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Generation Y should calm down a bit

Pyropyro

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I just found an article explaining why members of my age group are so morose:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-unhappy.html

Since most of us here are in that age group (no offense to the older ones, I highly value your inputs and wisdom) I thought you might want to take a look.

It gave me a bit of a breather since I'm feeling that I'm bit too hard on myself lately. I'm still ambitious as before but I think I'll have to pace my own growth.
 

Grayman

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Teaching your kids to go to college is stupid. So many of them go to college and the don't get jobs or just don't use the degree. They value college itself instead a reasonable way to make a living while you live your life pursuing its pleasures where you can.

What happened to teaching your kids to be reasonable human beings capable of utilizing what is around them to make the most of what they have? I hate our society. I had to deprogram this value sytem out of my wife as she continually dealt with depression.

No im not kidding.
 

Pyropyro

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Teaching your kids to go to college is stupid. So many of them go to college and the don't get jobs or just don't use the degree. They value college itself instead a reasonable way to make a living while you live your life pursuing its pleasures where you can.

What happened to teaching your kids to be reasonable human beings capable of utilizing what is around them to make the most of what they have? I hate our society. I had to deprogram this value sytem out of my wife as she continually dealt with depression.

Indeed, that's why if I can chose, I prefer apprenticeships over college. It's a lot more personal and you also develop a friendship with your mentor. Heck, most of the skills I'm using at work wasn't developed during my college years but rather through training and working with other people.
 

Bock

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I just found an article explaining why members of my age group are so morose

Throwing around "delusional" and unicorns/rainbows doesn't make much of an argument. Some valid points are there but overall it doesn't even scratch the surface.

The world is a very different place now. Globalization, developed industrial automation, the goddamn internet which changed everything etc. Not to mention culture and gender roles and so on.
 

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Other than on the internet I don't spend much time with Y's (my wife does), but I'm not too surprised.

There's a funny generational thing that happened. I'm a Generation X - a stupid name I always disliked (they didn't even know what to call you folks so you got stamped Y - after X, which is rather insulting IMO). The boomers gave it to us because of the perception that we were slackers. The irony is that in the 60's (when I was born) the boomers were having a big party. They took drugs, screwed each other and talked about how they were changing the world. Then they grew up and acted like normal people, but unfortunately got just as big into their careers, money and raising kids*. We X-ers slipped in-between those "two great periods" and just quietly lived our lives, much like the Boomer parents did.

At any rate I've also been puzzled to watch how they have raised you guys. Basically they tried to turn you into copies of their later workaholic selves, and quietly forget the 60's loser versions not appropriate for children. They all obsess about college and have tried to create over achieving stress cases. I didn't know the result, but it sounds like they succeeded.

tl;dr
The unfortunate follow-on is for the millennial - our kids and the ones after you. The stupid boomers created an educational system that aims to create stressed out over achieving idiots. We battle with a system that wants our kid to be in sports, lead in the class play, head of student government and straight A's. It's rather distressing and pointless.
Sorry about that, my take is that your parents are the most messed up generation in recent history. It seems to be having been raised in the 50's, which was a quietly strange time as a reaction to the horrors of the War. If you can try to take a page from us "X-ers" and learn to be a little relaxed about your life.

* One other reason the boomers are so intense is because there are so many of them. My life has been largely dictated by these buggers. For example, I am ready to buy a house, guess what? Boomers are driving up the prices of the house because they are stampeding into them. I want to buy investments, guess what? Same deal. You see there are so many of them, that whenver they get an original idea (like "hey, it might be good to have kids now"), then suddenly there's millions more like them doing the same thing. So all over their trivial/typical interests take on epic proportions, just because they're in a vast herd.
 

computerhxr

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The unfortunate follow-on is for the millennial - our kids and the ones after you. The stupid boomers created an educational system that aims to create stressed out over achieving idiots. We battle with a system that wants our kid to be in sports, lead in the class play, head of student government and straight A's. It's rather distressing and pointless.

Hahah! Exactly!

I prefer the term guinea-pig-generation rather than generation-X. The sad thing is that they figured out everything that didn't work and Ameeerika (beer-aukracy) is too damned stubborn to change.

