. We shouldn't feel like we "need" to do things just to have a "normal" life, I think that's one of the causes of stress and unhappiness for a lot of people.
(Of course, it's also possible that that was just an autocorrection failure)
Thanks for catching that.
Working in tech it’s very hard not to get lost in rat race and always go for more money, more knowledge, more everything. I’m actively trying to avoid it, but it gets to me as well. And most of my friends think I’m weird that I don’t want to get one more promotion or why I don’t want to push myself outside of my comfort zone. I’m fine where I am.
Just don't know what to do instead.
https://twitter.com/WilfDavies3/status/1244888108413394944
Edit: Yes, just a different Wilf Davies, but also from Wales.
I hope eventually I can raise my family in a farm-environment while working remotely, and get some extra income on top of that by growing stuff in small scale.
I’m surprised the guy in the article could go decades without eating any veggies but his diet has clearly worked for him.
The strokes could just be genetics and/or old age catching up.
Is it clear, given the multiple strokes? We don't know with certainty whether the diet was a significant factor, but it's possible.
Surely you want some time to live life without the obligations of work? Otherwise what is it all for?
All I said was that I don't expect to get very old with the high stress, sedentary job.
You may need to negotiate better terms for yourself if you work in the most financially rewarding field of work in the world, maybe the history of the world, and you can't find the time to exercise or de stress.
He might have had a genetic predisposition for high blood pressure or other contributing factors that can lead to strokes.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-2-million-years-humans-ate...
Doesn't he eat a whole onion every night? Onions are vegetables right?
I would agree it sounds like a lack of green veggies, though, if that's what you meant.
So I guess I was thinking more like a variety of veggies that presumably as a farmer he could grow if he enjoyed veggies. This guy had a clear idea of what he liked and went with it.
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV9spqCzSkQ or https://joythebaker.com/2015/01/whole-roasted-onions/
Garlic can be roasted in similar manner.
And he will be just as happy (if not happier) as any of us reading this article.
Princes Beef Paste 75G, description: "Beef Paste with Minced Chicken". Price: £0.50 (≈ $0.70)
Good for him that he enjoys his four(!) "sandwiches with paste" for lunch, but this doesn't sound particularly appetizing.
Probably the most inspiring two sentences I've read in years. There's good in the world.
Most work of the day concentrates between early hours of the morning and lates hours of the afternoon.
Most of your day is usually free-time. Better than a 9-5 IMHO
State of satisfaction and living in present moment is one very difficult to achieve.
> I've had several strokes
At 72(?), though, he's still doing better than plenty of others. Full of flaws and imperfections like everyone else but he's doing his thing and apparently enjoying it, so good for him.
Having family members who get sick of things changes that. There are certain of my favorites that are now off limits because I made them too many times in a row. Those things have to wait until they're all out of town for some reason. ;-)
a) Eat to live instead of living to eat
b) Being too lazy to commit more than 5-10 minutes for food preparation.
c) Being single where I could own my decisions and "weirdness".
How do you eat an onion for supper? Raw, or cooked? If cooked, how do you cook it?
If you like stronger flavours, you can add your favourite salad dressing to a chopped or sliced raw onion (I usually add extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar and oregano).
For example, you can put butter or lard on bread, spread those small pieces of onion on it, add salt. It is actually good.
You can also cut it into thick ovals and bake. Third option is to caramelize it. But, these two are time consuming.
He should visit - most people in London don't live in tower blocks, and there's lots of nature around.
There are wild deer in Richmond Park, and Hampstead Heath is almost indistinguishable from any other forest (and quite close to the very center of London).
For me personally, I have a very high inclination for novelty, even if that novelty comes with the risk of a bad experience. I just can't imagine doing, seeing, eating, working on, or talking about the same things my whole life. Heck, I work in tech but keep floating the idea of opening a restaurant to my wife (which promptly gets shot down).
For other people in my family, they know what they like, and that's that. Why fix what's not broken? I can't relate to that viewpoint one bit, but I can respect it.
Edit: Actually, now that I think about it some more, my desire for novelty might depend on the topic. I rotate between about three colors of T-shirts and wear the same brand of jeans every day and have no desire to branch out beyond this. Maybe openness is not a personality trait that applies universally to everything.
