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Nine things I learned in ninety years
- amatecha 1y agoIt feels reassuring that none of these surprised me, and I strive towards a lot of these views/learnings already. Hopefully a good sign! Packard's writings help give me a little more clarity too, especially when written in such a thoughtful way. Very cool <3
- reenorap 1y agoI still have my first edition Cave of Time. I don't think it's a first printing though but still, when they came out it was simply awesome. I got the first 6 books in a pack for my birthday, I shared them later on with my children and they loved them too when they were young.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y agoI used to think I had read that one... but after a days-long argument on the scifi SE, turns out it had been Return to the Cave of Time.
- la_bruin 1y agoI bought my son "The Whole Enchilada", the pack of 100+ Edward Packard authored CYOA books. (No RA Montgomery titles) He liked the Encyclopedia Brown books & Two Minute Mystery books I bought him so I thought he'd like the CYOA books as well since I cherished them as a kid but alas, he never got into them like I did. I'm hoping he likes Infocom text adventures better when I introduce those to him later.
- qmr 1y agoFirst time (only time?) a game made me cry, Floyd's death. 13-15 or so, Up way too late, hiding under my blanket to muffle the noise from the folding Stowaway keyboard, playing on a glowing green 160x160 LCD display on a Palm VIIx running a Z machine interpreter. Apparently the author still gets emails now and then to this day about how Floyd’s death affected players. He used to have a personal site but I can’t find it now. A lot of players have written about this moment. I think the other one I beat was Bureaucracy, by Douglas Adams. Got somewhat deep in Beyond Zork and HHGTTG, but don’t think I completed them. I remember my father getting excited when he saw those Infocom compilations on Walmart store shelves. I’ve also considered introducing those to my son. He’s 5 now. Lately having him play Mario RPG, Zelda, and Final Fantasy to practice reading. —- “Perhaps the most amazing thing about the creation of Floyd was how easy it was. The entire code and text for the character, if printed out, would perhaps run to ten pages. What’s amazing is not that I was able to create a computer game character that touched people so deeply, but how infrequently the same thing has been accomplished in the intervening two decades.” Steve Meretzky
- Lightkey 1y agoWear sunscreen?
- penetrarthur 1y agoand moisturize
- zwnow 1y ago[flagged]
- whaterinkles 1y agoThe irony in this comment is palpable.
- jader201 1y agoEncouraging others with positivity to be kind is rarely a bad thing. Dismissing others that try to spread positivity is rarely a good thing.
- zwnow 1y ago[flagged]
- vincnetas 1y agodon't you want to be in the world where people are kind? or you rather be in a world where everyone is selfish? Heard of categorical imperative?
- zwnow 1y agoYes I heard of it. Considering we already live in a selfish world, while people preach to be kind just shows me how ignorant people are. Kindness is something the poor or the sick need. Coming from the poorer side of things I never received kindness. I've seen my mum struggle in life just to get me and my brother some new clothing. People are pretentious and while a small few geow richer and richer, we are out here coping with "be kind" instead of actually making things better. Kindness is an illusion.
- mingabunga 1y agoWell, your view (and others) will be skewed by your upbringing and experiences. I value kindness.
- kayer8987 1y ago[flagged]
- Cldfire 1y agoLove these. This quote stuck out to me: > It follows, I think, that the luckier you’ve been, the more humility and generous spiritedness you need, and the unluckier you’ve been, the more compassion for yourself you need, and unfair as it may seem, the more you need irrepressible resolve.
- Stiffly6471 1y agoa completely different topic & question on this post. how is his blog made? I like the style (simple yet clear and beautiful). Anyone know what direction i should look at?
- koakuma-chan 1y agoI think this is just a PDF hosted on WordPress?
- jxmesth 1y agoWordPress
- aktuel 1y ago<meta name="generator" content="WordPress 6.8.2" />
- tim333 1y agoI don't know how he did it but it looks like it was typed in MS Word and saved as a pdf. Or similar.
- a_c 1y agoIt is the simple things that is the hardest. If anything, having children revealed many of the mentioned. To me, having children is enlightenment
- ErigmolCt 1y agoThere's something about raising kids that strips away all the fluff and forces you to confront the core of who you are
- tirant 1y agoI fully agree. It gives also a sense of impact in the world that might span over centuries or even longer. Sometimes I joke about the simple concept that we are all the descendants of a chain of ascendants that manage to successfully reproduce and have children without interruption, through all the evolutionary stages, from homo sapiens to hominids, monkeys, mammals until reaching the first life organisms. And I am not going to be the one stopping that long evolutionary chain ;)
- silexia 1y agoHaving children is the literal purpose of all life forms. Birth control is the worst thing that humanity has invented.