Something that I have been looking forward to (since I was a wee-little kid) was when the baby-boomers retire, gen-X is primed to take over. They keep pushing back the age because of the social security BS.
 

TimeAsylums

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Happiness = Reality - Expectations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtaCF0A5wWw

No shit, right?

"If you lower your expectations, you'll be happier!"

The GYPSY needs a lot more from a career than a nice green lawn of prosperity and security. The fact is, a green lawn isn’t quite exceptional or unique enough for a GYPSY. Where the Baby Boomers wanted to live The American Dream, GYPSYs want to live Their Own Personal Dream.

This is said as if it is a negative thing.

wtf?

Honestly, if we're just happy with what we have now, then we'd be happier!

You see, there are also other interpretations to this like, @Bock the link he posted from TLP. - it is relevant because of the article "want to live their own personal dream," I imagine the author meant that very derogatory manner.

But guess what? It's not a bad thing that people have more interests than that.


:facepalm:


Fuck you for having expectations, that's just the way it is.


@Absurdity

I'm reminded of "A Hero of Our Time"


As a side-note, any readers of [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory]Strauss–Howe generational theory[/url] ?
 

Jennywocky

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I like being an X. I think it's kind of like the "X-Men" who I always loved back in the Good Ol' Days. It's got a mysteriousness to it. And a sense of versatility -- an X can be anything it wishes; just swap in the new identity.



But yeah, being a "Y"? Why? Not nearly as exciting.


Anyway, more seriously....


The world is a very different place now. Globalization, developed industrial automation, the goddamn internet which changed everything etc. Not to mention culture and gender roles and so on.


That's true. The world in some ways is very different, and there's been a lot of changes in how things are done. This is course also means the "old rules/formula" might or might not be operational for a given situation.

I do also think "having a purpose" matters. My parents never really got that; they just looked at my job as my way of making money. I wanted more than that. I didn't really get it. In the end, I kind of floated and I *do* make an awful lot of money, but I'm indifferent to my job and feel like my life has been unproductive. I just did not believe in the vision of success I was handed by boomers to the degree I could do REMARKABLY well -- I'm pretty much as far as I'll go and don't really feel fulfilled by it.

Anyway, my own kids are not really Y, they'd be Z or whatever came after (born in the mid/late 1990'). The eldest seems to be completely floundering. No idea what he wants to do, no real skills he's using and leveraging. (With me, I loved computers and was always screwing around with them, picking up skills and odd jobs... and it fueled by eventual career. But... he does nothing that can be leveraged. I was also writing and composing music, but he just... hangs out and reads and watches movies.) SO he spent three semesters at college with marginal grades, didn't work part-time to help us pay, and is now taking at least a semester off to live on his own and work full-time enough to pay for his living expenses doing low-end jobs.

I feel bad, like I should have given him some kind of vision or helped him find motivation to apply himself. At the same time, if he's happy doing that... who cares? The only issue in that case is, will he want stuff later in life he won't be positioned to get because he isn't prepping for it now. But really, he had a decent experience bumming around in Mexico last summer for example. he just seems unsure what he needs to be happy, and I'm not sure either. There's a real confusion there. The Boomers seemed to have their game all figured out and the way to get there solidified; it's too bad much of that game was bullshit IMO. But they did have a plan.
 

TimeAsylums

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Your interpretation is all messed up.

Your interpretation of my interpretation is wrong...

I get the point the author is trying to make.

But with the same exact words that he used, I am saying they are wrong determining it to be a negative thing. it's a positive thing.
 

del

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Can we at least all agree to blame everything on Boomers?
 

Architect

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Something that I have been looking forward to (since I was a wee-little kid) was when the baby-boomers retire, gen-X is primed to take over.

That's an interesting perspective I've not heard before. Last thing was a Boomer written article trying to blame the housing crash on the X-ers. The reality was that X was one of the most hurt in the Boomer inspired boom, from my research. Boomers love booms, 70's booms, dot.com, housing, they won't stop.

I like being an X. I think it's kind of like the "X-Men" who I always loved back in the Good Ol' Days. It's got a mysteriousness to it. And a sense of versatility -- an X can be anything it wishes; just swap in the new identity.

