Comment by zkmon
16 hours ago
Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
Those are dependencies that make you weak. Lack of those means you won't be happy. Luxury is being happy without having any of those.
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs.
Fewer. Everyone will always have some dependencies and needs.
Personally, I pity anyone who sees a desire to be loved as a weakness. That’s quite literally a lesson taught as a trope about being a good person vs an evil one.
Being loved is not a weakness. But a strong requirement to be loved is a weakness because that means you don't have strength to be happy without being loved.
And that perspective presumes that being loved isn’t a fundamental human need.
Eating is not a weakness. But a strong requirement to eat is a weakness because you don't have the strength to be happy without eating.
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Love is extremely common. It is not particularly much of a weakness because there are plenty of people who will love you. Now, finding that person, or those people, depending on exactly what it means, that could be hard. There are also a lot of people who will abuse your need for love, and so you do have to be careful.
This is actually a sad comment. How did you ever come to believe that wanting to feel loved, which is a fundamental desire (if not "need") for the vast majority of human beings, could ever be construed as a weakness resulting from a lack of "strength"?
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>Time, quiet mind, slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days - are all the same thing - escape from being busy. This assumes being busy is common, which is actually not that common for an age of 60+.
If there's anything 60+ are starting to not have enough of is time. As you get older time is running out. Not free time - time in general, as in life expectancy.
Regular free time can be elusive too if you're still forced to work, which can be the case until your mid to late 60s, a common pension age globally or if your savings have been wiped out.
"Slow mornings, rest without guilt, calm and boring days" too are not just "escape from being busy", but also being away from all kinds of bad situations: war, social turmoil, family drama, spouse dying, and others, that are not just about not being busy with work. Being 60+ might help with being busy (if you're retiring), but not with those.
>The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
That's sort of true, but too much of that can also mean one is just a jaded, burnt out person who doesn't care about anything and has no joy anymore.
Just give me a place with safe dense public transportation, walkable places to eat, and nature to relax.
Just give me some land outside of the city, where I can’t really see or hear my neighbors, where I have enough space for an enormous garden, lots of native plants for the butterflies and bees, and a giant workshop. Starry skies at night shared with my wife and a dog or two.
And since I have the space, maybe a sauna and cold plunge would be nice. You know, stretch goals.
I did this for a few years but it got lonely. Now I draw energy from being around people, and walking to do things has lowered my blood pressure and weight. Subways and regional trains also allow me to live a larger radius.
Haven't used public transport in a long time. I used it to commute in the past but stopped using it during COVID.
Can't say I miss it. Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want. All while not enjoying other peoples music and smell or waiting at a platform for ages.
> Prefer to just leave when I want, go where I want and stay there as long as I want.
Which you can do with a good public transport system! You should not have to wait for a subway train for more than 5 minutes. Ideally no more than 1-2.
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With good enough public transit, you can do all that. When I lived in Seattle, I did not bother looking at the bus schedule before leaving, because usually I was waiting less than 10 minutes.
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Ok boomer
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I have to regularly travel to rural villages in Asia and the people that live in these places have only the most basic human desires. They barely know what an LLM is let alone interact with them. They're some of the happiest people I've ever met.
Of course they'll complain about work or money, and they assume that a Western salary buys me freedom. But they get to live through these luxuries on a daily basis. I'd be lucky to enjoy just one of these in any given week.
Not to be glib, but I assume you're not quitting your Western job and moving there. So isn't this romanticizing it?
I have my own family dependencies that aren't too keen on the idea of living the village life. Otherwise I'd already be there.
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Yeah as someone whose family left this, you guys are crazy
It’s not that easy to emigrate afaik, even ignoring family and obligations like that.
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But is that true though? This seems bit of a romanticism. Having lived in rural villages in Asia, I can tell you people are about as happy as anywhere else. They worry about not being able to afford or have access to basic healthcare. They worry about one off season rain destroying their livelihoods for the season. Depending on where you are, some worry about a sudden onset of escalating violence. Plenty of people don’t even have access to drinking water. Some worry about their land and only source of income taken away by larger interests.
Desires only tend to magnify in intensity and multiply in numbers because there is rarely enough.
Working on desire is a big thing.
Beautifully put, and definitely resonated with me as someone who entered mostly-contentedly-frugal retirement a few years back.
One thing you didn't mention is the need to feel useful in some way; would you consider that a weakness too? Is it covered by "rest without guilt"? It's the bit I still have some trouble with.
Not OP, but there's a nuance. In general there's nothing wrong with wanting to be useful, but it is definitely possible to take it too far.
If you get sick and need care, you are typically not "useful". But that doesn't mean you instantly lose all value. I've had colleagues who would feel almost physically ill if they were somehow not able to respond to an incident somewhere, even if they weren't even on call at that point. Almost all of them burned out at some point and were no longer able to respond to anything, even if they'd wanted to. That's not healthy, and it weakens everyone in the long run.
