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I have a suspicion that the reason for the discouragement of midlife crisis is inflexibility in a society where people must work to earn money to live. If you'r

I have a suspicion that the reason for the discouragement of midlife crisis is inflexibility in a society where people must work to earn money to live. If you're in your 30s and have dependents, quitting your job puts the QoL of your dependents in peril because there's no general societal-level support program for that sort of life pivot.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
That makes sense. It explains how social pressure bifurcates the group. There are those who don't have the resolve to go through with it, but end up in this persistent feeling of emptiness brought about by self-alienation. And those who do enter into some crisis, but feel the social friction when their actions run counter to norms but the relief of internal alignment associated with self-actualization. It's pretty sad that rather than offering social support to folks in crisis so that they have a safety net during this process to limit the downside, we've instead inverted the environment to limit the upside. The opportunity loss is confounding. There's a terrible self-reenforcing mechanism at play which goes like this, "Look, things are terrible for people in crisis. Don't be like them," all while contributing to the terrible environment that's being positioned as inevitable.
thegrimmest 4y ago
I agree. I think we've done a very good job at dismantling exactly the sorts of support networks that would normally fill this role - namely family and community. It seems as though these networks would generally step in during any sort of crisis experienced by a member and help keep things stable. The state-run, compulsory alternatives seem a poor substitute, and I'm not sure we're socio-biologically equipped to make the transition. The only way forward seems to be to identify the cause(s) for the dissolution of family and community as reliable networks and revert/fix them.
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  I wish I could recommend Bowling Alone[1] from personal experience, but I expect those that have read it would find this to be an apt place to drop such a suggestion. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7432-0304-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7432...

kelseyfrog 4y ago

That makes sense. It explains how social pressure bifurcates the group. There are those who don't have the resolve to go through with it, but end up in this persistent feeling of emptiness brought about by self-alienation. And those who do enter into some crisis, but feel the social friction when their actions run counter to norms but the relief of internal alignment associated with self-actualization. It's pretty sad that rather than offering social support to folks in crisis so that they have a safety net during this process to limit the downside, we've instead inverted the environment to limit the upside. The opportunity loss is confounding. There's a terrible self-reenforcing mechanism at play which goes like this, "Look, things are terrible for people in crisis. Don't be like them," all while contributing to the terrible environment that's being positioned as inevitable.

thegrimmest 4y ago

I agree. I think we've done a very good job at dismantling exactly the sorts of support networks that would normally fill this role - namely family and community. It seems as though these networks would generally step in during any sort of crisis experienced by a member and help keep things stable. The state-run, compulsory alternatives seem a poor substitute, and I'm not sure we're socio-biologically equipped to make the transition. The only way forward seems to be to identify the cause(s) for the dissolution of family and community as reliable networks and revert/fix them.

kelseyfrog 4y ago
I wish I could recommend Bowling Alone[1] from personal experience, but I expect those that have read it would find this to be an apt place to drop such a suggestion. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7432-0304-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7432...