Hmm

But yeah, being a "Y"? Why? Not nearly as exciting.

X+1

Anyway, my own kids are not really Y, they'd be Z or whatever came after (born in the mid/late 1990').

Millennial apparently, which I thought was post 2000. With regards to your joke above apparently they've either called Y or Millennial.

Millennials (also known as the Millennial Generation[1] or Generation Y) are the demographic cohort following Generation X. There are no precise dates when the generation starts and ends. Researchers and commentators use birth years ranging from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.

Interesting factoids on X at Wikipedia

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that Generation X statistically holds the highest education levels when looking at current age groups ...

In 2012, the Corporation for National and Community Service ranked Gen X volunteer rates in the U.S. at "29.4% per year", the highest compared with other generations.

In 2011 "The Generation X Report" (based on annual surveys used in the Longitudinal Study of today's adults) found that Gen Xers, who are defined in the report as people born between 1961 and 1981, are highly educated, active, balanced, happy and family oriented. The study dispels the materialistic, slacker, disenfranchised stereotype associated with youth in the 1970 and 80s.


I feel bad, like I should have given him some kind of vision or helped him find motivation to apply himself.

Don't feel bad, that's tough if not impossible to do. As far as I can tell a life long vision seems to come from some seminal childhood event plus ... something else. I don't know what, some spark.

For me the seminal moment was playing Pong in the 70's, blew my brain apart that technology like this existed.
 

Jennywocky

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Don't feel bad, that's tough if not impossible to do. As far as I can tell a life long vision seems to come from some seminal childhood event plus ... something else. I don't know what, some spark.

For me the seminal moment was playing Pong in the 70's, blew my brain apart that technology like this existed.

I actually had a Pong machine -- hooked up to the UFH/VHF screws on the back of the TV?

But yes, I think that's why computers blew my mind. You could type in stuff and make them DO things on the screen. Initial interest in games branched out to visuals and music. I was fascinated by being able to figure out ways to get the machine to do what I wanted, to create and to model.

That never much happened for him. (Well, aside from playing the guitar and piano -- I tried to teach him when he was young and he wouldn't practice, but later ended up teaching himself because he liked the outlet. I still can't play the guitar.)
 

Architect

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I actually had a Pong machine -- hooked up to the UFH/VHF screws on the back of the TV?

fuck yeah we all had Pong!!

Pong baby

Well except for my family, we couldn't afford it. Maybe that's why I lust after tech.

But yes, I think that's why computers blew my mind. You could type in stuff and make them DO things on the screen. Initial interest in games branched out to visuals and music. I was fascinated by being able to figure out ways to get the machine to do what I wanted, to create and to model.

It's goddamn beautiful, virtual worlds. One thing I admit being proud of is how much my kid appreciates computers, even though he doesn't get how far they've come (to him they've always been powerful)

That never much happened for him. (Well, aside from playing the guitar and piano -- I tried to teach him when he was young and he wouldn't practice, but later ended up teaching himself because he liked the outlet. I still can't play the guitar.)

Maybe its not too late, I've known late bloomers who ended up fine.
 

Teffnology

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Over stimulation definitely plays a part in this.

X'ers had fewer opportunities to be amazed. Everyday the Y's existed it seemed some new innovation changed our lives. While Pong may have been a singular seminal moment for an X'er, us Y's had all kinds of innovations along the course of our upbringing. Growing up with the internet only seemed to compound this problem.

We were raised thinking the world was our oyster and had the ability to do all kinds of research about the oyster and how best to maximize our oysterness. In reality the map is not the territory and the territory is not the map. The Y's became the master of the map and once they got to the territory realized how shitty the map actually was and how real the territory actually is.
 

The Introvert

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Archie,

I really appreciate some of the things you've said in your post. I'm a gen Y/millennial hybrid, and I've heard much of the same things from my dad that you're saying here. I want to break down dome of the things you've said, and ask some questions, if you're up for it (of course anyone else can chime in, too!).

