George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
The things you lean on / are things that don't last
User ID: 107
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
It's a line from the film The Princess Bride, which I have shown to my two sons, albeit when they were younger. A fun movie. (You may already know this )
Having written that, I admit that the line does resonate as a bitter truth, but not in any sort of complete version. For some, I have little doubt that life is almost completely pain, unforgiving, constant, merciless. I would like to think even for those people there are moments of calm, or peace, even happiness--or, if I really push it, beauty, though that may be too optimistic. And certainly I have had years, particularly my teens, where everything seemed rotten inside, people seemed rotten, false, groups even worse, all the world a shithole, full of liars and thieves and brutality. And you do not need to look far to find people, even adults, who will nod in agreement to all that.
I'm not going to attempt to lay out the glory here or convince you of life's endless bounty. But having kids--even when I know someday one or both of them may have to watch me, as I watched my own father, die in a weakened, much diminished state--provides, or has the possibility of providing (it provides me, let's say that) a great deal of seemingly boundless joy--bundled of course with pain, frustration, anger, etc. Like life itself.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
Congratulations in any case, to the mother down the road (years, perhaps). As a dad I could never share my wife's physical upheaval during those years. Even now (when our sons are teens) I suspect in moments of the inevitable subterfuge and insolence that she feels differently than I do. "Your mother carried you in her womb for nine months, is it too much to ask that you take the goddam plates to the sink?" (I do not say this, certainly not in this way.)
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
Neither here nor there but until shortly before his death I had never heard of Bourdain, and have yet to read anything by him or see anything with him in it. Sometimes Japan really is isolating.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
Yes.
No.
Not interesting, and anyway I'm already too self-revealing by half on this site. I've lived in Japan since late 1998, anyway.
What's your story?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
28d ago
May I offer a reply that is neither a suggested location nor anything else you will probably want to read, and may in fact be advice you do not want to hear and did not ask for?
Yes? Great.
You mention having children. Wherever you go, if you go anywhere, should be chosen with their childhood, upbringing, and environment in mind. I say this as a parent who has made very specific choices, some of them possibly wrong (living extremely far from one set of grandparents who would have loved to regularly see grandchildren and who are both now dead) but also some probably right. I include language in this (if you don't understand the language it's still a very safe bet that your child or children will outpace your fluency within five years or less. Which is fine, but means also you'll have difficulties dealing with their school--teachers, other parents, their friends, their friends' parents, etc.) Also schooling, and if you homeschool or whatever there is the notion of isolating your child in a possibly unhelpful way from potential peers.
Basically if you're going to have kids --and do, certainly, if you feel you want to--they ought to be arguably a main factor contributing to your other life choices. I cannot stress this enough. Also you will find many who disagree with me (even here, no doubt), but I'm right and they're wrong.
My train is here, but I think I said what I wanted. Good luck.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
27d ago
I don't disagree with anything you've written here.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
27d ago
ACE numbers, to my knowledge, are almost entirely about interpersonal experiences (Did anyone in your family go to prison? is an exception but not by much) and have little to do with the physical environment of the child. A kid could be raised in BFE and have a non significant ACE score. If the parents neglect, slap, insult, etc. that's going to show up in the ACE score.
That's very kind of you to write. Thank you.
Edit: Downvoted. TheMotte is... whimsical today.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
27d ago
You may have me confused with @SkookumTree, may he live long, and prosper.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
26d ago
Has anyone else watched, or did anyone else watch as a child, the documentary series World At War? The link I just provided is to all 26 episodes on Youtube. Not the best resolution, but really this must be one of the best documentary series about WWII ever produced, not least because of the interviews with men who were actually in the war and who are now dead (it was made in 1973.) Narrated by Laurence Olivier. Highly recommended. I remember my dad watching it as it was released--he'd sit in his lounge chair, and I can still recall the theme playing. I got bored quickly and usually only watched a few minutes, but I was a kid. Recently I've been watching the whole thing.
Not really fun, however, so I'm not sure it's appropriate to this thread. I didn't want to put this in the main forum and I am not interested in a culture war take.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
25d ago
I will do, thank you!
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
25d ago
There is an episode on Burma, yes, Episode 14 "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow" but I agree there's not as much about the Pacific theater. I hadn't thought of that while watching (I'm on episode 20 of 26), I suppose I was thinking it would be covered after VE Day.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
24d ago
I agree it's weird. Most people do not make top level posts here, so it's largely pointless to follow people.
parole officer
revolver
Separate from the odd juxtaposition here, I don't think aviator glasses are sufficient for staring at an eclipse. Is this a troll post?
Edit: Almost certainly.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
23d ago
I expect all of it and this kind of sarcasm in my view belongs elsewhere.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
23d ago
Supplements (including vitamin supplements) are near criminally under researched in the context of regular consumption by humans.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
23d ago
Interesting response. I have always assumed, or more correctly, hoped, that psychiatrists had some degree of expertise beyond psychologists that was not simply the ability to, as you have put it, "dish out drugs."
