I did one of these before and it was fairly well received, so here’s another:
Apparently they do still give tickets for jaywalking. I got one for $63 a few days ago. I totally did it, so I didn’t argue and I won’t contest it. I was surprised though. It worked too, because now I catch myself going whenever it’s convenient as opposed to when I’m supposed to. Cars not yielding properly for pedestrians makes us just go when we can if we want to go at all, which causes us to develop bad habits.
Do we actually get wiser with age? I’m pretty sure I had things better figured out when I was 25 than I do now. It seems to me that intelligence and wisdom pretty much stay at the same level from 25 to old age, because while you learn important life lessons as you age, many aspects of life pass you by, and of course your mind isn’t as sharp as it once was.
Are most people incapable of being happy? Or is happiness like being gay or straight, you’re either born with the ability to be happy or you’re not? It seems that for most people, it’s the journey to achieving their dreams that makes them happy. Once they’ve achieved it, their lives fall apart. Or is it their dreams that are the problem?
I went to military school. Two of them, actually. The number of military schools is decreasing constantly. One of mine no longer exists and the one closest to it closed down as well just this year. Is the military school obsolete in this day and age?
I don’t think there’s a superhero bubble. The nature of bubbles is that something gets too popular and so low quality crap gets put out, which damages it and results in people just getting sick of it. But if quality is maintained, I see no reason why people wouldn’t want to continue to consume it. Cop shows and legal shows and medical shows have been around forever. Romantic comedies and period dramas have been around forever. Movie and TV studios seem to have figured out that quality must be maintained or else they all lose.
Should kids grow up knowing unpleasant truths about their family, or should it be something you talk to them about “when the time is right”? It seems to me that a child can get used to anything. I was adopted, and I grew up knowing that. My father was in jail and I grew up knowing that, although no one bothered to tell HIM that I knew, which made for a very awkward speech he gave me when I was 11 years old. I think that when you grow up with unpleasant knowledge, you digest it over time as you understand more and more aspects of it, whereas if you’re told at an older age you have to process it all at once. and question everything you thought you knew.
Is it just me, or are parents extremely awful at judging risk when it comes to their children? They seem to all fear strangers, yet stranger kidnappings or sexual abuse is not all that common, whereas abuse by family members or neighbors is far more frequent. Yet parents often leave their kids with “trusted” individuals without a second thought. Or they are afraid to let their kids walk a mile to school alone but somehow driving them is safer? I have one friend who won’t let her kid swim in the ocean because… sharks.
Is it impossible to win with your employment history? If you have too many employers, you aren’t stable. Too few and you aren’t ambitious. What’s the right balance? Five years in one position?
Will we ever reach a point where there is no social pressure to marry and have kids? It’s far worse for women I assume, but even with men, there seems to be a question about whether or not we can be “fulfilled” if we don’t “settle down”. If a man achieves wealth and foregoes marriage, he can usually get away with that, but if you just work, go home, play video games and surf the net, people regard you as a loser.
It seems to me that people who change political persuasions completely, just one day get fed up and join the other side, have a mental illness of some sort. Being disgusted with a party shouldn’t change your ideology that much. Even if your views change on one or two issues, why would they change for all the others, unless there is some kind of overarching philosophy involved? I’m thinking of David Brock and Dennis Miller, but I’ve also seen it on discussion boards. Over on Ebay, a conservative friend of mine moved to Sweden and thought their system was wonderful. That’s great, so now you believe in activist government, but how did that make you anti-gun and pro-choice? Some people really do treat politics as team sport too much.
Yes, I think more parents these days than in the past are terrible at judging risk. I am not a parent but my observations of my parent peers tells me they are often times too involved in preventing risk or solving their children’s social issues than they should be. It’s okay to let your high school age child walk to school. Yes, it’s okay for you to let your child (of any age) work out unpleasant social situations for themselves. Don’t involve yourself, the school, the other parents. Teach them right and let them make some mistakes without coming to their rescue.
Seems like an excessive fine to me. Hope you don’t lose your pedestrian license.
Yes I think we get wiser as we age.
Sorry that you had to go to military school. That must have been awful.
You can have the same employer for an extended period but you should either get promotions every so often or get out. Says the guy who was last promoted in 1991.
I think your political preference is set in stone by the time you get into high school. I have never heard of a person that flipped on abortion, for example.
Not inevitably, but if we keep ourselves open to learning and growing we certainly can.
Thinking you have things all figured out is not necessarily a sign of intelligence or wisdom.
There’s actually quite a bit of research (along with anecdotal evidence and philosophizing) about happiness. IIRC, a bigger influence on happiness is, not what your circumstances are, but how they’re changing (or can be expected to change), for the better or for the worse. Also, how they compare to your expectations.
Yes. That’s a corollary to the fact that people are awful and judging risk in general.
I think part of it is social pressure to (1) contribute to society, do something for the benefit of someone other than yourself, and (2) be connected to your community, to something larger than your own isolated life. Not that that always necessarily happens if you marry and/or have kids, nor that there aren’t other ways for it to happen. But having kids makes you less self-focused, if you’re doing it right.
It was the best of times and the worst of times. I’m glad I did it, all in all. And I’d send my kid, if he or she wanted to go. I don’t think it’s a good idea to force kids to go. But if it was kids’ choice, they probably all would have gone out of business by now.
I do actually lack ambition beyond being self-supporting. I’ve had two jobs, and been promoted once at each. In 25 years of working.
Abortion views tend to be sticky, but many other views aren’t. I was just observing that sometimes people get so disgusted that they change parties. I understand that, the part I don’t understand is how you change your views as well. I would think that a conservative Republican who is sick of the GOP would just become a conservative Democrat.
Not “all figured out”, but I felt I had a better grasp of how life worked back then. Society changes, and age works against us in that respect.
Well, if you work then you are contributing adequately I would think. As for community connections, it seems to me that we’re getting more and more distant, that we trust each other a lot less than we used to. Having kids seems to increase that paranoia.
Yeah, it’s a tradeoff, isn’t it? I’d say intelligence remains the same and wisdom, in the best of cases, is what grows. I may be slower and weaker than I used to be, but I’m better at keeping out of my own way. Youth is powered by a faster and more powerful engine but is limited by all the noise, vibration and smoke.
I disagree on 10; I flipped and I know a few others who have on abortion in their late teens to even 30s. And definitely disagree about political preference being set in stone at that early an age. Kids entering high school generally don’t give a fuck about politics or are just echoing their parents or their peers. I was a Pubbie until maybe 19 or 20.
I knew some things about my family from a very early age and I agree that it’s fine to talk to kids. My mother would answer direct questions, although she never would elaborate, and I came to understand much more as I grew up. And I was fine with it. On the other hand, I suddenly found out about a bunch of stuff after my father died (he left us when I was a kid) and it’s taken a while to digest all of it. One of my brothers still hasn’t, I think. Plus there’s still unanswered questions which will always remain so now. We’re not the most communicative family but I’m always impressed that my mother told me just what I needed to know even when it obviously made her uncomfortable.