At any rate I've also been puzzled to watch how they have raised you guys. Basically they tried to turn you into copies of their later workaholic selves, and quietly forget the 60's loser versions not appropriate for children. They all obsess about college and have tried to create over achieving stress cases. I didn't know the result, but it sounds like they succeeded.

tl;dr
The unfortunate follow-on is for the millennial - our kids and the ones after you. The stupid boomers created an educational system that aims to create stressed out over achieving idiots. We battle with a system that wants our kid to be in sports, lead in the class play, head of student government and straight A's. It's rather distressing and pointless.
The immediate question becomes; how does one begin to turn things around (and should we?). I'm interested right now in altering this world-view of some of my peers, so at the individual level for right now. How do we go about explaining to people the situation at hand? Or should we even try?
Sorry about that, my take is that your parents are the most messed up generation in recent history. It seems to be having been raised in the 50's, which was a quietly strange time as a reaction to the horrors of the War. If you can try to take a page from us "X-ers" and learn to be a little relaxed about your life.
For someone my age, is indoctrination already rampant (and impossible to change)?

* One other reason the boomers are so intense is because there are so many of them. My life has been largely dictated by these buggers. For example, I am ready to buy a house, guess what? Boomers are driving up the prices of the house because they are stampeding into them. I want to buy investments, guess what? Same deal. You see there are so many of them, that whenver they get an original idea (like "hey, it might be good to have kids now"), then suddenly there's millions more like them doing the same thing. So all over their trivial/typical interests take on epic proportions, just because they're in a vast herd.
They're getting old now... weak now... :beatyou::beatyou::rip:
 

Teffnology

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What?!?! So many amazing things happened for gen-X. Y's just don't understand how amazing things were. :) Yes, because of over stimulation.

I guess more of what I was getting at was that Y's experienced a greater rate of innovation than X'ers did. Not to discount the innovation that occurred in Gen-X but rather to illustrate that Gen-Y's rate of innovation was greater/higher/more common as a whole.

Gen X created the Internet, Y got to use the Internet, and now Millenials have a digital umbilical cord.
 

Pyropyro

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...

At any rate I've also been puzzled to watch how they have raised you guys. Basically they tried to turn you into copies of their later workaholic selves, and quietly forget the 60's loser versions not appropriate for children. They all obsess about college and have tried to create over achieving stress cases. I didn't know the result, but it sounds like they succeeded.

That's a bit unfair. So I'm basically doing something for a few years that they worked for at least twenty?

...
The unfortunate follow-on is for the millennial - our kids and the ones after you. The stupid boomers created an educational system that aims to create stressed out over achieving idiots. We battle with a system that wants our kid to be in sports, lead in the class play, head of student government and straight A's. It's rather distressing and pointless.
...
Too close for comfort :P
 

Teffnology

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If you want to see a Boomer stick it to his fellow Boomers, there is none greater than Lewis Black.

This clip more or less cuts to the heart of the issues that generation created.

Lewis Black on Greed, Storage, Raising Money, Social Security, Math and ...: http://youtu.be/jQcrO2yCf0U

And likely predicts Y's greatest political acheivement in the US. Sad but true.
 

Architect

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The immediate question becomes; how does one begin to turn things around (and should we?)

Speaking as a parent of a kid in the school system atm, I'm sure that it wouldn't be easy. I have friends who took this route, in their case they are into the gifted/talented thing, which is a step in the wrong direction IMO (they got involved in education lobbying). So I can see it from the inside a bit too, the deal is that the education industry is big, old and has many competing interests (teachers, education companies, parents) so actually accomplishing anything is practically impossible. Thankfully some progress has been made though, which was to drop No Child Left Behind nonsense. Now its the "Common Core" system.

Now to take the flip side it's not all bad. Education today is light years beyond what we got, I didn't learn basic physics until college. Oh they taught some F=ma in HS but you could easily slide past that as I did.

That's a bit unfair. So I'm basically doing something for a few years that they worked for at least twenty?

Not sure what you mean. At any rate, if you feel good about your education and aren't stressed out, then that's great and there's no problem. The difficulty is finding a balance for some kids. Again, it was horrible during the No Child years, but presently it's much better. even though my kid doesn't see it that way.
 

