7 ms·

At 56, much of this piece resonates with me, but this passage seems to have been taken from my own thoughts: In his youth, he vacationed differently. Everywher

by jp57 2y ago

At 56, much of this piece resonates with me, but this passage seems to have been taken from my own thoughts: In his youth, he vacationed differently. Everywhere he went was a place he could live, a potential future life. He could live here, he’d tell himself. Or he could meet a woman there, and start a family there, and become a citizen of that place. Mexico, Hong Kong, France, Italy, Western Indiana, etc. Eventually, he met a woman and chose a place – the best woman and the best place – and his future was fixed. The world was good, but the world was no longer full of all these possibilities. What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived? Much of middle age (and beyond) is a struggle to find meaning in the face of the realization of the finiteness of your remaining days. I think that, by and large, I'm doing a fair job at that, but I still struggle a bit with travel, for the very reason above. I used to imagine myself living in whatever place I visited, and those imaginings were plausibly something more than fantasy. Now, not so much. It would be a huge undertaking for my wife and me to uproot our lives and move to someplace exotic and different, but even if we were to do so, we couldn't move to everywhere exotic and different. And anyway, we wouldn't be "starting a new life" there in the same way that a young person would.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nicbou 2y ago
Every long trip is a reminder of all the things I am grateful for at home. Friends, family, a home, plans. I used to go on these long adventurous trips, but every year they get shorter, because I feel like I'm sacrificing something at home by not being there.
- haswell 2y ago
  Having the exact opposite experience is how I realized that a major relocation is in my relatively near future. The longer the adventure, the more disconnected and odd home would feel upon return. My family/friend situation is most likely a bit different though, for reasons that would make this comment far too long. It's time for a reset (~40ish).
unethical_ban 2y ago
"What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived?" I am 36. This captures my greatest fears. That finding one woman anything less than immediately perfect will cut me off from all the small, lovely moments I have had with women across the world in my life. That if I buy a house in my imperfect city, that that's the ball game. I'm here for a decade or more (even though let's face it, I probably am anyway). I had a similar interaction with a 31 year old friend who has a beautiful wife, love of his life, and two daughters, a PhD and a position at a startup. He said "What are my goals supposed to be now?" The answer is clearly to be a good father and husband, and I think he knew and was happy with that. But it represented the sea change between youth, singleness and research vs. middle age, familial responsibility and work. "He wants his home and security, he wants to live like a sailor at sea. Beautiful loser, where will you fall, when you find out you just can't have it all?"
- slothtrop 2y ago
  > That finding one woman anything less than immediately perfect will cut me off from all the small, lovely moments I have had with women across the world in my life. You had those moments. You could keep trying to chase that bouncing between different partners going forward, but consider: a) more women exit the dating market with age (especially the good ones), b) there is a richness of experience also to be found with a devoted lifelong partner which can't be had with a mere fling. As time goes on, your odds of success are harsher either way, risking being alone much of the time. But in particular, good long-term prospects more rapidly diminish. Opportunity-cost goes both ways. Speaking from my own bias and experience, investing and relishing in a life-long relationship with a flawed-but-loving partner is worth it, having had the non-committal phase when I was younger. It's difficult to maximize for some characteristics in a partner. Beauty, sure, you know what you like so you can ball-park. Many traits/qualities are difficult to discern and luck-of-the-draw: reliability and trust, compatibility and love, capacity to raise children well, etc. No one is perfect and there is no unicorn, novelty is attractive in itself. My heuristic is if a partner can be assessed as "good", holding on is the right move. I think about Voltaire's Candide often, and the lesson applies here.
- nemomarx 2y ago
  the way I've always thought about this uncertainty - the time will pass anyway. good choice or bad, but you can't avoid the time passing by trying to carefully consider which one to choose, and indecision eats the same time away, right? as you note you're already probably living in some imperfect city. you might consider buying a house more of a commitment to it, but how much more than coasting along in apartments thinking of where to buy the house, for example? you'll live somewhere in that time either way. you might as well commit to things.
analog31 2y ago
>>> What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived? Laughing at the world for letting me exist.
MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
> The world was good, but the world was no longer full of all these possibilities. What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived? Children fill this void
- corry 2y ago
  Yes, exactly! Part of maturing is realizing that you are but a link in a chain; and all the potential futures in which you saw yourself as the protagonist fade into a fuzzier (and less direct) set of potential futures which your children will shape and navigate through. Meanwhile, we are also becoming captive to the stories that we tell ourselves about ours lives and the stories that our culture tells us about our value. But though it's not easy, you can change the story you tell yourself at any time... and watch your life fill-in with possibilities again.
- jansan 2y ago
  It's actually that easy. I know quite a few people who try to fill the void with dogs, cats or even work, but children are the real deal.
  - MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
    You’re being downvoted and I know why: I ran into so many people in the Bay Area that felt that pets were sufficient substitutes for kids. It’s not even remotely the same level of love, emotion, and wholeness.