My desire for novelty can be problematic. I find it difficult to maintain long term sexual relationships. I'm so bored of having the same sex in the same positions over and over again. But I'm also too introverted to be happy with polygamous or short term relationships, not too mention how expensive that lifestyle is.
Like you, though, I don't seek novelty in all aspects of life. I too wear the same few t-shirts and same pair of jeans every day. Maybe there is just so little room for novelty here that it doesn't matter? What difference does it really make to me if I wear a pink t-shirt instead of green? My girlfriend, of course, buys new clothes almost every week.
I also don't change things for the sake of it. My desire for novelty doesn't override if it ain't broke don't fix it. When I cook something I've cooked many times before, I will reproduce the method exactly and produce consistent results. My girlfriend will slightly change things every single time, sometimes consciously, sometimes not. My dad cooks like this too. I think he actually does seek novelty in the way he cooks something. If I cook a dish and it's delicious it will be just as delicious next time. If he cooks and it's delicious, next time he'll add a completely new ingredient to it, for better or worse.
Being content with what you have is great, but arbitrarily avoiding new experiences, even those at small cost (e.g. trying an Indian lentils recipe) is probably the biggest regret maximiser I can think of, for me personally.
All the other stuff about enjoying nature, his surroundings etc, is great of course. But I don't see how it's mutually exclusive with some of the other things (like trying different foods worldwide nature + worldwide culture has to offer) that feel more like a stubborn pride to be able to say 'look how down to earth I am, compared with you fancy city folk'.
The funny thing is that at the time, I thought nothing of it! It was just a part of my morning routine, not a sign of poverty or an unusual personality. I still don't think it's unusual at all, many people eat the same breakfast every day.
Yet, this horrifies her. She cooks a different breakfast every morning and refuses to eat leftovers from yesterday. I never had a problem eating something my Mom cooked on the weekend for three or four days in a row. Schnitzel is delicious for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!
Of course, if I'm at a hotel, I storm the buffet and try all kinds of things. Surely my breakfasts would be much more creative if I had a cook and a butler.
I highly recommend a YouTube channel called Cereal Time TV [1] where you can find reviews of old and new cereals - I don't even know how I found this channel but after watching dozens of videos about old cereals I thought to myself "man, I want some!" so I bought a pack of cereals that I remembered from my childhood and that's how it started, I now eat cereal with milk almost everyday :-)
People have very different ideas of what meals should be.
While we have similar ideas about breakfast, my girlfriend makes large ish but quick cooked meals for lunch, whereas for me lunch is always a light meal like a sandwich and a cup of tea. Dinner is the main event for me, a reward for a day's work and a way to unwind, whereas to her it's just to tide you over until bedtime. Living together reveals these things.
I can definitely empathise with his mindset, especially after many years in the city. Though being from a culinary-centered culture, the one size fits all meal is really depressing to think about, especially that he probably can get some really good produce from people in his network.
Being a farmer is really something different and here in Western Europe (I'm going to assume there's not that much difference between UK and FR farming cultures), it's really a labour of love.
I've been lucky to have some exposure to this world through my family and people often have the wrong perception of it and quite often looked down upon by people that should know better.
That is some heavy Zen right there.
Also: "two pieces of fish, one big onion, an egg, baked beans and a few biscuits at the end"
Is probably very healthy. Minimal sugar, high protein. Would be nice to have a bit of veg and that would be it.
An injury or illness leading to bed rest can cause clots to form. Clots can just form anyways. High blood pressure. Which, again, becomes increasingly common as people age regardless of fitness level and diet.
The guy lives wholesome lifestyle, but that lifestyle is not that terribly healthy as people want it to be. Simple lifestyles are not always the most healthy thing you can do. His diet is limited by habit/routine, but also possibly by cost and additional effort it would take to cook more healthier. He already works a lot and healthier food woold require more effort.
His voice of London seems to be relatively naive, since there are relatively few what I would call 'great tower blocks' here.
One of you is wrong. Which is it?
That aside, articles like these are more about convincing the author than anyone else in my view. That doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong. See for example Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. He repeatedly mulls over the prospect of death, with aphorisms to suggest it's nothing to be afraid of. Death was on his mind. This farmer seems to focus on conveying that he has every reason to be happy. It's no coincidence that suicide rates are highest among farmers - is this man simply built different, or is he convincing himself?