- grugagag 1y agoBirth control is not to not have children but to control when you have children.
- Night_Thastus 1y agoSort of... Many people do not want to hear this. Many would point to economic factors as the main problem. But I think that when people are educated about the risks and responsibilities of parenthood and given the choice of doing so (birth control, abortion, etc.) - the simple fact is that they CHOOSE not have enough kids to meet the replacement rate. The reason you can see this is because the lowering birth rates aren't limited to one or two countries. It is every industrialized country. Every single one. If the issues were purely economic, those countries with amazing parental leave and better social nets would avoid the problem - but they don't. I'm not sure what that kind of future for humanity will look like long term. It will be an interesting reckoning in ~100-200 years.
- ensocode 1y agoBeautiful. Thanks!
- ropable 1y ago> what an outsized role is played by luck This speaks to me. So much of our life circumstances are beyond our control (parents, genetics, geography, society, wider economy, etc.) It's humbling, how much of our success or failure is influenced by pure chance.
- whiplash451 1y agoYou can still work to increase your luck surface, though.
- oulipo2 1y ago[flagged]
- flanked-evergl 1y agoAn even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish school, get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. We are doing a disservice to our fellow man by not telling them this truth.
- nly 1y agoThose are some strangely arbitrary not-virtues.
- Kurtz79 1y agoSince he might not be known to most (especially a younger audience), the author is a writer best known for many of the Choose Your Own Adventure books that were hugely successful in the 80s. Jimmy Maher wrote about them recently https://www.filfre.net/2025/09/choose-your-own-adventure/ https://www.filfre.net/2025/09/choose-your-own-adventure/
- colordrops 1y agoHe's also the grandfather of David Cornswet, the actor playing Superman in the latest movie.
- mi_lk 1y agonice trivia
- isolli 1y agoThanks for sharing. This part resonated :) "Today, it’s all too easy to see all of the limitations and infelicities of The Cave of Time and its successors: a book of 115 pages that had, as it proudly trumpeted on the cover, 40 possible endings meant that the sum total of any given adventure wasn’t likely to span more than about three choices if you were lucky. But to a lonely, hyper-imaginative eight-year-old, none of that mattered. I was well and truly smitten, not so much by what the book was as by what I wished it to be, by what I was able to turn it into in my mind by the sheer intensity of that wish."
- nervousvarun 1y agoThese books were incredibly important to me as an 80s kid. Was a voracious reader in general but absolutely loved these because they had replay value! I remember scouring through these on long family trips in the car to find every possible ending. The parallels with modern video games are obvious.
- isolli 1y agoIn fact, this inspired me to buy such a book for my 9-yo son! They've grown in size, apparently (250-300 pages). Let's see how, in the age of omnipresent screens, he likes it :)
- megamix 1y ago...and use LaTeX Thanks for sharing this <3
- koakuma-chan 1y agoWhy would you use LaTeX when there is Typst?
- ayongpm 1y agoDone! Typst: https://typst.app/project/p5Ivi8TSuNmFpkoSfoJ06r https://typst.app/project/p5Ivi8TSuNmFpkoSfoJ06r PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV-yxI4sBS5gg4belO6hXuFvSFWj59tE/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV-yxI4sBS5gg4belO6hXuFvSFW...
- wgbowley 1y agoThank you, Kevin, for sharing this, and thank you for your insights, Edward. As a young man without a father anymore, it's always a pleasure learning about people's life experiences to help me be my best self without years of trial and error
- shubhamjain 1y agoIn my late 20s, I felt disillusioned with this kind of wisdom. Found it too simplistic and not enough to cope with the fact that existence is absurd. I am 32 now, and I can't help think that simplicity is all that there is: curate a happy state of mind, meaningful relationships, active lifestyle, and maybe some audacious goal to keep yourself busy. Thinking that there's some higher state of mind (via spirituality, for eg) is delusion at best. I feel everything follows the Midwit meme progression [1]: at first you use crude, obvious methods because you don’t know better. Later, complexity is alluring, you drown yourself in optimisations and finding the bestest tools and methods. In the end you come back to the same conclusion: simplicity was the most reliable tool the whole time. [1]: https://medium.com/@obandoandrew8/bell-curve-meme-avoiding-the-middle-with-statistics-6301a8f5cfa1 https://medium.com/@obandoandrew8/bell-curve-meme-avoiding-t...