    - jansan 2y ago
      It's only karma points, I have more than I need :)
- schnebbau 2y ago
  Counterpoint: they will lock you down even harder, and you'll be dreaming of the possibilities that will present when they eventually move out.
lurk2 2y ago
I have been struggling with the same problem for quite a while. When I was in high school and my early 20s I had a group of friends I was constantly hanging out with. I realized a few months ago that I hadn't seen or talked to any of them in more than two years. We all changed and went our separate ways. I wondered if I would see them again. I found it troubling to think that I might not - but the love was still there, even knowing that we might never all be together again. It can be difficult to enjoy something for what it is (or was), rather than for what it could be. As we age we are forced to reconcile the potentiality of our dreams with the finite reality of our lives. This can be discouraging (and even frightening) but it can also allow for a much deeper enjoyment of the present moment. I do not need to worry about what something might become - I can just enjoy it for what it is here and now.
asdfman123 2y ago
As a guy who's dating in his 30s I'm just envious he's able to choose "the best woman" and doesn't feel his options are limited to the only woman in online dating who's willing to stick around
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  Honestly, as a man with a family and a kid, maybe, just maybe, not getting a family is a blessing, especially for people who have to try hard for that. Just maybe, fight for your passion and forget about family and kid. You might find them on the road that you avoid them.
  - asdfman123 2y ago
    Yeah, it's important to live your best life and try to forget the world. But in the meantime I can pine a little.
    - markus_zhang 2y ago
      I get it. Good luck! Hope you find someone that share the same value.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  Well... that woman is de facto the best. One of the great secrets to life is that happiness is found primarily through changing your mindset, not through changing your circumstances. It's easy to say and hard to do, of course. But it is true. You'll be a lot happier if you can focus on the good qualities of whatever woman you find in your life, than if you look at her in terms of "she's just the best that I could do".
  - asdfman123 2y ago
    I should know by now that complaining on the internet is seen as an invitation for people to give you bad advice, yet I still do it from time to time anyway. Who you marry is the most important decision of your life and ending up with someone you don't even like that much because she's the best you can do is a terrible idea. Who would want to be the woman in this situation? The women you meet in online dating are much lower quality than the ones you meet in real life, and a part of you is aware of that. The answer is to meet people in real life.
markus_zhang 2y ago
> Much of middle age (and beyond) is a struggle to find meaning in the face of the realization of the finiteness of your remaining days. Indeed. I'm at 40+ and is in this stage exactly. Nothing seems to be really meaningful. Work, family, kid, OK, then? I think it is ultimately a lone road as no one can help me to answer questions that only I myself can answer. I guess it's totally possible to not find an answer for the rest of the life.
pdonis 2y ago
It's true that, once you make a specific choice, other choices that you could have made in its place are gone. Once one possibility becomes actual, the other possibilities that could have taken its place are gone. But some possibility has to become actual at some point. Otherwise you aren't living at all. Life is making choices and living with the consequences. Dreaming is nice, but it's not the same as living. And if you spend all of your present imagining possible futures, you never have an actual life. In other words, what fills the void where possibility once lived is actual living.
cactusplant7374 2y ago
This is the allure of nomading for me. I can claim to live in a place and generally know it better than others staying for only a week. Right now I'm probably settling down with my wife but a part of me really hates to close off all the possibilities. I think it would be so exciting to live in a country in Africa. It really makes you think about how much you are giving up by buying a house or leasing an apartment.
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
> Now, not so much. It would be a huge undertaking for my wife and me to uproot our lives and move to someplace exotic and different, but even if we were to do so, we couldn't move to everywhere exotic and different. And anyway, we wouldn't be "starting a new life" there in the same way that a young person would. At your age, I left Philadelphia and ended up living in a tiny village in rural New Mexico. I had lived almost entirely in large cities since I was 10 years old. Since that move, I became a (volunteer) firefighter, and joined the boards of 3 village organizations. I learned how to shop for a week rather than a day. I've had to reassess my own landscape aesthetics, now that green is no longer the signifier of beauty (at least, not below 9000'). My construction skills have had to expand to encompass a house built of dried mud. I would say that this has been as much "a new life" as any that I started when I was younger.
fowl338 2y ago
> It would be a huge undertaking for my wife and me to uproot our lives and move to someplace exotic and different, but even if we were to do so, we couldn't move to everywhere exotic and different. And anyway, we wouldn't be "starting a new life" there in the same way that a young person would. I say this gently, but it sounds like you're trying to find reasons why you can't move anymore, none of which are very convincing. Of course you can't move to everywhere exotic and different—that was never possible even when you were young. Of course you can't start a new life there in the same way that a young person would—even as a young adult it's often impossible to integrate as deeply as someone born there. If that didn't stop you before, why does it stop you now? Do you perhaps simply like your current life enough that the incentive to move is much lower? If so, that's a great problem to have and should be celebrated.