Something missing here.
70 sheep will probably attract a farming subsidy too
Wales is poor, outside the cities. You can still buy a house for £10k here (it'll be shit obviously). He'll likely get some subsidies and his pension now too, and I imagine he probably trades for some of his food. Eggs for fish, that sorta thing.
> two pieces of fish, an onion, an egg, baked beans and biscuits
every single day is a contributing factor. I'm all about simplifying life, but think we should remember that eating a varied diet is fairly important to well-being.
There are some rich people here on HN. Can somebody pay him a week there?
I know I'd do it if I had 7 digits on my bank account.
His diet doesn’t sound the worst, he seems to be active, just genetics? The beans every morning? He didn’t mention what he does for dinner.
I purchased 3.3 acres of land this year to begin the process of simplifying. I'm leaving the software world over the next couple years to have a life of homesteading.
Very true. Especially if one never starts a family.
If it is for the meal i would be surprised, because he eats the most diverse meal than a few billion people in the world.
I wonder if his eating routine might be linked to it.
Four sandwiches for lunch, that quite and amount of white bread for a single person, every day.
I eat the same thing for both breakfast and dinner.
Also there may be some wheat in those few biscuits.
He is a wealthy man that owns a farm. Same story about someone who would be a bartender in a local pub, where he was just an employee serving local drunks, would be much sadder one.
He's got 70 sheep mate. In Romania (IIRC) they'll unironically gift you farms like this because there's nobody else there to maintain them and you basically get some land for free. As the man himself points out it's a very simple life that involves a lot of hard work during all seasons, he's not privileged. Most people move out because life even in the service industry is easier.
However yes, you are right that many local people will have had to move away for work. Aside from Aberystwyth there's not a huge amount of work out that way. Lots of them will come down south to Cardiff and Swansea.
As a person with some anxiety and (what I have diagnosed in myself as underlying) self-esteem issues, this is something that I have been thinking about.
People around me tend to think that "oh, throwawayhermit is just a bit of hermit and likes to be on their own", which is partially true and my introvertedness needs time on its own. But on the other hand, a big part of my closing off from others is anxiety and self-esteem issues, which I presume are not that easy to spot at first when a person "seems confident and well off".
So, that has got me thinking, how many of the people closing themselves off from others are doing it because they are happy that way and how many are hiding from issues/fears (regardless whether they realize it themselves or not)?
> Routine is a way of not stressing yourself out with newness and the possibility you might not cope, and fail.
I feel that there is a place for routines. They can give you space to focus on something that actually matters, teach you mental discipline and give you some kind inner peace from not constantly searching for new and shiny things.
It's great he's happy with the life he has chosen. But I personally find people who are even slightly like that (i.e. closed off to new experiences) depressing to be around. My parents are kind of like that, and have been as long as I can remember. But to each their own.
I think he's sad because they _do_ go to the effort of hearing the cuckoos, but they're rushing. They're not fully present, and so they don't get the full experience.
He, by contrast, is very present in the things he does. That he doesn't choose to do many things is a different topic.
I am from (near) Rome, and am familiar with the phenomenon of people visiting the city over a weekend, or even worse, on a day trip.
That literally means you cannot experience the city, you can at most put some checkmarks on the 3 most popular sights. In a month you may spend a weekend in Paris, Madrid, Rome and London, but I believe it would be better to spend a few more days in only one of those. This is still different from, say, spending six months in a given city (which is what some people do to really experience it!).
To each their own, some people do prefer broad & shallow to restricted & deep, but I think these days we do tend to over-emphasize the shallow side.
As you mention, there's a good balance, and maybe 20 days could have been spent in 2 cities. But a weekend is very shallow
Something can be gained by not stripping away boredom, but instead "savouring" the moment to see where it leads (essential for creativity).
Then there is the idea of taking a cold shower as first thing in the morning to tell your subconscious to better not be to comfortable, and prepare "properly" for your day ahead (without "expectation" of comfort). Eating the same supper is a similar spirit and strips away the comfort and thinking that "one has an entitlement to something".
See also the Stoic philosophy etc.