- shark1 1y ago> "...happiness to become one’s default state of mind." I have read psychologists saying that "happiness as default state" is a social construct myth of modern times. You cannot be happy all the time, the fact of being unhappy sometimes is what drives you self-reflect and to chase meaning to your life. To feel pleasure you need to feel some pain.
- adammarples 1y agoThat's not what they said, they said a default state. You can't always be happy, but you can default to it when you have nothing else going on.
- tirant 1y agoI would call that more content than happy. Interestingly in languages like Spanish, 'contento' is almost overlapping semantically with the word happy ('feliz') in its day-to-day usage, and I find it a more adequate usage of the concept. So content is basically the baseline when no needs are impacting your state-of-mind, and happy would be the consequence of a positive event or result.
- adammarples 1y agoI agree
- randomtoast 1y ago> You cannot be happy all the time, the fact of being unhappy sometimes is what drives you self-reflect and to chase meaning to your life. Each time you go through a cycle of honest self-reflection, you grow emotionally stronger. When a similar situation arises again, it will not affect you as deeply as it did the first time. After enough cycles, you may reach a point where your default state remains largely unaffected by such events. This equanimity, that comes with a deep inner calm, allows a naturally happy default state to emerge.
- xandrius 1y agoFirst let's start off that psychology is not like other fields, as it's often theories/opinions. That statement is someone's way to describe what they found out to be best for them. Not an axiom for everyone. And default doesn't mean always, it means that one's general state is happiness. For me, for that statement to make sense, the word "happiness" would be replaced with something like "being glad" (gladness?), as I always feel glad of myself/my life but I see happiness as something more active, like being sad. While I see this gladness as a passive state. But again, that's my personal take.
- bambax 1y agoNothing earth-shattering but quite true nonetheless (or it may be the reason all this is common knowledge is because it's true). This made me smile: > Harvard philosopher Christine Korsgaard It sounds like a honorific title to outline that this person teaches at Harvard, but it's in fact the opposite. It needs to be said she's from Harvard because most people have never heard of her. "Königsberg teacher Immanuel Kant" would be funny.
- psychoslave 1y agoWell, "der Grosse Chinese Von Konigsberg" was already attached as title to Kant by Nietzsche.
- tclancy 1y agoThat’s certainly an insight to spend pixels on.
- thehours 1y agoI was hoping for more of the author’s own perspective over those ninety years. Instead, it read more like a stitching project of other people's ideas. In particular the barrage of quote fragments disrupted the flow and made it harder for me to engage with the main point of each section.
- FacelessJim 1y agoIt is often the case, that one’s perspective is a personal synthesis of external ideas. The act of quoting great past authors is also a way of recognizing where your influences come from. To describe by association how you think, or aspire to. These are very difficult topics to properly talk about and correctly express all the nuance in the feeling that you try to convey, and many authors are quoted because they nailed a particular description, evocative of the feeling an author is trying to express and that he feels he can’t do a better job at explaining. Similarly to how you can narrate a story through a sequence of pictures you can narrate an idea through a sequence of raw concepts, encapsulated in quotes.
- Kye 1y agoIt turns out all the aliens in Darmok were very old and that's why they spoke in reference and metaphor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok Meanwhile, I communicate exclusively in Star Trek references.
- psychoslave 1y ago>“It’s not so difficult to be a buddha,” says Thich Nhat Hanh. “Just keep your awakening alive all day long.” And it’s not too complicated to be a permanent tightrope walker either: just stay calm, still and balanced. While ninjas with ignited swords jump all around you and acid-proof sharks lurks at you from the sour sea waiting your fall. Sleepwalking, that’s a perfect title for our current Zeitgeist indeed. Ok, that’s a lot of "witty remark I could make regarding" the text (and avoid doing instead). So, let’s take a bit of these advices in practice. Thank you Edward Packard for sharing with us some final reflections on life after a long one, displaying humility while presenting a vibrantly human figure.
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y agoI wonder if it's a mistranslation and Hanh means it's not complicated to be a Buddha. Many things in life are very simple, and also very hard.
- Lyngbakr 1y agoI'm sure most folks here have seen the talk, but Rich Hickey's Simple Made Easy# is a superb discussion about this in the context of software. # https://youtu.be/SxdOUGdseq4?si=fbRmd27oY80LZxw6 https://youtu.be/SxdOUGdseq4?si=fbRmd27oY80LZxw6
- psychoslave 1y agoFound it last month, don’t remember how, but I did share it with the rest of my team. Excellent talk, it does have many "eternal" points to rebound on the essay vocabulary.
