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It is a missing part of the human condition and, especially it seems to me, the male human condition to strive for something. Especially when that something is

It is a missing part of the human condition and, especially it seems to me, the male human condition to strive for something. Especially when that something is as a group. It's the feeling, I imagine, we got as hunting mammoth, or raiding others and defending our own community, or exploring a new land with dragons around the corner. We don't have that anymore and we are poorer for it. I envy, therefore, those that get glimpses of it through spacex achievements, or internet explorer 3. I get mine from video games but it's probably lessor in degree. Yet still, when I felt it the strongest, it still holds one of the highest places in my memory. Family and children are simply not the same.

zemvpferreira 5y ago
It's not a bad thing that us men don't have to kill and die in large proportions just to keep the rest of the tribe going. Let's not overly romanticize an evolutionary trait useful for getting us throw ourselves into meat grinders. Let's enjoy our games and leave it at that. (Mine is tennis)
- throwaway13337 5y ago
  I didn't mean to imply that I'd trade modern life for it. It's just that the drive is still there. And it's useful in understanding depression in men, and the will to make the best piece of software for your corporation. Tennis cannot replace it or video games. We are stuck not wholly satisfied and must make the best of it.
  - zemvpferreira 5y ago
    Oh I agree with you there - let's recognize this vile impulse and do our best to prevent it from causing any more harm. " If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori."
    - seabird 5y ago
      Characterizing the want to "strive for something, especially when that something is as a group" as a "vile impulse" is a bad take. It's pretty hard to argue that that we would be better off just keeling over and accepting things as they are, lest we succumb to the awful human behavior of organizing to change something we don't like. That very same vile impulse was, is, and always will be the way we manage to overcome humanity's greatest challenges. Trying to condition people to suppress it is not a good idea.

zemvpferreira 5y ago

It's not a bad thing that us men don't have to kill and die in large proportions just to keep the rest of the tribe going. Let's not overly romanticize an evolutionary trait useful for getting us throw ourselves into meat grinders. Let's enjoy our games and leave it at that. (Mine is tennis)

throwaway13337 5y ago
I didn't mean to imply that I'd trade modern life for it. It's just that the drive is still there. And it's useful in understanding depression in men, and the will to make the best piece of software for your corporation. Tennis cannot replace it or video games. We are stuck not wholly satisfied and must make the best of it.
- zemvpferreira 5y ago
  Oh I agree with you there - let's recognize this vile impulse and do our best to prevent it from causing any more harm. " If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori."
  - seabird 5y ago
    Characterizing the want to "strive for something, especially when that something is as a group" as a "vile impulse" is a bad take. It's pretty hard to argue that that we would be better off just keeling over and accepting things as they are, lest we succumb to the awful human behavior of organizing to change something we don't like. That very same vile impulse was, is, and always will be the way we manage to overcome humanity's greatest challenges. Trying to condition people to suppress it is not a good idea.