___
from the wikipedia link:
> "Slowness" — in German, "Langsamkeit" — had, before Nadolny's novel been primarily associated with mental retardation. In Nadolny's world, however, this seeming disability is in fact a powerful asset; the possessor of "slowness" can afford to wait, because he must wait. As a result, he attains victories unimaginable to the more "hurried" multitude. Nadolny's choice of a hero is apt in this regard; certainly the historical Sir John Franklin was never known for his mental alacrity, but beyond that, his "slowness" is more of a post-modern conceit. In a manner reminiscent of Roland Barthes' "autobiography" of Jules Michelet, Nadolny's Franklin is completely consistent with the known facts, all impeccably researched. Yet interwoven with the truth there is an entirely fictitious construction of Franklin as "slow," ranging from an imaginary ball-game in which the hapless John always arrives several seconds after the ball has departed to a fictitious re-creation of Franklin's efforts, at the height of Admiral Horatio Nelson's naval battles, to find and shoot a sniper from atop the masts of an enemy warship. By waiting, without panic, and carefully noting the angle at which the sniper's shots have been discharged, Franklin pinpoints his location and takes him down with a single shot.
The contrast reminds me of a fad among 20-something's back in the 90s, spending a year "roughing it" on a grand tour of some third-world country. They'd come back with a tattoo, weighing 60kg, tanned and full of derision for "...your first world addiction to consumerism, man", and laughing at people who take their jobs seriously. Telling stories of dysentry, dangerous situations, psychedelics, corrupt police, bribing border guards, and living on pennies a day. "You get to see the real <wherever>". But while they certainly got closer to 'grit', they never really blended in with the locals for the same reason that they couldn't appreciate poverty. It was because they knew they had an exit strategy. They were fake, like Carla in Fight Club, going to terminal cancer support groups. Like the rich girl in Pulp's song, Common People, hanging out in a rough neighborhood, renting a flat above a shop, getting a shitty job and pretending she never went to school. But she never gets it right because she knows she can call her Daddy any time and he'll rescue her. And true enough, every man-Jack of those 20-something's had a car and a career within months of their return, and they're rightfully embarrassed about the enlightened crap they gave everyone when they first got back. Maybe a 2 week holiday to see the scenery is just as good after all?
Life before plenty was hard and boring by our standards. You can still see this in poorer, remote areas -- my experience is mainly with the American midwest and random foreign travel. There simply isn't much to do (or eat, or see), unless you're close to a big city.
It may not apply to everyone, or even a majority of people who go out of their way for something new, but I know exactly what the parent comment means.
Well, firstly, there was a misunderstanding in the parent comment, but ignoring that, I understand you are saying that you derive enjoyment from new experiences, which you have actively sought out for at least a decade, and don't enjoy the company of people who are not like that.
But do you mean to say that you wouldn't enjoy meeting an old Welsh farmer who is not like anyone else you know? From what you've described about your interests and activities, I imagine you might enjoy the experience, at least for a while.
From what you've said, you wouldn't want to be like him, but that's a different thing to the experience of meeting him, isn't it?
> people frantically trying to experience "new" things as an effort to quiet the constant agitation of their souls
...and pointing out that there are different kinds of, I guess, opportunistic openness. One is the normal, well-adjusted kind where you say sure, let's try some Chinese food or hey, I've never been to Wales, should we go to Cardiff this weekend? It's the Michael Palin version.
The other, darker one - the one I had and which the grandparent was referring to - is the kind where you're constantly looking for the next thing or place or whatever that will make you feel content with life. It's not about experience for experience's sake, it's about trying to find something, anything, that will soothe your soul. This is the Anthony Bourdain version.
It's not that I wouldn't want to go to Wales or meet the farmer; I would, of course. The difference is in the motivation and the satisfaction I would derive from it.
I used to be in Anthony Bourdain mode. In that time, Michael Palin mode seemed a world away - non-resonant and unobtainable.
Eventually I changed into Michael Palin!
I don't mean the food all tastes the same, but rather, you've adapted to the idea of trying unfamiliar foods. At this point, every new food you try has a risk-reward where you could feel somewhere between extreme disgust or delight on either end. And people who are more open to trying new foods just weigh the reward higher than the risk. Conversely, less open people will weigh the risk higher, or they just might not care. Maybe they think, "Food doesn't move me that much. It doesn't make me nearly as happy as my sheep." (Of course, maybe they don't know because they've never tried sesame chicken.)