Pyropyro

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Not sure what you mean. At any rate, if you feel good about your education and aren't stressed out, then that's great and there's no problem. The difficulty is finding a balance for some kids. Again, it was horrible during the No Child years, but presently it's much better. even though my kid doesn't see it that way.

What I mean is that I that last generation dicked around for perhaps a decade and then took worked at least probably a decade to land a comfortable job. So that gives them at least twenty years to climb to where they are when my generation was born. On the other hand, I wasn't even allowed to dick around. I have to work the moment I left college.
 

Black Rose

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My grandmother was born in 1917. She went through the great depression and became a millionaire. She died in 2005 but i got $10,000 from her in 2014 and live in a new house. I am 27 and i use the internet allot. My mom was divorced when i was 6. She did not really know what to do with her life and was born when my grandmother was 40. She got $100,000 in 2007 and bought a new house in the country. I cant live with her because my brother is with her and he is 26. me my mom and brother are on SSI my sister is the only one who is not. She is 23 and her boyfriend is 42. I think we are all lazy. My brother plays games all day with his friend that lives with him at my moms along with my aunt who is 67. I don't do anything but internet because i have no friends. I had a job once but when i got the new house i quite. Both my brother and sister spent their $10,000 on shit. If i had stayed at my moms house i would not have spent my money in 1 month like they did. But i have a house and they don't, they were stupid. I was stupid also, i should have gone to school in 2007 but i was depressed. They did not graduate high school but i did. I think that when the dollar crashes everyone will loose their food stamps EBT. but if this happens i can just steal from Walmart like the 40 million others who will be. I had 30 silver coins but sold them to help a friend. I hope things dot get to bad.
 

Grayman

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My grandmother was born in 1917. She went through the great depression and became a millionaire. She died in 2005 but i got $10,000 from her in 2014 and live in a new house. I am 27 and i use the internet allot. My mom was divorced when i was 6. She did not really know what to do with her life and was born when my grandmother was 40. She got $100,000 in 2007 and bought a new house in the country. I cant live with her because my brother is with her and he is 26. me my mom and brother are on SSI my sister is the only one who is not. She is 23 and her boyfriend is 42. I think we are all lazy. My brother plays games all day with his friend that lives with him at my moms along with my aunt who is 67. I don't do anything but internet because i have no friends. I had a job once but when i got the new house i quite. Both my brother and sister spent their $10,000 on shit. If i had stayed at my moms house i would not have spent my money in 1 month like they did. But i have a house and they don't, they were stupid. I was stupid also, i should have gone to school in 2007 but i was depressed. They did not graduate high school but i did. I think that when the dollar crashes everyone will loose their food stamps EBT. but if this happens i can just NJsteal from Walmart like the 40 million others who will be. I had 30 silver coins but sold them to help a friend. I hope things dot get to bad.

How long do have left on ssi? Why not go to a bar and meet people?
 

Black Rose

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How long do have left on ssi? Why not go to a bar and meet people?

SSDI but until the next crash if the dollar is secure
i don't drink alcohol, i don't want to be with people like that
 

Grayman

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SSDI but until the next crash if the dollar is secure
i don't drink alcohol, i don't want to be with people like that

I take it you have people in your life prone to alcohol abuse. My wife is of the same mind as you. It took her some time to feel safe with my very periodic ale.
 

Architect

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What I mean is that I that last generation dicked around for perhaps a decade and then took worked at least probably a decade to land a comfortable job. So that gives them at least twenty years to climb to where they are when my generation was born. On the other hand, I wasn't even allowed to dick around. I have to work the moment I left college.

right, yeah agree. I try my best to let my kid goof off, as long as he gets straight A's (except in PE :) ) which is pretty easy for him.

Actually I think the boomers (yeah more boomer hate!) are really screwing their kids. Price of houses? Insanely high because of them. Price of investments (stocks and bonds)? Insanely high. We could have a long discussion about the reasons why this is, it has to do with the history of detaching fully from the gold standard, central bank attempts to keep a positive inflation rate, boomer love of booms and inflation (yes they fear and also believe in it) and especially boomer love of assets. Especially physical. Let's not forget how much boomers have saved for retirement. You know I've got many times what the average boomer has for retirement in the tender years of my late 40's? Simply because I saved and invested smartly. Boomers never lost the taste for a good party. If it was up to me we'd trash the price of houses and stocks for you guys, so you can start building a life and the economy, which is fueled by the young, not the old.

