Ro-bear Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I was tempted to judge some whiny woman on the show ... no one has a right to judge it. I think you were on the right track when you were tempted to judge her. The right to have an opinion about others is just as sacrosanct as the whiny rich chick's right to complain. The problem with these things is that particularly with women it's never about what they're actually talking about. The stated complaint is nearly always some symbolic substitute for the REAL issue. The woman's pain was real and not fake -- even if the stated reason for it was bogus. As a dude it took me literally decades to figure out that the things my partners would complain about had nothing to do with what was actually bothering them. I'm not saying that guys never do this ... but we are much simpler and more literal creatures on the whole :-) Hmm...this puts things in another light. I have noticed this phenomenon as well. And you are not the only one who has a history of being slow to pick up on it. For years, when my wife complained about something, I'd focus on resolution of her specific complaint. I would try to solve her problem. That naturally pissed her off because she interpreted my attitude as more superior than sympathetic. I finally learned that sometimes women just want you to listen and care. It's hard for guys not to be literal sometimes. I suppose it makes us look kinda dumb sometimes. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertBob Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I would try to solve her problem. That naturally pissed her off because she interpreted my attitude as more superior than sympathetic. I finally learned that sometimes women just want you to listen and care. Yep. I think it's also a function that guys are wired to be problem solvers. It's what we do. It's how we feel useful and needed. It's how we flesh out the illusion of being in control. It's ironic that in relationships with women we have to do completely non-intuitive things to succeed. But then again, so do women, I suppose. For all my grousing about the lack of women in Information Technology, it's not all about sexism and society being structured to discourage girls in math and the sciences. Most of the IT sub-specialties are all about rapidly and correctly identifying and solving very well-defined problems, and this is something men are drawn to and tend to excel more easily at than women -- initially -- but I think women would ultimately succeed to a greater overall depth. We need them in the field. I have tried to interest my fiancee's daughter in IT because she's drawn to international business and the quality of management on technical projects sucks, especially at that level. But she's a social creature and the perception that IT is all about asocial nerdiness turns her off. She doesn't want to relate to such people on a daily basis. But she's so fucking ruthless even at 17 that she would be great at cutting through the fog of war, as it were. She's intelligent, which is more than I can say for most empty suits I deal with. I wish she could get that it's a wide open opportunity exactly because a lot of other capable people -- men and women alike -- dismiss it out of hand for the same reasons. Oh well. Viva la difference, eh? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asanerman Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 Wow ~Bob! Light at the end of the tunnel? The light at the end of the tunnel is good news, unless you hear a train horn coming from the same direction! Maybe Viktor Frankl was on to something when he said; ... blah blah ... "To be sure, people tend to see and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity." I have always had a malfunction with Frankl and it is just the above, the fallacy that suffering is ennobling. My suffering has been a gross indignity, thank you very much. I am justifiably proud of the courage and dignity I had in spite of what I was subjected to. Not because of. I am not a better person because I suffered. I am diminished for that. I am a shadow of what I once was or could have been. I have, of course, learned things from it ... I am in some ways even stronger because of it ... but misery is not a requirement for character, knowledge, wisdom or strength. How much more could I have learned and grown if I had not been distracted by various seven-headed hydras? Frankl was one of those people who have a faux moral high ground because they went through some horrific experience and came out the other end sane, as if that's some kind of accomplishment. He was forced into a prison camp and his freedom was taken from him. He did the only thing people could do in that situation: survive. He was among the lucky (?) ones who succeeded in surviving and among the even fewer who had enough of a mental and emotional constitution to not be completely compromised for life with PTSD or worse. The only way his claims would impress me is if he would demonstrate them by willingly submitting to confinement, starvation and torture. THEN he's prove to me that none of those things really matter. But of course, no one, including Frankl, does that, at least not sane people. Guys like Frankl say in effect, "Cry me a river, I can top your story. If I got through what I got through, anyone can get through anything". What they never understand is that everyone's suffering is just as big to them as years of want and torture in a Nazi concentration camp. It's all relative. My fiancee, for all her wit and intelligence, has a charming affectation for reality TV. Last night I was pretending to watch one such show with her while actually giving her a foot rub. I was tempted to judge some whiny woman on the show who was always bellowing about how everyone makes fun of her and no one goes through what she goes through and no one understands and everyone is mean. All this while she actually has a pretty attentive husband and also a loving family that is fabulously wealthy, is getting a degree of her choice, is young, pretty, and healthy, and pretty much has nothing to actually worry about. But you know what? She's right. No one gets your own suffering but you. And no one has a right to judge it. "..the dream of better things just around the corner" has always been the illusive brass ring that has frustrated my primary motivation for living--the will to meaning! To hell with intent -- I want the actual meaning. But yes, that meaning is found amidst chaos in this insane world and I have to learn to seek it out regardless of what scimitars are poised over my head at any given moment. Sort of like memorizing poetry with a gun to your head. I may be misreading you Bob but when I read your "lament," old Viktor comes to mind. The old boy did make it clear that "in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning. He