- ferrous69 1y agoI read it as Hanh being sarcastic, making a joke.
- Dumblydorr 1y agoBuddha would probably say it’s very easy to “be” a Buddha. To become one, on the other hand, is hard in my opinion, takes thousands of hours of practice. Once you’re there however, it is open effortless awareness and not hard to maintain, so they say! Most practitioners get tiny glimpses of aspects of enlightenment, but to integrate and sustain it all is very rare indeed. I wonder if there even 100 Boddhisatvas in the world
- ErigmolCt 1y agoIt's unsettling how often we think we’re in control when we’re really just chasing impulses or clinging to stories we’ve told ourselves. The bit about sleepwalking through life resonated... Reminds me of how easy it is to let years slip by on autopilot, especially in high-functioning careers
- K0balt 1y agoI am happy that in my 60 years of life to have achieved most of this, but would have been glad and better off having read it in my early 30s.
- ErigmolCt 1y agoReading something like this earlier might have helped, sure, but sometimes you have to live through the detours to really get the message.
- piva00 1y agoThat's the curse of wisdom, in your 60s you can tell it's advice that you in your 30s should've taken but probably in your 30s you wouldn't have had the experiences that would make them be seen as good advice at the time. Wisdom is frustrating since to be able to fully absorb it you need to have lived experiences that cements it, it can't be generally taught.
- K0balt 1y agoDefinitely. It would take present-self visiting past-self to make me actually understand, to be sure.
- fasteo 1y agoFrom a really quick read, good advice and a great read — though, as he admits in the introduction, luck played its role in how things turned out: >>> That I’d survived thus far, scathed but in happy circumstances, was thanks neither to grit, determination, nor wise counsel, but mostly luck. Would things have been different if he’d lived by his own advice earlier? Maybe. But it’s impossible to know. Pushing back a little: don't underestimate luck. It can be deeply unfair, and it can distort our sense of what is deserved or earned. This is not to say that principles, effort, wisdom don't matter. But so does the randomness of where, when, and under what conditions we live and act.
- sarabande 1y agoI enjoyed this piece, including references to the Stoics and Spinoza. It preaches serenity, goodwill, composure, etc. As someone in their 30s with children, work and a generally busy life, I wonder if anyone can recommend some pieces with more direct application - that is, in this vein, but perhaps an operational / how-to guide. Sometimes, it's hard to translate principles to action.
- aaronax 1y agohttps://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/ https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/
- goshx 1y agoThanks for sharing this.
- squigz 1y agoThere's some fairly strange and dated advice in here, like entering a door before a woman being impolite (unless it's a revolving door; those require strength, which women do not have?) or being emasculated by shaking hands while sitting down?
- imp0cat 1y agoNope, those are still valid. Revolving doors can really be quite hard to get started even if you're a strong (and heavy) man. https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/opening-a-golf-umbrella.html https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/opening-a-golf-umbre... - Hey! I feel attacked! :D
- JoMe2025 1y agohttps://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html https://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html
- tclancy 1y agoAs someone in their 50s with a kid, work and a busy life, I’ve found the unlovable fact of it is these things resist a How To guide. It’s sort of like the thing about anyone who wants to be a politician shouldn’t be allowed to. If someone is distilling these things into a How To, at best, they grasp the ideas but lack the perspective that their lived experience isn’t anyone else’s, so the context is all lost. The bits and pieces that I’ve come to think which map up with the author’s tend to be found in books that lack a goal or a point. As an aside, the Internet-driven grindset that everything, even a hobby, should have a point is one to resist with all your might. Think of the times you laughed loudest playing with your kids; I doubt you all were trying to achieve a goal beyond being together having fun.
- trilogic 1y agoRead the article and Was looking for the why, ofc that was to bold of me.
- ayongpm 1y agoWhat a beautiful writing. I can't resist the urge to typeset it: https://typst.app/project/p5Ivi8TSuNmFpkoSfoJ06r https://typst.app/project/p5Ivi8TSuNmFpkoSfoJ06r PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV-yxI4sBS5gg4belO6hXuFvSFWj59tE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV-yxI4sBS5gg4belO6hXuFvSFW...
