Please don't respond to any of my questions until you've posed at least one of your own.
- Can you tell us the life issues that have faced you before age 50 (or 25) that may not seem so important when you are older? How will you try to master these issues?
- Do you know anyone whose childhood resembled Wes's (violently abusive & philandering alcoholic dad who abandoned the family)? 55 How'd they cope? Did they also have difficulty making plans and envisioning a positive future?
- How much unhappiness do you imagine is due to the feeling of being alone, of suffering unique adversity not shared by others? How much to the false perception of being "an unchanging rock" etc.? 56
- Do you regularly reflect on (and appreciate) what you have? Does that help clarify what you want from life? 57
- Have you looked at a photo of yourself at a much earlier age? "What were you thinking about back then" etc.? "What do you regret?" --Okay, me first this time.*
- What (st)age of life are you presently occupying (whether in Shakespeare's terminology or your own)? Do you look forward to the coming stages? 59
- Have you begun to establish a sense of generativity and concern for the next generation(s)? Must it await "midlife"? 60, 75
- Are you (will you be, when the time comes) ready to become a parent? 61 Or are you an anti-natalist?
- How much should you try to be like somebody you respect? 63
- Have you learned Mark Twain's lesson about your parents yet? 64
- Do you know anyone who joined the military as a way out of adolescence or into friendships? 66 Did it work? 66
- How long do you think it should take to figure out who you are? Or to make a solid commitment to another person? 70
- Do you see the beauty in the possibilities, the time, and the choices ahead of you? Or are you just stressed about them? 68
- Have you pursued different activities just to see if they interest you? Have you found friends and a community that way? 70
- Do you know any NiNi's, NEETs, or hihikimoris? 71 Or InCels? Should we be concerned about so many young people "failing to launch" up into their 30s?
- Is any specific time of life the "prime of life"? 74 Do the questions in the last paragraph of this page remind you (as they do me) of that Talking Heads song...?
- How will you avoid having the regrets enumerated on p.76?
- Do you think much about the future (yours on humanity's)? 78 Do you agree with WJ about our "really vital question: what is this world going to become, what is life going to make of itself?"
- Shouldn't we all cultivate a sense of limited time at every age? 80
- Do you welcome chaos and its demand for improvisation in your life? 83
- On that 1-7 scale, how would you rate your relationship with your parents and siblings?
- How often do you feel lonely?84 How often do you experience a pleasant solitude? Was Blaise Pascal right (“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”)? Are you surprised at the toll loneliness takes on mortality? 93
- Why do so many men in our society have "a hard time expressing [their] feelings"? 86
- Do you "make a conscious effort to move"? 88 Does "social fitness" require the same kind of intent?
- Is it wrong to "use optimism to push away" fear? 91
- If we've evolved to be social and in need of love, connection, and belonging, might social media paradoxically produce a counter-evolutionary push towards social isolation? 94
- How do you feel about the prospect of spending decades of your life interacting with media? 96
- COMMENT on the "powerful yet simple message" about interpersonal contact. 97
- How many of your significant relationships would you describe as energizing and depleting, respectively? Why do you persist in the latter? 100
- Do you know anyone who makes you feel the way teenage Sterling made his sister feel? 103
- How do you answer any of the questions on 104-107?
- Is Behavioral Science a reputable field? 108 (see yesterday's NYT story...)
- Is the Dalai Lama right about wise selfishness and generosity? 110
- Are you curious about others' experience? 113
*
Proud big brother, thinking I was happy not to be an "only child" anymore...
L: Probably looking for my next hit of baby formula... Bewildered, trying not to displease the adults...
About to be an ex-bachelor... happy but also (still) bewildered...
How do you feel about the author's separation of life into 3 primary stages?
ReplyDeleteHow long do you think it should take to figure out who you are?
ReplyDeleteI don't think we ever truly stop figuring out who we are. To do that would to some degree mean we stop changing. It would mean that one day there would never be something else to figure out about ourselves. I think we figure out who we are at every stage of our lives, something happens to change us, and then we have to figure it all out again.
Is it wrong to "use optimism to push away" fear? 91
ReplyDeleteDo I think it’s wrong? No.
Do I think it’s unhealthy? Yes.
Pretending something isn’t hurting you by making light of it can sometimes be necessary and helpful. But doing it exclusively to cope is dangerous. I should know, I do it all the time. In doing so, emotions bottle up over time until they finally explode all over the people you love most. Ignoring your problems only works for hippies and people who are about to die which I am hopefully neither of. However, that is just my opinion.