Resting without guilt comes from the realization that you cannot keep the world running all by yourself. Let others pick up the work when you need a rest, so you can shelter them when they are down.
That is quite opposite of weakness. Your entire life is exercising power of your mind. What is left if you take it away? Do the thing you love and you will find your happiness.
Even just asking that question implies self-judgment and a need to “do the right thing”. Perhaps just be, and that is enough.
> Perhaps just be, and that is enough.
Don't be evil tho
I agree with the gist what you're saying, like ditching the ego, the status chasing, etc. But dragging stuff like staying connected, being knowledgable, enjoying good food, and travel is where this goes a bit too far. A rock has zero dependencies, but nobody wants to be a rock.
I have mixed feelings about travel. Simply because so much of it seems to be about status chasing. Then you have the whole commercial world trying to convince you it is important. You never see them suggesting you take a ten mile hike from your front door.
This! I want new art, books, music. Yes, I want them. And I want delicious coffee. That's one of the reasons this life is worth living!
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Since the 2000s, in most highly developed countries, you are spoiled for choice if you live within 20km of a medium-/large-sized city. You don't need to travel more than a few km to enjoy cuisine from outside your region.
Jesus: Tell me you are a man without telling me you are a man. Few women I know would ever say something like that.
I wonder how relationships even form then. (It's possible that they don't, yeah.)
> The real luxury, for any age, in general, is in not having dependencies and needs. The need to impress someone, the need to know every ugly news from around globe, the need to read everything and be knowledgeable, need to stay connected, need to be smart, the need to travel and see places, need to taste foods from around the world, need to have many friends, need to be loved by someone, and need to have more money and things.
This echoes with my (limited) understanding of Buddhism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths#The_Four_Tru...
You can decide not to do any of these things. In fact, not wanting _anything_ is 100% within your control. It's literally what the stoics built the entirety of their philosophy on: aversion to pain and pleasure and redirection to moral choice
That is a nice list for someone in their 20s with no responsibilities.
Once you get a partner, kids, elderly parents, pets, mortgage, etc. you won't be worrying about your needs anymore trust me.
Age has nothing to do with it. Those were your life style choices and they now impact you for the rest of your life. You could well have done the opposite and thrown all your earnings into the SP500, rented for cheap near your parents, traveled the world, and have no partner and/or multiple partners
As someone in my 30s I'm not sure I need the things on your list. Can't escape the aging of my parents but I'm lucky they will be able to financially support themselves through retirement. If I do add complications to my life I'll be careful to do my best ensuring it's a net benefit to my stability and peace.
yeah some people are very orthodox and think having a partner, kids, pets, mortgage is a must. The easiest exceptions is being a monk or priest and they are fine and society accept it.
I agree with some of what you listed here but a few I think are critical to being human. What's the point of not having needs?
Desires are what makes us human. I have kids and family and friends that love me and them in return but I don't believe that makes me weak. In fact it is the opposite, they give me the strength, confidence, and motivation to power through life.
I supoose not having any needs and desires would be an asset for a hitman.
Desires are OK as long as they don't make you unhappy when you can't have them. But that's not usually the case, which means they became crutches, making your happiness to depend on achieving them.
As an example, there are places where people don't see electricity as an absolute necessity. Hours of outages everyday go mostly unnoticed. That's lack of strong dependency.
We need purpose, as a species; after all we left the caves for a better life. Desires make us human, the pursuit keep us busy and entertained. There is no passion without wanting, and without passion what is the reason for living?
Without them then you wouldn't have strength, confidence or motivation and you wouldn't power through life. But you might be just as happy?
Why would I want a slow morning? That sounds miserable, like the opposite of luxury.
Yeah why would anyone want to chill, I want my boss shaking me awake at 5am shoving adderall into my mouth
> I want my boss shaking me awake at 5am shoving adderall into my mouth
Nicely expressed.
Nicely said.
Having dependencies or needs is one thing, having them managed for relative minimal impact on one's time might be another way to look at it for some.
Are the need to make music, the need to read books, the need to work on and improve myself dependencies that make me weak?
Lacking those things is not a luxury. What is a luxury is time. Time is incredibly precious.
It's true that if you lower your expectations enormously that it's easier to hit them.
It's also true that if you raise you expectations enough then you will never be able to hit them.
Keep in mind that it's not always a case of "shoot for the stars but hit the moon if you miss", sometimes it's "shoot for the stars and suffer crippling burnout for 20 years, after which it's too late to recover to anything meaningful".
Being realistic, for all it's boringness, does have advantages.
So true.
I know a couple, retired, who are constantly traveling to Europe and Japan. When they’re not traveling, they spend all their time reading or visiting with their kids and grandkids.
I often want to tell them: You fools! You’ll never find happiness if all you do is give in to these weaknesses!