- a_bonobo 1y ago>Once you’ve achieved that — once you are virtuously selfconstituted — you will be self-assured and have reason to be so. You will be emotionally invulnerable to being pushed around. I don't feel that's true? I am currently in a massive turmoil at work because my line-manager is breaking all ethics rules, with higher leadership caring little. Because I try to follow my values I've spoken up numerous times and all I got for that is a mountain of stress. Turns out I am not emotionally invulnerable.
- larksimian 1y agoI was thinking along parallel lines. If you have fuck-you money then sure: you just leave when asked to do something imoral. But if you are materially dependent on the job then you have battling imperatives that will stress you. The first thought that popped into my head here was, "well I have no kids, so yeah if forced to choose between job and morality I'd just bounce and figure it out later". But if I DID have dependents it's harder. I will say if the choice is between being imoral and _personally_ poor ... I'd like to think I'd rather just be poor. edit. Then again this is also on us as people to anticipate and prepare for these dilemmas and not let ourselves be trapped in toxic situations. I suck at this and don't do any real forward planning like having a lot of savings or having a backup plan to getting out of a bad job. But that's on me. Hope it works out alright for you!
- nlitened 1y ago> But if you are materially dependent on the job then you have battling imperatives that will stress you I would like to offer a different perspective for you. I’ve never been shouted at in my work life. And I also know a few people who complain about being shouted at, at all places of work they’ve had — and it’s difficult for me to empathize with them. At some point I understood that I never allowed my coworkers or managers to shout at me, and in the rare occasions when their voice was raised, I had made myself very clear, and I quit on the spot had the situation ever happened again. As a result, I’ve always had very pleasant and respectful working conditions, with self-respecting people who I know will quit if abused, so I treat them with respect as well. On the other hand, people who endure humiliation by imagining contrived moral dilemmas about why it’s good and right for them to continue suffering — suffer for decades wherever they are employed, as they seem to filter out and stick to workplaces where this is acceptable. Are there really no jobs for your talent where you can be moral, or you’re prepared to endure immorality (and to be faithful employee to such businesses) until you’re old and frail?
- submeta 1y ago> To guard against self-deception – recognize biases, avoid wishful thinking, and question entrenched beliefs This is such an immensely important point. Seeing my current reality, bad and good, have been one of the most essential elements in taking the right decisions and steps.
- Rochus 1y agoWell. Reminds me of "Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations" from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", just with more quotations.
- proto-n 1y agoAnd along similar lines, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- smitty1e 1y ago> what an outsized role is played by luck There is no luck; there is only free will interacting with destiny in some context.
- wnscooke 1y agoEP did not say he achieved #1; about #2, "I spent much of my life in this state, and I know all about it."; "I first considered what seemed to be in my best interest, or, more often, gave no thought to the matter at all." is his take on #3; "my normal slouch" in #4; he makes no claim to have gained an eternal perspective, merely quoting others in #5; that "cloud of uncertainty" gives little confidence in #6; being 90, he had little to say about #7 sadly; the reader has to guess whether he was lucky or not in #8; and finally #9 is likewise devoid of actual personal recounting of what he has. All in all, I find "advice" and "what I've learned" tomes by *older* people to be unhelpful. When someone has spent much other their life living contrary to the advice they are now dishing out, I question it. I prefer advice from someone currently living life, learning and adjusting and growing now... not at the end when it doesn't matter.
- CPLX 1y agoDo you prefer to fly with pilots who have never landed a plane?
- wnscooke 1y agoWhat I've read in his essay is that he piloted a flight simulator for most of his life, then read a manual and some things other people who wrote about flying and landing. So, yes, as I said, I prefer flying with pilots who have learned to land, are continuing to learn, and are getting better each time, with bigger planes and more people.
- jonnybgood 1y ago> I prefer advice from someone currently living life, learning and adjusting and growing now... not at the end when it doesn't matter. He spent time to think about what he's learned and decided to put it in writing at 94 years old. He seems to still be avid reader at his age. He still thinks about ideas of living a fulfilling life. It seems to me he's still currently living life, learning and adjusting and growing now. There may even be a lesson there to having a long life: It always matters. What do you consider the end?
- no-exist 1y ago
- jrecursive 1y agoHN comments are atom-shredding, trite and exhausting. Isn't it wonderful?
- ezekiel68 1y agoGreetings, fellow Buddha.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago> 6) to guard against self-deception Honesty begins with and includes being honest with yourself. There are a great many people who expend great cognitive dissonance mental gymnastics entrenching themselves into and lashing their identity to a particular group or side of an issue, e.g., climate change denial. The only people they are fooling are fools including themselves.