I'm not making a judgement call to what is better, being at peace where you are, or never be at peace and always wanting more.
It reminds me of when some interviewer asked Elon Musk: "How can people be more like you?", to which he answered "You don't want to be me... I'm not sure I want to be me".
My theory is that you have 2 things inside you: the individual and the DNA. The individual can be at peace, but it will be at the expense of the survival of the DNA. The DNA pushes you to be the best and find the best partner to reproduce. The DNA makes sure you are always at unrest and want to achieve more, get better, etc.
I think this story illustrates it well, because he is a peace even though he never married, and so will not give his DNA setup to a next generation.
Who knows what he really said. Not us.
People are different.
As Dang says about attention on HN: people give it their all, only the moderators do that, and that's what keeps the place from descending into madness. But everyone else can only give a part of their attention to HN. Fair enough, but you need some people giving it their all if you want HN to be good.
Caveat is, he's probably great at narrating his solitary life and justifying his seclusion. We don't hear from him about all the stuff that isn't great. It's possible there's lots of that stuff, too :) ;p xx
Look at this austere man, so capable. Entirely singular. Wholly content. How can you come to find even a hint of the vaguest ennui. Truly I envy the man, I aspire to be so contented, unfortunately I've decades of conditioning to unravel to attain such a saintly outlook. Imagine how simple and humane the world would be if it was populated with people like this. The man is wise.
Would it be fair to assume you find such people "depressing" because they're resistant to your superficial intellectual rotundity? Because they don't play your games?
We're sacrificing humanity for the vain and meagre rewards of the flesh and conditioned from birth to tow the line. This man seems to have entirely insulated himself from that, he renders his services seemingly for the sake of it. Lives, very apparently, with great modesty. He does this despite the social pressures to do otherwise, it is quite probable that he sacrificed romance to avoid the capricious intermingling of someone else, since few are contented without effecting their next step on the hedonic treadmill, their sisyphian burden.
I respect and admire the man.
Being "noble, humble, and virtuous", if that is what you call the author of the article, is an orthogonal property. I'm not really sure he is particularly notable in those respects though. He's not harming anyone, but he's not out there making the world better for others to any great degree either. He's just living his life.
My favourite anecdote for visiting Welsh friends is to tell them about Anna Creek Station, a cattle farm in South Australia that is slightly larger than Wales.
At £100 per fat lamb, you still haven't made minimum wage even if all 71 have twins and you have zero costs. Maybe they sell some wool, too.
In reality you have bills, sheep die, and you need to keep some lambs for breeding stock
I'm not saying it's a life I want, but unlike an Australian or American farmer he doesn't need to drive for several hours to get to the nearest hospital/major shopping centre/his mate's farm. His sister's carers are paid for presumably by the UK version of the NDIS which ours was modeled on with all the good bits taken out because they were too expensive. Unlike an American farmer he won't spend the rest of his life paying for the ambulance and hospital stay from his stroke because it was covered by the public system.
It sounds to me like he is contributing to society as best he can, and as someone who has hiked through farms in the UK, and gazed at them from the train for hours on end, I think he has done more to improve the general condition of England than many other people can claim.
This sums up the article
I recognize a lot of myself and several of my family members in the letter, but I think they’d take it the same way.
Would he still be "enlightened" and "content" or brainwashed, oppressed and a victim of propaganda?
- You are living a certain life and don't have the means nor the inclination to change it
- You are living a certain life, can probably strive for something more, but choose not to
Can people be equally happy/content in all these situations?
But if it is outside their range they will adamantly refuse to believe the person could truly be happy.
Edit: I’m talking about consistency within the article and a “focus on the subject” stance. If the author wants to present the farmers happiness, that’s what they’re going to frame the whole piece on.
> [Our writers] tend to interview the subject and then work with them to tell their story in their own words.
via https://www.theguardian.com/membership/2021/feb/15/experienc...
Hmmm... Suspicioun that this is heavily editorialized intensifies.
Not editorialized, but likely transcribed from one or more interviews and the interviewee and interviewer edit lightly.
There are people who couldn't write something like that given weeks but get them to start talking and they do a marvelous job. Drawing that out of people is one of the things that marks good interviewers.
> To present an opinion in the guise of an objective report.