by jp57 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nicbou 2y ago

Every long trip is a reminder of all the things I am grateful for at home. Friends, family, a home, plans. I used to go on these long adventurous trips, but every year they get shorter, because I feel like I'm sacrificing something at home by not being there.

haswell 2y ago
Having the exact opposite experience is how I realized that a major relocation is in my relatively near future. The longer the adventure, the more disconnected and odd home would feel upon return. My family/friend situation is most likely a bit different though, for reasons that would make this comment far too long. It's time for a reset (~40ish).

unethical_ban 2y ago

"What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived?" I am 36. This captures my greatest fears. That finding one woman anything less than immediately perfect will cut me off from all the small, lovely moments I have had with women across the world in my life. That if I buy a house in my imperfect city, that that's the ball game. I'm here for a decade or more (even though let's face it, I probably am anyway). I had a similar interaction with a 31 year old friend who has a beautiful wife, love of his life, and two daughters, a PhD and a position at a startup. He said "What are my goals supposed to be now?" The answer is clearly to be a good father and husband, and I think he knew and was happy with that. But it represented the sea change between youth, singleness and research vs. middle age, familial responsibility and work. "He wants his home and security, he wants to live like a sailor at sea. Beautiful loser, where will you fall, when you find out you just can't have it all?"

slothtrop 2y ago
> That finding one woman anything less than immediately perfect will cut me off from all the small, lovely moments I have had with women across the world in my life. You had those moments. You could keep trying to chase that bouncing between different partners going forward, but consider: a) more women exit the dating market with age (especially the good ones), b) there is a richness of experience also to be found with a devoted lifelong partner which can't be had with a mere fling. As time goes on, your odds of success are harsher either way, risking being alone much of the time. But in particular, good long-term prospects more rapidly diminish. Opportunity-cost goes both ways. Speaking from my own bias and experience, investing and relishing in a life-long relationship with a flawed-but-loving partner is worth it, having had the non-committal phase when I was younger. It's difficult to maximize for some characteristics in a partner. Beauty, sure, you know what you like so you can ball-park. Many traits/qualities are difficult to discern and luck-of-the-draw: reliability and trust, compatibility and love, capacity to raise children well, etc. No one is perfect and there is no unicorn, novelty is attractive in itself. My heuristic is if a partner can be assessed as "good", holding on is the right move. I think about Voltaire's Candide often, and the lesson applies here.
nemomarx 2y ago
the way I've always thought about this uncertainty - the time will pass anyway. good choice or bad, but you can't avoid the time passing by trying to carefully consider which one to choose, and indecision eats the same time away, right? as you note you're already probably living in some imperfect city. you might consider buying a house more of a commitment to it, but how much more than coasting along in apartments thinking of where to buy the house, for example? you'll live somewhere in that time either way. you might as well commit to things.

analog31 2y ago

>>> What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived? Laughing at the world for letting me exist.

MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago

> The world was good, but the world was no longer full of all these possibilities. What, then, fills the void where possibility once lived? Children fill this void

corry 2y ago
Yes, exactly! Part of maturing is realizing that you are but a link in a chain; and all the potential futures in which you saw yourself as the protagonist fade into a fuzzier (and less direct) set of potential futures which your children will shape and navigate through. Meanwhile, we are also becoming captive to the stories that we tell ourselves about ours lives and the stories that our culture tells us about our value. But though it's not easy, you can change the story you tell yourself at any time... and watch your life fill-in with possibilities again.
jansan 2y ago
It's actually that easy. I know quite a few people who try to fill the void with dogs, cats or even work, but children are the real deal.
- MaxHoppersGhost 2y ago
  You’re being downvoted and I know why: I ran into so many people in the Bay Area that felt that pets were sufficient substitutes for kids. It’s not even remotely the same level of love, emotion, and wholeness.
  - jansan 2y ago
    It's only karma points, I have more than I need :)
schnebbau 2y ago
Counterpoint: they will lock you down even harder, and you'll be dreaming of the possibilities that will present when they eventually move out.