- dsiegel2275 1y agoWow, I didn't realize at first this is Edward Packard - of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" book series fame. CYOA were the first real series of books that I got into and devoured, probably around age 9 or 10. Great to see that he is still writing.
- burnt-resistor 1y ago10) Cultivate maximally useful, effective purpose(s) and reason(s) for living soon, but preferably, here and now. People without purpose tend to skew sad, chaotic, self-absorbed, and/or dangerous.
- tclancy 1y agoAnd people who think they have a purpose tend to skew all of those things too. Especially dangerous.
- ghm2199 1y agoLived-experiences, this is what is important to understand #3-5. Being able to experience this through practicnng vipassana, after spending a long time being self-centered for a long time, I can speak to the fact that there are a few things to truly come to this level of metaphysical realization 1. A bit of Luck(in finding/stumbling upon these) and psychological safety to try something that can change your mind on abandoning the ego and embracing these values. 2. One cannot be convinced of abandoning the ego(I, me, mine, ours) by merely intellectual explanation of these things(Psychology and Neroscience have yet to be able to explain with evidence why even after experiencing profound things the ego centric view sticks on).
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- mattgreenrocks 1y ago> to guard against self-deception The greatest gift my counselor taught me was helping me realize the extent to which I could bullshit myself. I'm not sure I'm necessarily much better at stopping it, but instead now realize that my urge to adapt to a situation can be maladaptive, and my brain will happily retcon a million reasons why it has to be that way rather than chance the ego dying in the face of something unknown.
- syzygyhack 1y ago"seek an eternal perspective" is such a beautifully open way to posit that concept. There's a lot of nihilism in the world, and this is the way beyond it, whatever flavour your salvation happens to come in.
- gilbetron 1y agoI dunno. I'm on the older end, but nowhere near 90, and I've read a lot of these takes, and heard similar from a lot of older people in my lives. While there are good thoughts, often they come from people who didn't do that in their lives and achieved great things because they weren't chasing peace, but chasing success, status, adventure, and the such. When I read something like this now, I ask if the person writing it lived that way most of their lives, or lived some other way and now are looking back wishing they had lived another (untested) way. I've heard too many old people tell me things like, "appreciate your family" when they were always gone working and built up an amazing life for their families. When my mother told it to me, I believed it because that's the way she lived. Survivor bias, is what it comes down to. Beware successful people that tell you platitudes!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- bwfan123 1y agoYou could ignore where it came from and evaluate it on its own merits. I had no idea who Packard was - initially i thought it was Packard of hp fame (lol). And I did not entirely agree with some things in the piece. However, it seemed authentic (not ai generated), was brief, and provoked some reflection which is what I expect from any reading.
- squigz 1y agoJust because they mightn't have lived that way doesn't mean they haven't learned, and are trying to pass that lesson onto others.
- danielmarkbruce 1y ago100% this. It's so bad in my experience that you should basically never listen to someone successful. While there are going to be exceptions, most of the time they either give you a wishlist as you mention, or completely misunderstand what happened.
- jebarker 1y agoThis is wonderful. I humbly believe discovering and applying a similar set of ideas is what got me through the slump of mid-life crisis and in a much more peaceful place now in all aspects of life.
- revanwjy 1y ago[flagged]
- nine_zeros 1y agoHot take but something I learned over many years - for anyone who wants to hear it: The easiest way to a happy life is to follow the motto "live and let live". Live - your life to the fullest. Use your liberty to build your own life. Don't sleepwalk into anything. Let live - don't hurt or interfere with other's liberties. How others live is none of your business.
- turnsout 1y agoIf a person in the west is thoughtful enough and lives long enough, they will eventually either discover Buddhism, or accidentally re-invent it. (See: Stoicism, Post-modernism). Usually the thing that's left out is Buddhism's ethical foundation. Happy to see that Edward Packard went straight to the source.
- fergie 1y agoI'm impressed that a 94 year-old has had the mental agility to (seemingly) embrace then reject Facebook.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago> The ancient Greek and Roman Stoics believed that it’s wise to contemplate death well ahead of the event. I suppose their idea was that it’s desirable to contemplate death’s inevitability so as not to be shocked when it’s staring you in the face. That seems like a shallow interpretation. Rather, contemplating death ahead of the event refocuses you on your life at the present and hopefully causes you pause to consider if what you are doing right now is meaningful.
- jjulius 1y ago>Rather... I think both ideas can be true at the same time.
