I’ve read some of it. It’s not worth reading cover to cover.
I can’t say I’ve had the worst luck in life…in many ways I’m lucky and blessed, but I’ve had rough periods where I thought it would better if I were dead or had never been born at all.
i have an old friend that I can say was very privileged in our youth. Her parents were wealthy, and she even admitted that she had never had a job at all until she was around 24 years old. She didn’t have to work, her family provided everything. While I was working shit jobs just to eat she was taking vacations to Europe. Now she is a good person, and she has her own family now. I’mm sure she has her own problems, everyone does. But I know that she probably couldn’t handle one of my least stressful days.
On the other hand I have a buddy that like me, had a rough time growing up. But he busted his ass to put himself through school. He was homeless for awhile, too. But now he has a good job, a family of his own and hell, he just bought a house. Adversity made him get his shit together and now he’s doing well and you know what? He can honestly say he did it all his damned self.
I can say that too, but it doesn’t mean I am happy about some of the shit in my life. While I can say some bad times made me a better person in some ways its all made me bitter about some things. Hard times taught me fear more than good old self reliance. I lost a good chunk of the empathy I used to have when I was younger. Theres probably a parallel universe where i became a serial killer or just plain went fucking crazy and live in an asylum because of one choice being different.
While I might have become a privileged jerk if I had had an easier life, I think I’d probably be happier. I probably wouldn’t have high blood pressure either and less grey hair.
Yes. Many times over the years. eta: (Including just above.)
And your arguments reflect that you have. Despite whatever differences you and I have had (and it should be noted that we have had moments of complete agreement as well), I’ve never detected in you even a little disrespect. Der Trihs, on the other hand, makes disrespect the very centerpiece of his own worldview. He not only holds the faithful in utter contempt — a sort of subhuman class undeserving of even a right to live — but he actually boasts about it, beating his chest as he declares to all and sundry that we deserve no respect. Just read what he said here: “[The Bible] deserves to be ‘dissed’, as do its followers.” It’s the same broken record hatred and bigotry that he has espoused for years.
That’s very true. Most of the people in prison have had hard lives. Victims of poverty, abuse, mental illness, and plain bad luck. Some will leave better people while others will return to crime over and over again. For them they probably would have been better having an easier life.
Recognizing the trials you’ve been through requires having some distance from them. The fellow who is currently homeless doesn’t appreciate the lessons he’s learning because he’s too busy trying to survive and cope. But after being off the streets for a couple of years, he can look back on that life and see how he was positively shaped. In order to appreciate the hard life, you have to have some periods of easy. And vice versa.
It is not true that if something doesn’t kill you, you will become stronger. The world is full of broken people, barely surviving.
Much of what can be termed a “better” life results from perception and personality, and those two things are as shaped by who you are more than what you have. One can be wealthy but still have her day ruined by a Hermes Birkin that doesn’t match properly. That’s a problem of personality and perception not ameliorated by wealth.
There is no benefit to a life of obstacles and challenges unless your personality derives pleasure from facing them or (assuming you are fortunate enough to overcome them) contentment from overcoming them.
Nevertheless, wealth brings opportunity and health brings the ability to execute it. In addition there is a marked difference between elective deprivation and external circumstance. So a wealthy individual electively enduring the climb up Nanga Parbat may be said to be having a “better” life than a homeless bum equally cold under the local trestle.
In general, people who say money can’t buy happiness are either in poor health, have crappy personalities and perspectives, or don’t know how to shop. It’s not so much that they can buy an “easy” life as it is that they are in a better position to fulfill whatever it is that brings them contentment. It may be a life sailing the Caribbean on a luxury yacht with attractive cabin attendants, but it might also be Steve Fossett’s life.
In the end it is not the unexamined life that is not worth living (unless your personal goal is introspection); it is the discontented life that is not worth living. The better life is the life lived contentedly. For some–perhaps most–this is the “easy” life. But not everyone is most content with La Dolce Vita.
But even if a poor person might have an intensely rewarding and fulfilling life, I’d still rather be born Paris Hilton and take the chance on what my personality might turn out to be.
Valete,
Vox Imperatoris
And yet you have spent days of your life offering commentary.
Oh, please. When have I called for rounding up “the faithful” and killing them. They are much more likely to kill me than the other way around.
And how is that bigotry ? If I say the same about the Republican Party platform, is that bigotry too ?
And ? Those are two completely different things.
It just baffles me why you spend so much time discussing something you feel is not worth reading.
Pretty much, yes - “Middle Path” and all that. Except complete sexual abstinence, that’s just crazy talk.
Because of all the damage the believers do to the world, of course.
I’ve always thought “what doesn’t kill you makes you harder” . But on the flip side, harder is not always better. It just makes the actions you take more on your side, not always the right side. As long as you believe you are the only one that matters, it’s all good. When you consider others, which I strive to do, it’s seldom the correct choice. I would say “temper” would be a better choice. Just like steel, too hard, and it will break. Too soft and it will bend.
The true path is to cut when cutting needs to be done. Paths that deviate from this are weakness.
Never mind.
A life of hard physical labor and not much excess sometimes results in a long life. Whether that’s a good thing is debatable. My wife’s grandmother was a farm wife in Western North Dakota. She lived to be 103 out lived all her contemporaries by a long time.
Not being a child of poverty but a polio victim and an alcoholic I can say with certainty those things are hardships and have contributed to my persona. Whether they’ve made me a better person in any regard or not, it depends whose doing the judging. I have a broader range of experience than some I guess, and also a narrower one by the same token.
I would have preferred to have been born a child of privilege but…alas not.
OTOH, a little discontent can drive you to try new things or go to new places which may ultimately provide you with a more enriched life.
I mean I know plenty of people who are “content” with mediocrity. They float through high school. Maybe go to some state school or community college near home. Get married, raise a family and spend the rest of their lives working some nondescript job and hanging out with their high school buddies and their wives for the rest of their lives.
Then again I know a lot of people who are discontent, always having to work harder or earn more or gain more status than the Joneses.
It depends what the OP means by “hard”. Being a lawyer is hard. So is being a fireman. So is digging ditches for a living. Not all these jobs are as rewarding to everyone. Being a trust fund baby seems relatively easy. Although it may actually be hard in terms of finding some sort of self-worth or dealing with the problems of living in a world of people with nothing to do but shop and jockey for social status.
I hold that those who are contented in their mediocrity are living a “better” life than those who remain discontented, regardless of the nobility of the reason for the discontent.
While I would not personally be satisfied with the life of an epsilon, the contented epsilon can be said to have a better life than the discontented alpha. I infer from the OP that the question at hand refers to the perspective of the one living the life; not the perspective of society.
As far as the wealth issue goes, any wealthy person has the Siddhartha option, so I have no sympathy for the travails related to wealth itself.
I’ve lived an easy life and I’ve lived (an am currently living) a hard life; easy is better.
Easy. If I’d had my druthers, I’d have won $100 million in the lottery the day after my 18th birthday.
Easy life.
Let’s not forget that in many ways, as a healthy person living in a developed country in the 21st century, I’m already very privileged in many ways.
In fact, I’d put that to the “middlers” – what do you mean the middle of? If you mean the middle of all living humans lives then probably most of us on this board are living easy lives wrt health, wealth, liberty etc.
Hearing that a tough life is in some sense necessary reminds me of all the crap about ageing and death being a good thing – the human condition, who wants to live forever etc. It’s just BS that people say to try to make themselves feel better about life.