Thanks, that does help to see it as good faith advice. I'd be totally on board with a framing like "If you're alone and unhappy or dissatisfied in life, social connection could likely be the missing piece." Though it seems even that often follows up with "If you _think_ you're content being alone, you just don't know what you're missing", similar to how parents talk about how their lives changed after having kids. Which is fine and could be true for pretty much everyone, I just hate that it's stated in a way that's unfalsifiable. That if you think differently you're just fooling yourself, and you'll change your mind once you do it.
I've found a lot of those assertions about how to live a "great" life (often based on societal averages about life expectancy) don't fit my actual subjective experience, and I had to spend years doing all the "right things" in life and wondering why it wasn't fulfilling for me. Similar to the sibling comment, it's been liberating to stop taking that type of advice as applicable to me, but that means it jumps out at me everywhere now, hah.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm approaching my 40's, have had partners, lived with them for years, good relationship with family, never been burned or damaged socially. Those things just still never seemed as central or necessary to me as they apparently are for others.
Yeah, I've been trying to wrap my head around this recently. I always get a bit irked by the inevitable comments confidently asserting things like "humans are social animals, if you think you don't need tight social connections you're just hurting yourself". And then pointing to these results averaged out over the entire population as "proof".
It seems like there's got to be some statistical fallacy being made, like asserting "all humans need visual stimulation to survive" and then all the blind people on earth shrug at the data and realize they're not human I guess? On average it's true, "all humans" would go crazy if deprived of their sight, but it turns out some people do it just fine and can have rich, human lives.
I wonder if it's just when people live very social lives, the idea of deriving satisfaction in life internally, to be able to self regulate and maintain a health sense of identity without frequent input from others, is just too alien to consider. To not dislike people, or lack social skills, but just be as disinterested in socializing as I am in starting a coin collection. Or maybe all that is just extremely uncommon and experiences like mine are just a true rounding error.
I've seen that in some cases the definition of mental health will explicitly score against things like "lacks close relationships" or "does not seek companionship". So it always seems to me a bit circular to just assert "being more social is more mentally healthy" when the definition of mental health bakes in "being very social".
If I were to define mental health to include "desires and enjoys spending lengths of time in solitude", then I could assert "Humans as a species crave solitude, mental health is shown to directly correlate with the drive and ability to be alone."
Another vote for a folding stand + separate keyboard and mouse at desk-level. I'm always working outside the house, and once you can adjust to working on a single monitor it's been great ergonomically.
> They can't fight or flight so their defense is toxins.
The very next sentence.
Animals can run away or fight, so they don't have the need to develop other deterrents. I guess aside from a very few exceptions like Amazonian frogs, which would also not be recommended to eat without very special processing. Probably best to keep off the menu altogether, just like most seeds, stems, and leaves for the reasons described in the parent comment.
For what it's worth, I had a similar experience trying a strict AIP diet for a few months - some improvements in my autoimmune symptoms (some psorasis I've had since childhood), but nothing definitive. When I tried a strict carnviore diet, basically cutting out the vegetable and fruits allowed on AIP, my existing patches of psoriasis disappeared over a few weeks, and no new ones appeared.
Since then I've gone on and off of strict carnivore, but anytime I reintroduce vegetables and/or some other carb sources, I'll start to see new patches of psoriasis pop back up within a 2 or 3 weeks usually. So I usually balance on that line now, returning to carnivore if my symptoms start to bother me too much.
> I have a hard time to see any relevance in a life without children anymore.
In my view, having kids is a great way to take off the existential pressure of life being meaningless, by just having a default "do it for them" answer to every single question or hardship in life. And what then will give your child's life such a straightforward meaning? Well, just have kids of their own I guess, and their kids the same, all the way down, forever.
It always seems like a bit of a cop out to me. "Life is empty and meaningless, so I'll just have kids, let that fill up all my time, and maybe they can figure it out." I suppose that could be the history of humanity in a nutshell.
I think appetite itself has a lot to do with the nutritional density of what you're eating. I can eat 1000kcal of gummy worms and just be getting started, but 1000kcal of ground beef and I can't look at food for a few hours. Or in other words, it seems like your body will keep giving you hunger-signals regardless of volume, until it gets what it needs (e.g. protein, minerals, vitamins).
I'm not really one for parties or restaurants, but I really enjoyed the walkability of San Francisco when I lived there. It's something that I always miss anytime I'm staying in a more suburban/rural area, having to deal with a car to run any errands, grab a coffee, or meet up with friends.
I think your teenage pregnancy example is probably reasonable, I could see that being a big turning point in a mother's life, where things began getting tougher/worse.
I guess my point is that even if it's clearly an individual-failure, how long should that condemn her to a life of struggle and hardship, let alone her children? If one step off the straight-and-narrow in society means that you need to beat incredible odds to make it back onto the happy-path, we need to work to make that easier to do. Regardless of whether you fell off that path by your own actions today, last week, or decades ago when you were a child.
I'd want to live a society where those struggling get repeated lifelines and assistance to help find some stability. I guess I don't see what the other option is; I don't think we can just give up and let them (and their children, and their children's children...) struggle and fail forever. Even if that means that they need more support/attention than the average citizen for however long it takes.
I'd agree that it's not fully solvable by the school alone. But zooming out, I'd be inclined to say the "society that forced a mother to work 3 jobs to get by" failed. I imagine it's hard to give each child individual attention/care when you're spread that thin, hence being essentially forced to offload chunks of that parenting-responsibility onto institutions.
Which is a much larger and harder issue than a failure of individual responsibility. But it seems like that's the more foundational issue as far as I can tell.
Longer on average, yes, but I highly doubt healthier. I think we'd be in awe of the average health/fitness of a 30 year old hunter gatherer from 100,000 years ago, compared with the average corresponding human in modern times.
Seriously. If a group of vampires have been sucking so much blood that everyone's anemic, the solution isn't to have "universal basic transfusions" to make sure all the victims aren't tapped out and die when the next extraction rolls around.
> Beyond Meat has never claimed to be a healthier alternative to meat and it's a bit of a straw man to comment like they did.
Not sure why you'd think that's a straw man when they explicitly state it on their website. First sentence on their Products page:
"Imagine your favorite meaty dishes like burgers and tacos delivering the juicy, delicious taste you know and love, while being better for you and the planet." [0]
One thing that stuck out to me was you mentioned needing 10 more years of work to reach your early retirement goals. That sounds like a really long time to me, considering how negative your experience is with working.
If you get your savings rate up to 75-80%, it shouldn't take you more than a few years to earn your freedom for life, even if it's a fairly modest existence.
For what it's worth, that's my plan. Save another 2-3 years then retire to live frugally (in US or abroad) on about $20-24k a year, 3-3.5% withdrawal rate.
Having to hang in there for 2-3 years can be rough at times, but 10 years would be crushing.
I've found a lot of those assertions about how to live a "great" life (often based on societal averages about life expectancy) don't fit my actual subjective experience, and I had to spend years doing all the "right things" in life and wondering why it wasn't fulfilling for me. Similar to the sibling comment, it's been liberating to stop taking that type of advice as applicable to me, but that means it jumps out at me everywhere now, hah.
Oh, and for what it's worth, I'm approaching my 40's, have had partners, lived with them for years, good relationship with family, never been burned or damaged socially. Those things just still never seemed as central or necessary to me as they apparently are for others.