did insist "that meaning is possible even in spit of suffering--provided, certainty, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause be it psychological, biological or political. To suffering unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic," and certainty not "ennobling." Enough already with Frankl! It was not my intention to "one up" or belittle your suffering, Bob! As a fellow struggler will we survive this "camp?" Has all this unavoidable suffering around and in us have a meaning? If not, then is there no meaning to survival? My ultimate question is this; Is there a depth in life whose meaning does not depend upon the happenstance--as whether one escapes or not--worth the living? Is there "relief" from this criticism, rejection, and abandonment I find in nearly ever interaction I have? Will I ever find "actual meaning" in giving my beloved a "foot rub" or the "felt touch" of her breath with mine? If I not in carnal then where? All to often I sometimes wish that I had never been born. That wish haunts me! If you haven't already noticed "I live the questions with no answers." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertBob Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 Enough already with Frankl! It was not my intention to "one up" or belittle your suffering, Bob! No worries, I did not think you were. But regardless of any disclaimers he made, I've always felt that Frankl, were he alive and were to meet me, might do just that, however unwittingly. I read his book a few years back and that is the general impression his life and work left me with. Maybe if I knew him personally I would see that for a misapprehension. My ultimate question is this; Is there a depth in life whose meaning does not depend upon the happenstance--as whether one escapes or not--worth the living? Is there "relief" from this criticism, rejection, and abandonment I find in nearly ever interaction I have? Will I ever find "actual meaning" in giving my beloved a "foot rub" or the "felt touch" of her breath with mine? If I not in carnal then where? All to often I sometimes wish that I had never been born. That wish haunts me! If you haven't already noticed "I live the questions with no answers." I appreciate your honesty and authenticity and your willingness to share it. We are on pretty much the same quest, methinks. You and I are trying to follow the advice of Rainer Maria Rilke, and you may even be referring specifically to that: Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions. I chafe at this because it seems to me insane for life to be so structured that we are obliged to live it yet we are not fully equipped to comprehend and respond properly to it (and, I suspect, not fully informed in any event). The idea of living the questions because you can't live the answers begs the question (ha) of why you have life at all. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, which in large part means doing it with full disclosure and doing it mindfully. In this life, generally speaking, it's difficult, non-intuitive or downright impossible to do either. Now, that's the idealist in me talking. Thank god I'm not a perfectionist on top of everything. I simply want to optimize life. You can't optimize for x without de-optimizing for y of course, and I am willing to live with some trade-offs but basically it seems that if you are going to be subjected to the vicissitudes of life you ought to at least be able to optimize for apprehension, comprehension and pacing that is reasonable for the individual, and that there ought to be a much more predictable, reliable and sustainable connection between effort and outcomes. Doesn't seem like too much to ask. But I no longer ask for even that. I'd be content for things to just not hurt so much or exhaust me quite so totally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 I like having a son and cannot imagine not having him. But I also understand why some animals eat their young. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurari Posted October 2, 2011 Share Posted October 2, 2011 Well, I've gone through happiness and I've gone through pain. So that's par for course for life. So I don't think having children in general is immoral. Having children when you don't want them, can't care for them, or can't raise them without hurting them is definitely immoral. There is also the consideration that we have too many people on the planet as it is. That could bee seen as immoral. My 0.02 cents from a childfree woman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertBob Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Well, I've gone through happiness and I've gone through pain. So that's par for course for life. So I don't think having children in general is immoral. Just because something is commonplace doesn't make it acceptable. We're not debating whether harm or the risk of harm are typical; only if we ought to subject innocents to them without their consent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted October 3, 2011 Super Moderator Share Posted October 3, 2011 It seems to me that circumstances have little to do with one's attitude about life. Obviously nature and nurture play their roles in a child's developing personality, and there's no guarantee that he or she will grow into a happy adult. I know people who are doing well by most standards - plenty of money, nice home, boats, horses, excellent health, and they are still miserable and unfulfilled. Conversely, the happiest man I ever met was a midget who was blind from birth. The little guy was quite happy to be alive, and raised a couple of normal kids. I guess life is what you make it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlphaToOmega Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 If you have no memory of having suffered will you feel like you did? If you dwell on the misery it will get stored in your long term memory then that's what you life becomes. Miserable. If you look at the joy then that is what your life will become. Everyday, look at for the things that make you happy rather the things that get you depressed/sad or angry. Your life experience will be the collective memories you have chosen to accept. Choose wisely. The other of course is learn to be a masochist. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ireckinso Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 I think its immoral for people to have kids and force those of us who don't to put up with their whiny little bitch asses! It's kind of like second hand smoke. Ever been stuck on a four hour flight with some little sh!t crying and whining the whole time? Take this with a grain of sarcasm, but a boulder of truth! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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