The dishing out of drugs (for whatever) seems very (read: too to my way of thinking) common in Japan at least. Considering most medical interventions are created with the general human in mind, and are therefore prone to error when prescribed for individuals (whose idiopathic digestive, cardiovascular, endocrine, and central nervous systems are all slightly different), I am sometimes surprised medicines work at all. In fact I doubt that many of them do without causing other issues (see: statins). MDs at least in my own experience as a non-King with no real personal physician of my own, seem more likely to send people to the pharmacy (where, at least here, there is often rigorous questioning and examination of one's 薬手帳 or personal drug diary that everyone's supposed to carry to the doctor, that has every prescription drug you've taken for the last however many months/years logged.) than sit down and ask about diet, exercise, family history, etc. to get at whatever the hell may be causing the current complaint.
I guess I am hoping psychiatrists are at least interested in possible causes--of, say, depression--rather than being focused, from the moment introductions are uttered, on measuring the patient up for which drug will induce the sweet, sweet, happiness (or whatever).
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
22d ago
I am not completely unaware that this kind of research is out there, but I think my assumption has always been that psychiatrists are much more aware of the cutting edge of such research, and can therefore apply whatever conclusions have been made to individual cases--assuming individual cases are explored to some degree and not (simply) medicated away. I realize on writing this that I sound possibly naive here, but I, and I assume most people even if possibly not most people here, make this same assumption about most doctors, including gastroenterologists, endocrinologists, surgeons, etc That if I have some physical ailment that they've done the time in med school to not just prescribe some inhibitor or agonist, but they also have some educated guess as to what might have gotten me to the point of peptic ulcer, or insulin resistance, or whatever. Were a doctor to say something like "You're pre diabetic, here's a pill" I see that as a failure of medicine.
Likewise, the psychiatrist. I understand the mind is a locked box to some degree.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
22d ago
Thames isn't a name of a person or video creator it's taken from the logo of Thames television
Really? It takes all kinds, I guess. I was on the train this morning, enjoying a rare day of sunshine (it's been very rainy) and I had to stop the wave of nausea before the title card when I think I saw some kid fellating a dog. Maybe it wasn't a dog. Maybe he was biting. Biting is worse, but just barely. (Edit: Or is it? I don't even want to know.) The perverse part of my soul that I try to keep down as much as possible wanted to pause and rewind. Better Me won. I dragged the bar a bit and then saw what looked like a few snapshots of men with malformed faces, I guess to show, what, malformed faces are bad therefore Indians are bad? And a woman getting kicked very hard in the stomach to the point that she went flying. I saw a man dying as he was struck by a train.
I stopped after that. I probably didn't flinch, but revolted seems like the right word.
I stand behind the notion that you shouldn't dismiss a whole piece of art unless you've watched/read/listened to it in its entirety, so I won't dismiss it, but damn.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
22d ago
This "talking to the poor bastard" seems to me the point of the profession, or at least, to my mind, should be the pointy edge. The first step. The main thing.
I have precious little faith in psychologists, having known several in my life, but more in psychologists than therapists. Psychiatrists I would hold in highest regard; if there's a hierarchy in my mind they'd be up there at the top of the pyramid.
I suppose your speaking of cure here is relevant. There is this sense that we need cures and of course for many things cures are exactly what we need. I'm just as interested in causes and possible reversibility. Like when your liver is going, taking drugs to help the liver is less of a helpful strategy than quitting alcohol or whatever else you're doing to destroy your liver. That one is doing. Not you in particular.
I don't mean to come at you like this in any sort of aggressive way, I am just a skeptic of drugs in general, as I've said/written to you before.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
22d ago
I prefer @2rafa 's explanation of your viewpoint to your actual viewpoint, which I am not sure I even understand, mainly due to its vague word salad. I'm sure you have a point but I don't understand it yet beyond what seems to be a visceral disgust you have for India, and something to do with I presume Hinduism.
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
22d ago
Care to elaborate?
George_E_Hale
insufferable blowhard
21d ago
Interesting. I was under the impression from the finality of your earlier post (and its abrupt "You don't get it" rhetorical move) that you were suggesting insight into Japanese national character specifically. It seems you're just generalizing on the brutality of man during wartime, and suggesting in a deterministic way that we are all William Calley (or whoever) under the wrong circumstances. Correct me if I've misunderstood.
This is the kind of statement my father might have said, and clearly it's true. (of course he also grew up in Alabama in the 50s and 60s). Were the issue something different (were she taking a stance with which I had no sympathy) I might even find this slippery slope aspect worrying. I can't remember the MLK quote but the gist of it is that to be moral one has to break unjust laws. Or perhaps more aptly, to be a hero, currently, is to behave like a merely decent human being. (That's May Sarton via LeCarré).
I've always been admiring of Rowling and bewildered at how she has become the focus of such hatred for what seems to me to be an uncomplicated, straightforwardly moral stance. She's even said that in other contexts she would march for trans people's rights to not suffer bullying or violence.
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