- l5870uoo9y 1y agoMany prominent Stoics advocated the use of “negative visualizations” for a number of reasons. One argument for using negative visualizations was that by imagining potential misfortunes, one could prevent and avert them. Another argument was that they believed misfortune strikes hardest those who believe life is a bed of roses: > “But no matter how hard we try to prevent bad things from happening to us, some will happen anyway. Seneca therefore points to a second reason for contemplating the bad things that can happen to us. If we think about these things, we will lessen their impact on us when, despite our efforts at prevention, they happen: “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.” Misfortune weighs most heavily, he says, on those who “expect nothing but good fortune.” Epictetus echoes this advice: We should keep in mind that “all things everywhere are perishable.” If we fail to recognize this and instead go around assuming that we will always be able to enjoy the things we value, we will likely find ourselves subject to considerable distress when the things we value are taken from us.” A third argument put forward by the Stoics is that the use of negative visualizations makes you realize what is truly valuable to you and appreciate it: > They recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value—that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job. Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would. This technique—let us refer to it as negative visualization—was employed by the Stoics at least as far back as Chrysippus. It is, I think, the single most valuable technique in the Stoics’ psychological tool kit. And a fourth argument is the one you highlight, that thinking about death makes us realize how precious life is: > Why, then, do the Stoics want us to contemplate our own death? Because doing so can dramatically enhance our enjoyment of life.” (All quotations are from the book “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy – William B. Irvine”, which comes highly recommended.)
- spacebuffer 1y ago> 3) to consider what others may be thinking and feeling Personally I find myself often considering how other people might feel too much and end up being a people pleaser, so I need to work on that aspect of my social skills
- elmomle 1y agoIt's really essential that one have (1) down (to be self-constituted) down in order for (3) not to lead to a circle of confusion. If I feel very assured in my own relationship with the universe, that doesn't depend on how anybody else sees me, and my security does not depend on others being happy with me. And when I don't need to make anybody happy, connection and compassion arise naturally from a place of curiosity--there are feelings of abundance and security underlying it rather than confusion or anxiety. That sounds simple but the self-constitution part takes years of serious searching and work; some things (good therapists, good meditation teachers, good books, consistent practice, etc.) help the journey along, but there is no quick route.
- spacebuffer 1y agoAny particular books you recommend? people keep mentioning _how to win friends and influence people_ and I am not sure if it's just mindless productivity gurus hype
- elmomle 1y agoRight now I'm reading As It Is by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche (if you don't have previous experience with Buddhism I'd recommend starting with something broader like Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, and find yourself a Buddhist meditation group!), and Self-Therapy by Jay Earley. Something else very much written for an intellectually-oriented audience but that gives inklings of a ladder into non-intellectual being, is Unwinding Anxiety by Judson A. Brewer. I liked it at the time, though I found I needed more help practicing the things that that book suggests, which led me deeper into Buddhism and eventually towards Dzogchen. I wouldn't recommend How to Win Friends and Influence People, it is all about fine-tuning behavior to make a better impression on people, and that doesn't sound like the heart of the issue you described. The heart of that issue _could_ be that one clings to mind-concepts rather than trusting the whole being and feeling a connection with the universe. If so, one must slowly learn to trust the felt experience of life, to know that gut feelings and open-heartedness are just as important as thoughts (moreso in many respects), to trust that one can relax one's whole being and be carried by an infinite love within. It is a gradual progression.
- kinnth 1y agoI really love reading the wisdom of older people. Society really dismisses everyone over 80, but I find myself having deep interesting connections with a few people much older than myself (38). Something society always neglects is that everyone goes through the same thoughts time and time again. We all make mistakes and we learn our own way, but when someone's 90, they really have done a lot of it all before. Even if we think everything is different, human's really are very similar. We all have emotions, we all have desires and we are all deep down social creatures. So I would only encourage more people to step out and try to make an honest, deep, friendship with someone a lot older than you. It can really help give you guidance and perspective.
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- efsavage 1y ago> they really have done a lot of it all before Not even just done it before, but done it multiple times. This is where experience is forged into wisdom.
- ljf 1y agoAnd in addition they got to watch their friends/family/coworkers succeed and fail many times over. While it can be very tempting to say 'we tried that before and it didn't work' - the key is people who can understand why it didn't work, or who can encourage you to make your own mistakes and be there to guide you back when needed.