As in, I'm suspicious that the words the farmer spoke were heavily edited by the journalist before being published to better fit the narrative.
North Korea is a brutal dictatorship. What are you trying to imply with the question? That brutal dictatorships are not so bad an we've been lied to? Do you live or have you ever spent some time in one? Cause I do and I think people defending dictatorships deserve a swift kick in the nuts.
Edit to clarify: not because I’m dismissing the oppressive dictatorship but because I think it’s more likely a rando person farming in North Korea likely has less exposure to a larger world that might make them happy, and less motivation to justify their self-isolation with denial.
Fast forward a day.
"Americans are idiots because they never leave America. Most of them don't even have a passport."
Okay.
Like many books written of experiences involving extreme suffering and trauma it’s extremely powerful and I tend to have to stop just to contemplate and dwell on certain passages or just sentences. I like your “thought experiment” as it’s not unlike how I go about reflecting on these kinds of books.
Frankl talks about being on a train being moved from one camp to another, and upon seeing there were no chimneys at this new camp there was a silent celebration among the prisoners. For whatever inhumane reason, that night the newly arrived prisoners were made to stand (I believe naked) throughout the whole night in the freezing cold. Yet they were all still greatful not to be at Auschwitz or another camp with chimneys. There is a separate passage where he describes the types of prisoners, the last he describes are those who had lost all meaning, spirit and would walk up to and grab the electric fence.
I can’t tell you how much heart it gives me to think of the human spirit in these conditions that can’t be broken. It’s very similar to some of the slave narratives I read, and on occasion coming across passages with descriptions of slaves on a plantation celebrating the opportunity to sing and dance together around a fire at night. I have shared with others I wish if push came to shove I’d have that type of spirit, to your point about brainwashing, I’ve received similar responses that I am romanticizing it and even that my mental impressions reflect racism, but The reality is I could have pointed to many other counter examples from my readings like the prisoners that lost meaning and grabbed the fence, but for better or worse that doesn’t lift my spirits and it’s not the examples I tend to pass on.
I often ask myself what I think I would do in a camp or on a plantation, what actions would make me the most proud and if I would have the courage and spirit to make them, but I never pretend to know what I would actually do and I’d never once judged the actions of any of them...even the most deplorable acts, like the prisoners that worked on behalf of the guards for the slightest of comforts. Even more challenging is trying to put myself in the shoes of some young German or Southerner born into and inheriting the evils of these situations, it’s a lot easier to say what I hope I would do, but just the same I have to admit no one knows what they would do, after all how many people do you really encounter that are willing to go against the grain rather than fall in line much less when it means death?
This would be a great meal for a North Korean farmer. If I read this same article by a North Korean farmer, it would either involve a different food listed, or they'd probably be lying about being a North Korean farmer.
> A UN assessment found North Koreans had been surviving on just 300g (10.5 oz) of food a day so far this year.
As someone from a family of farmers, yes, people can be fat and work on farms. I know people who are in the fields everyday and with beer bellies like you wouldn't believe.
This man is 72. The fact he's working outside well past the age of retirement for most people shows he's not in completely terrible shape.
He compares himself to the animals: "They never ask for anything different for supper".
> "People might think I’m not experiencing new things, but I think the secret to a good life is to enjoy your work. I could never stay indoors and watch TV. I hear London is a place best avoided. I think living in a city would be terrible"
As a bachelor, how will he know what it is like to look into the eyes of a loved with whom you form a new family? Without watching TV, how will he know that movies like "Up" (Pixar 2009) or series like "Breaking Bad" are well worth spending their time, without incurring a dramatic time penalty in your life? Take the TV out to the porch, if staying inside is such a pain. How can he be sure that a visit to the British Museum in London isn't worth the effort, or time, or whatever he thinks that speaks against it? Will he find laughing people in the cafes of the city?
All of this feels like a "too afraid to discover" that he disguises it as a "secret to a good life". Not a happy life, but a good life. His sheeps make him happy. Like his spouse or kids could make him happy, or a trip to the city or watching 40 minutes of TV once a week. Or a delicious steak. Or riding a bike on a trail, if he weren't so old by now.
I wonder if the Welsh radio station has told him about the current dilemmas which AI is confronting us with, or if he thought about where and under which circumstances all this gear he owns to exercise his role of a farmer has been developed and produced and if his lifestyle, if applied to everyone, would have made it possible for this gear to exist.