Oh well ...
 

Pyropyro

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... If it was up to me we'd trash the price of houses and stocks for you guys, so you can start building a life and the economy, which is fueled by the young, not the old.

Oh well ...

Thanks for the offer but I think it's just something that should be left to the current generation to solve. After all, generations are defined by the opposition they have to face (There's a reason that the Greatest Generation is called as such). I don't want to be remembered as belonging to the generation that worried about Facebook likes.
 

The Introvert

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Couldn't we just wait until they're too feeble to care for themselves, and rather than pay to keep care of them with money they don't have, use them as fertilizer? Y'know, reduce eutrophication from farm runoff.

Or perhaps just skip that and go straight to soylent green!
 

Pyropyro

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Couldn't we just wait until they're too feeble to care for themselves, and rather than pay to keep care of them with money they don't have, use them as fertilizer? Y'know, reduce eutrophication from farm runoff.

Or perhaps just skip that and go straight to soylent green!

There's a reason why there are a lot of Nurses migrating to western countries. ;)
 
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im 19(so...generation Z?)
i dont fully agree with the happiness=reality-expectations equation. a prevalent theme of generation z seems to be not having any ambitions or expectations from life yet most are unhappy
The eldest seems to be completely floundering. No idea what he wants to do, no real skills he's using and leveraging. (With me, I loved computers and was always screwing around with them, picking up skills and odd jobs... and it fueled by eventual career. But... he does nothing that can be leveraged. I was also writing and composing music, but he just... hangs out and reads and watches movies.)

im kinda like your son. our generation grew up with the internet...so it sort of flushed out the feeling of individuality, creating an obsession with looking "different" at a superficial/shallow level but deep inside most of us feel fairly insignificant and lost. on the one hand, intenet makes information easily available. but on the flip side it makes us more aware of our insignificance+how similar we are to most people, at an early stage. so yeah most of us are lost, we want to do everything and nothing simultaneously. having so many opportunities laid out in front of you+lacking the delusion of being "special" is kinda appaling lol
 

QuickTwist

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fuck yeah we all had Pong!!

Pong baby

Well except for my family, we couldn't afford it. Maybe that's why I lust after tech.



It's goddamn beautiful, virtual worlds. One thing I admit being proud of is how much my kid appreciates computers, even though he doesn't get how far they've come (to him they've always been powerful)



Maybe its not too late, I've known late bloomers who ended up fine.

I see... emotion! this is a great thing that has happened to Architect! We should all give him a pen now for his accomplishment for using the words Fuck yeah.
 

Architect

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I see... emotion! this is a great thing that has happened to Architect! We should all give him a pen now for his accomplishment for using the words Fuck yeah.

give me a break.
 

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Architect

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V(^ . ^)
 

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I don't know. I don't agree with that argument to begin with, placing all the blame on expectations. That makes it sound like happiness is only a state of mind, a cheap parlor trick you can play with your mind. So I'd say it's not about expectations. It's about being told you have options, then having them all taken away, and the frustration of realizing you have little control over your life. It's about feeling forced to do something completely unfulfilling and being told you're ungrateful for wanting more. But mostly it's about being consumed by the whims of an economic system that doesn't care much about the people in it. If economics had a slogan, I think The Borg "Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated" would represent it better than any other analogy I could think of.
 

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I don't know. I don't agree with that argument to begin with, placing all the blame on expectations. That makes it sound like happiness is only a state of mind, a cheap parlor trick you can play with your mind. So I'd say it's not about expectations. It's about being told you have options, then having them all taken away, and the frustration of realizing you have little control over your life. It's about feeling forced to do something completely unfulfilling and being told you're ungrateful for wanting more. But mostly it's about being consumed by the whims of an economic system that doesn't care much about the people in it. If economics had a slogan, I think The Borg "Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated" would represent it better than any other analogy I could think of.

You are right but I think the issue is mostly unrealistic expectations. High expectations are good but they should also be malleable and comprising.
 
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