- raleighm 1y agoExactly. Wisdom sometimes comes from having the right thing to do already articulated in your head (which itself took some reps to articulate), seeing yourself not follow it, and seeing the consequences.
- imiric 1y ago
- wvlia5 1y agoOne of the effects I value most from cannabis is that it makes me "awake and aware" the first 1 or 2 hours. I haven't been able to sustain that state sober, but it's good to know that I sleepwalk at least.
- lostmsu 1y agoOf all these items I feel like mortality is overrated.
- CamperBob2 1y agoA bit of a contrarian take: the effect of many of the aphorisms and much of the wisdom in this document is to empower bad people and allow bad things to happen unimpeded. All at the expense of the greater good, or at least your own. He quotes Spinoza: "A man strong in character hates no one, is angry with no one... is indignant with no one, scorns no one..." What I'm reading is that Spinoza never met a Donald Trump, even though I know very well he encountered even worse in his life. I'd need to be not just a buddha, but the capital-B Buddha himself, to find relevance in this advice. If I somehow managed to do so, and if everyone else followed my enlightened example in a Kantian sense, things would really suck. Sometimes we need to hate. Otherwise we wouldn't have the capacity.
- RobRivera 1y agoI thoroughly enjoyed this read, and affirm many of these observations. I find it incredibly challenging to come to these ideas without having walked a path which consistently challenges someone who strives to succeed through challenge, without a mentor. Ofc this is just my opinion.
- wetpaws 1y ago[dead]
- vimutti 1y agoI love reading wisdom and insights like this. Are there other similar things out there on the web? Anyone can share? (Wish there are more posts like this on HN)
- unstirrer 1y agoFunnily enough, I first came across Thich Nhat Hanh last week while listening to the new Djo (Joe Keery) album. One of the songs on it is a tribute to him; it's quite pretty: https://open.spotify.com/track/6HqSlNhH83iWRU2nTZkiUj https://open.spotify.com/track/6HqSlNhH83iWRU2nTZkiUj
- programmertote 1y agoI'm approaching mid-forties. As a former Buddhist (up to like the age of 13) turned atheist, I find all the points the author shared in this PDF agreeable. Being self-reliant (being able to find happiness even when alone); being self-aware; being aware of others (including others' feelings, motives, perspectives); focusing on the journey; acknowledging that 'luck' has a non-negligible role in one's life; preparing our minds for inevitable death with calm acceptance; so many things the author's view resounded with in my opinion and experience.
- bwfan123 1y agoAs an older person, I found these agreeable too and well articulated. I could put the nine bullets into 2 broad buckets. 1) and 6) pertain to being in the ego - but one that is principled, seeking clarity of cognition and be willing to correct self-deception. truth and intellect. 2), 3), 4), 5), 7), 8) and 9) pertain to awareness, being in the here and now, dissolving of the ego, universal consciousness, truth and happiness. The first bucket posits an ego but one that is principled, and the second bucket seeks to dissolve the ego and attempt to tune into the cosmic energies. yin and yang.
- sir_unix 1y agoThere's an increasing amount of neuroscience and psychology research that supports all of these conclusions. In short, our brains haven't evolved as quickly as the environment around us, and our nervous system (e.g., amygdala) tends to react agnostically to sensory, environmental, contextual, etc. inputs. If we are not aware of those reactions and don't redirect them toward "good" weights (taking the definition of "good" and "bad" as Packard describes in Lesson #1), then our brain's neural net just reinforces the weights in a "bad" direction. The point is that if these lessons come off too "woo woo," spiritual, and rooted in philosophy to you, know that the science of the brain (and thus, the mind) supports all of these conclusions, as well. Specifically, the lessons laid out herein are requisite for long-term and sustaining contentment from a scientific perspective, as well. I am working on software to deliver this knowledge to people along with tools to effectively implement habits that can help them live better (i.e., more content and purpose-driven) lives. Lastly, if this read sparked something in your mind and you want to read more, I suggest reading "Something to do with Paying Attention" by David Foster Wallace. It's an incredible novella that, as the title may suggest, deals exclusively with Packard's notion "to keep aware and awake." Nihilism is the devil and we must defeat him.
- bikamonki 1y agoLuck favors the bold. One acts boldly because one feels lucky.
- nektro 1y agothese took 90 years?
- damethos 1y agoLoved it. I am printing this as a booklet and placing it in my bookshelf. We should all try and listen to more experienced people more often. Even a small story from someones life can be eye opening.
- NemoNobody 1y agoCoderintherye - I really like that, first I've seen it, well done!