lurk2 2y ago

I have been struggling with the same problem for quite a while. When I was in high school and my early 20s I had a group of friends I was constantly hanging out with. I realized a few months ago that I hadn't seen or talked to any of them in more than two years. We all changed and went our separate ways. I wondered if I would see them again. I found it troubling to think that I might not - but the love was still there, even knowing that we might never all be together again. It can be difficult to enjoy something for what it is (or was), rather than for what it could be. As we age we are forced to reconcile the potentiality of our dreams with the finite reality of our lives. This can be discouraging (and even frightening) but it can also allow for a much deeper enjoyment of the present moment. I do not need to worry about what something might become - I can just enjoy it for what it is here and now.

asdfman123 2y ago

As a guy who's dating in his 30s I'm just envious he's able to choose "the best woman" and doesn't feel his options are limited to the only woman in online dating who's willing to stick around

markus_zhang 2y ago
Honestly, as a man with a family and a kid, maybe, just maybe, not getting a family is a blessing, especially for people who have to try hard for that. Just maybe, fight for your passion and forget about family and kid. You might find them on the road that you avoid them.
- asdfman123 2y ago
  Yeah, it's important to live your best life and try to forget the world. But in the meantime I can pine a little.
  - markus_zhang 2y ago
    I get it. Good luck! Hope you find someone that share the same value.
bigstrat2003 2y ago
Well... that woman is de facto the best. One of the great secrets to life is that happiness is found primarily through changing your mindset, not through changing your circumstances. It's easy to say and hard to do, of course. But it is true. You'll be a lot happier if you can focus on the good qualities of whatever woman you find in your life, than if you look at her in terms of "she's just the best that I could do".
- asdfman123 2y ago
  I should know by now that complaining on the internet is seen as an invitation for people to give you bad advice, yet I still do it from time to time anyway. Who you marry is the most important decision of your life and ending up with someone you don't even like that much because she's the best you can do is a terrible idea. Who would want to be the woman in this situation? The women you meet in online dating are much lower quality than the ones you meet in real life, and a part of you is aware of that. The answer is to meet people in real life.

markus_zhang 2y ago

> Much of middle age (and beyond) is a struggle to find meaning in the face of the realization of the finiteness of your remaining days. Indeed. I'm at 40+ and is in this stage exactly. Nothing seems to be really meaningful. Work, family, kid, OK, then? I think it is ultimately a lone road as no one can help me to answer questions that only I myself can answer. I guess it's totally possible to not find an answer for the rest of the life.

pdonis 2y ago

It's true that, once you make a specific choice, other choices that you could have made in its place are gone. Once one possibility becomes actual, the other possibilities that could have taken its place are gone. But some possibility has to become actual at some point. Otherwise you aren't living at all. Life is making choices and living with the consequences. Dreaming is nice, but it's not the same as living. And if you spend all of your present imagining possible futures, you never have an actual life. In other words, what fills the void where possibility once lived is actual living.

cactusplant7374 2y ago

This is the allure of nomading for me. I can claim to live in a place and generally know it better than others staying for only a week. Right now I'm probably settling down with my wife but a part of me really hates to close off all the possibilities. I think it would be so exciting to live in a country in Africa. It really makes you think about how much you are giving up by buying a house or leasing an apartment.

PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago

> Now, not so much. It would be a huge undertaking for my wife and me to uproot our lives and move to someplace exotic and different, but even if we were to do so, we couldn't move to everywhere exotic and different. And anyway, we wouldn't be "starting a new life" there in the same way that a young person would. At your age, I left Philadelphia and ended up living in a tiny village in rural New Mexico. I had lived almost entirely in large cities since I was 10 years old. Since that move, I became a (volunteer) firefighter, and joined the boards of 3 village organizations. I learned how to shop for a week rather than a day. I've had to reassess my own landscape aesthetics, now that green is no longer the signifier of beauty (at least, not below 9000'). My construction skills have had to expand to encompass a house built of dried mud. I would say that this has been as much "a new life" as any that I started when I was younger.

fowl338 2y ago

> It would be a huge undertaking for my wife and me to uproot our lives and move to someplace exotic and different, but even if we were to do so, we couldn't move to everywhere exotic and different. And anyway, we wouldn't be "starting a new life" there in the same way that a young person would. I say this gently, but it sounds like you're trying to find reasons why you can't move anymore, none of which are very convincing. Of course you can't move to everywhere exotic and different—that was never possible even when you were young. Of course you can't start a new life there in the same way that a young person would—even as a young adult it's often impossible to integrate as deeply as someone born there. If that didn't stop you before, why does it stop you now? Do you perhaps simply like your current life enough that the incentive to move is much lower? If so, that's a great problem to have and should be celebrated.