People turn from John to Bob, usually after some sort of mental breakdown or traumatic episode, where they wake up one morning and realize they have been living THE SAME EXACT DAY for 30 years.
Among the various colloquialisms, it is often called a
"Midlife crisis".How people react and respond to a midlife crisis is as varied as are the people who experience it. I have even heard of people selling everything they have and moving out into the sticks of a foreign country where their currency has outrageous buying power, on the extreme end of the spectrum.
The reason you dont really hear about it, and why midlife crisis is often depicted "humorously", or even as something for weak willed people, is because the mainstream media is the POSTER CHILD for the BS profit motive way of doing things, and injects its propaganda into EVERYTHING it touches.
It is VERY easy to go overboard on the transition; the sensation of feeling the mental shackles come off is... Well... I'd put it as possibly the most pleasurable experience possible, short of electrodes jammed into your pleasure centers. This can override people's rational minds, and make them forget about balance in their new outlooks on life, and they fall into decadent hedonism. Hedonism is very bad for you, and it wears your body out, makes you dead ass broke, and leaves you with very little to show for it.
Personally, I enjoy helping people also. I do limited amounts of computer repair just for free. I look at it this way: The world is a stressful enough place as it is, and doesn't need me adding to it by charging for a simple repair that consists of pushing some buttons. As long as this kind of thing isnt habitual for the recipient, and stays one-off in nature, I am happy to oblige if they have a problem. They are often shocked, and try to make me take some form of payment. Really, I dont need any. Fixing the computer is just an excuse to stretch old mental muscles so they dont atrophy, AND do a good turn at the same time. Win win.
I have a somewhat conflicted nature, as I enjoy helping people, but DESPISE clingy people, who "Constantly need help."
This is how I derived the "Profit motive bullshit test"; introspection on this superficially conflicting impulse. For me, 3 rounds of PC repair in 1 year (same person) is enough to make me unhappy doing the work, and to refuse after that. If they have a kid that keeps breaking it, I very seriously (but not rudely) let them know that they need to really have a discussion with their kid about taking care of what they own, and that charity is a voluntary thing, since as soon as it becomes expected and demanded, it becomes slavery. (A "Forced donation" isnt a donation at all. it's extortion and robbery.) This is usually right before doing the work for the 3rd time, and is basically the warning that I WONT fix it again. It is very easy for people who are struggling with resources and time to co-opt other people's time and resources without even really thinking about it. They arent purposefully being douchebags, it just works out that way in the end, as they struggle under pressures too. It's important to remember that. But, it is also just as important that you set your boundries, and protect them, especially if you want to do charitable work activities on a regular basis. A volunteer that shows up every day is still a volunteer; not a slave. Each day they show up is a gift, not something to expect or depend on.
Because of this tendency to grow reliant on the good will of others, if they can get it, many charitable workers will offset the risk of this happening by constant travel in their charitable actions. Itinerant charities dont stick around, so the people who they help cant become reliant upon them. However, some things cant be fixed easily by a one-off quick fix, like helping people with knowledge. It's costly to discover something, but once it is discovered, it is often almost painless to convey that knowledge to others so that they can get benefit from that expenditure too. (a high but finite cost, distributed over infinite people, averages to an infinitesimally small quantity! A real bargain! Hoarding knowledge is for stupid people, who see only the short term!) Knowledge that makes life better by freeing people from drudgery to life fuller, happier lives is the greatest treasure in the universe, because you can keep giving it away, forever, and it never gets diminished. But, it takes time to convey that knowledge, which means sticking around, and potentially falling into the "dependence" trap. (The problem is that EACH AND EVERY TIME humanity has partially slipped the bonds of such drudgery, "The system" (the mass collection of the profit driven demographic of people) have seen other people enjoying free time and life, and had a conniption fit over how much more THEY could make if all that time were spent making THEM richer instead--- Happened after the industrial age, as the creation of automated looms freed countless textile workers from the textile mills--- only for them to become wage slaves under the reprisal of the market. Again with the green revolution in agriculture, with the discovery of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, freeing millions of people from subsistence farming--- but now they have to spend 9-5 in a cubicle doing grunt work of a different kind. Obviously a REAL improvement! Just ask their bosses! They make WAAAY more money now! The real lesson here, is that humanity needs to STOP LISTENING to the profit driven people. The profit driven people DO NOT have their best interests in mind, and NEVER will.) Such people see happy people sitting on a porch, talking with their neighbors while drinking tea, watching the sun set and talking about their day, as "Wasted potential". Potential for what? Profit. THEIR profit. They see an empty lot filled with grass, and see it as wasted potential, as it COULD be a parking lot instead, oh-- or a strip mall! Or tract housing! They genuinely DO NOT see the value in leaving the field of flowers and grass, well enough alone. They dont see the butterflies flittering about. They dont imagine kids playing and hiding in the grass, having a good time. They dont see birds or the flowers. All they see is how much money they COULD be making, if it were tilled under, and then commercialized. They see condos, they see parking lots, they see new school buildings, or high rise apartments. They even see landfils and chemical dumps, instead of the beautiful field in front of them. I pity their lack of vision. I pity their inability to be content with what they have. and-- I lament that they are driven to enslave and destroy others in that lack of vision. Most of all, I want to cry about how they do this, without even thinking about it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
To me, the knowledge to "Do more with less", isnt so you can "Have more!"-- it is so you can keep what you have, and retain the unspoiled things around us. A 500% increase in crop yeild? That doesnt mean you can get 500% crops, thus, can have 500% more people, doing 500% more work, getting you thousands of percents more profits. It means that for the same number of people, you use 1/5 the land for agriculture, leaving 4/5 to enjoy as it is, and was really meant to be. it means 1/5 the toil needed to eat each night, leaving 4/5 time. Time spent being alive is not time wasted. "Time is money" is a horrible crime of thought. Time is infinitely more valuable than any amount of money. Ask a dieing rich capitalist--- they'd pay any sum for just a few more years of life. They only learn that lesson, when they have exhausted their supply, and the supply of hundreds or thousands of other people as well, chasing after "Profits," but by then, it's simply too late, isnt it?
THESE are the people that lament as they age-- "If ONLY I had spent more time with my daughter.." "IF ONLY I had gone to my son's baseball games!" "IF only--- If Only..." They sacrificed something indescribably precious, for something gaudy and cheap, and forced others to do so as well, by hook or by crook. I pity them. I wish they would see their mistakes sooner, and become agents against the machine they make and drive. But, they almost always see it too late in life, when they lack the needed time to set it right--- and, the children they raised, filled with the eternal message to GO GO GO, MORE MORE MORE, take their place, doing exactly the same mistake.
"Whatever grandpa."
How powerless they must feel at the autumn of their lives. So much unfulfilled. So much wasted.
One benefit I suppose, of the absurdly fast pace of the modern world, is that people are experiencing this crisis in their lives in their late 20s now, instead of their late 50s. Maybe there's hope?
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Topic: The pressure to improve is making me john the caveman. (Read 6201 times)