It's OK if he decides to eat the same supper every day, if he prefers not to live with people, but to me this feels more like an elaborate thinking system designed to avoid something which would cause him pain, which doesn't cause pain to others.
Sure there is a lot to criticize about our modern life, and many people aren't happy living in the city and with their day to day jobs, or with their family situation, but he has built himself a very tall wall in order to be shielded from him being possibly affected by these problems and calls it a good life. Not much of a difference to a suburban man who tolerates his job, hates his kids, but has the biggest amount of fun when he jumps into his glider on the weekends, watches his favorite TV series at the end of the day and loves to go jogging every day for an hour. Or have a beer with a friend.
At least his sheep are among themselves, maybe some of them enjoy spending their time together and are glad to get anything to eat at all. But how would he know, if he's just happy pretending to be a fellow sheep and calls it a day.
Then again, there are comments like the one from telesilla.
Gave me a good chuckle.
Please do not beat the post's corpse any further :) Thank you.]
Please do not beat the posts' corpse any further :) Thank you!]
Please do not beat the posts' corpse any further :) Thank you.]
Of course, certain individuals may enjoy and thrive in isolated environments.
https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older...
Frankly, I believe those types of studies rreally about happiness with ones social life, not about ones social life relative to others. But that's just my take.
There are however negative health effects, and have been studied quite well.
Well, someone can smoke for 60 years, from 20 year old onwards, and never get cancer either. Actually, tons do just that. But lung cancer from smoking is not "stereotyping", it's a causual mechanism and a statistical reality.
It's not like that you mechanically and deterministically die or your health becomes predictably worse at the individual level.
Not to mention there's also the psychological health and the developmental effect.
Please do not beat the post's corpse any further :) Thank you! :)]
It would be interesting to hear if this desire for isolation goes away as you start spending more time around people (which, if I’m reading your comment correctly, it seems you will do). Wish you all the best, either way.
Hiking trails and state parks in CO opened up by late spring or summer 2020. Restaurants and bars were really the places most impacted from what I saw of last year in the US as they went a much longer stretch without allowing indoor dining.
(work from home isn't really comparable to those I think; I worked from home for months and liked it, and I think for people that don't like it, it still isn't as impactful as the restrictions for restaurants and schools)
Restaurants, bars, and schools were the things most consistently closed. Around here, they opened up for this current (now finishing) school year but had frequent closures based on COVID cases amongst the students/staff with an option to stay home the whole time if desired.
The only thing that's really changed is that there are no foreign tourists, but the local tourists seem to be making up for it.
I've been working from home but going shopping, going to the gym, etc. as normal since the reopening last June. I never was much for eating at restaurants but they have been open also.
Other places in the US were far more locked down. I'm glad I don't live there.
I respect people who've tried something and decided it's not for them. But to never even try a different kind of food? I suspect it's less that he's found what he likes and more that he's scared he'd find out he actually liked something else better, and has wasted those 10 years.
How incredibly patronizing.
Have you considered that people have different tastes? Personally, I hate eating; if I could take a pill to replace all my nutrition needs, I would in a heartbeat, even if it costs more than my current dietary expenses.
Yes. If he'd tried eating a variety of foods and hated it, I'd say fair enough. But how can you possibly know something like that without having tried it? To just dismiss so much of human experience without even considering it is honestly tragic.
I think "stick with what you know" can be a sound strategy if you are loss-averse and generally content.
Don't knock it, though, there's something to be said about this level of extreme stability. It simplifies a lot of life's worries.
You can go out in the valleys right now and ask someone, ~40 years after the mines were shut, whether they'd want the mines back. And a significant proportion would say yes without pausing.
I went to university with a guy who turned around to me one day and said "I never want to leave the Rhondda". Not sure what he does with his design degree up that way but I'm sure he's happy.
There's a great tie to family and friends and where you live, here, which has somewhat died out in the south of England. I hope it survives even as more travel to experience things elsewhere. Of course the south of Wales does have one advantage that was taken from elsewhere, and that's that it's possible to live cheaply in the valleys and commute into the cities by train for work, so it's possible to do both here. I feel like England lost this somewhat with the Beeching report ripping half the rural railways out.