SOURCE - https://brightwanderer.tumblr.com/post/681806049845608448
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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned āforeverā into the only acceptable definition of success.
Likeā¦ if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, itās a āfailedā business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you donāt actually want to keep doing that, youāre a āfailedā writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, itās a āfailedā marriage.
The only acceptable āwin conditionā is āyou keep doing that thing foreverā. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a ārealā friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a āphaseā - or, alternatively, a āpityā that you donāt do that thing any more. A fandom is ādyingā because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.
| just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And itās okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of successā¦ I donāt think thatās doing us any good at all.
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Working in medicine, especially emergency medicine, I have to hold on to this kind of mindset very tightly. I see death frequently. I have had infants die in my care, and there is nothing I could have done to save them. I have had frail, miserable, elderly people in my care that have been kept alive through titanic and terrible measures, and their lives would have been so much better overall if they had been allowed to pass peacefully a few years earlier.
I saw another post yesterday about the old and infirm lying in nursing homes, staring at the ceiling, coding, then being dragged back to life by the heroic efforts of the staff and the ERā¦just to go back to staring at the ceiling for another year.
It seems counterintuitive as a physician (in training), particularly in emergency medicine where our whole job is to steal from the reaper, to advocate for sooner, more peaceful, more autonomous deaths. I have always been a proponent of physician-assisted suicide because I have seen too many people whose lives would have been better if they had been shorter.
saw another post yesterday about the old and infirm lying in nursing homes, staring at the ceiling, coding, then being dragged back to life by the heroic efforts of the staff and the ERā¦just to go back to staring at the ceiling for another year.
That explains a lot about the state of software these days.
I believe you are making a joke, but I realize that I should explain the terminology.
Someone ācodingā means that their heart or breathing stopped and ācalling a codeā means getting all the relevant equipment and personnel to do CPR to make them not dead anymore. (CPR is quite literally necromancy and you cannot convince me otherwise.)
What feels weird is just how much of fictional media fights in favor of this concept. A hundred evil rich people wanting to live forever, not realizing the terrible consequences behind their immortality elixirs.
The immortality elixirs usually come with some amount of eternal youth or prevention of illness. If someone is healthy and able to interact with the world, thatās one thing. But someone with lung metastases or emphysema who is just lying there, drowning in their own lungs for however longā¦that is a life not worth living. If you could stay healthy forever, then being alive forever would just be a test of your tolerance for loss.
Agree with most of these I guess, but marriage specifically is the one thing thatās intended to be forever. Til death do us part and all that jazz.
Thereās nothing wrong with forever, but it shouldnāt be some sort of āstandardā we hold everything to.
The ādeath do us partā thing is a tradition, but marriage is a legal status. Not everyone is going to follow that tradition, and surely you wouldnāt argue this ought to bar them from the legal status
I think it definitely applies to relationships. It does you and any of your partners a disservice to say your relationship was only a success if one of you died.
A person isnāt a thing you possess. They have needs that grow and change with them. If those needs ever stop being compatible with the relationship, then the relationship should end. Thatās not failure. Itās wanting the person you love to be happy.
Marriage is not just another relationship. Itās literally defined by people deciding, and vowing to stay together forever.
But realistically, we all know you can get divorced. While we might hope itāll be forever, we also know weāre still not gonna stick around if things get too bad (nor should we). Nobody has the shocked pikachu face when marriage isnāt forever after all. No matter what the vows say, in practice we pretty well accept that itās a big commitment, but not a permanent one.
How about this: things are allowed to fail and thatās OK.
If you marry someone with the intent of staying together for the rest of your lives but you donāt, the marriage failed. It doesnāt have to define you.
Itās also okay to fail. I agree with that as well. I just wonāt see a relationship - marriage or not - as a failure if it brought two people happiness for a while until they amicably decide to end it. Itās only a failure when it makes them miserable or when they end it by needlessly hurting the other person. Butā¦ thatās still okay if they can at least see what they did wrong and learn from it. We all make mistakes.
It just depends on your definition of failure. Did the marriage fail to make people happy? Not necessarily. Did the marriage fail in its stated aim to bind two people forever? Yes definitely.
I personally think a divorce is usually a failed marriage (unless the marriage was specifically intended to be limited time) but I donāt think that failure is always a bad thing.
For me it comes down to how you use language. Mental health is important to me and I recognize the power of words, so I care more about the impact of language use. No matter how much you reassure people that itās okay to fail, failing still feels bad. It makes people feel like ā¦ a failure. That seems counterproductive and unnecessary to me. Why make people feel bad when they did nothing wrong?
You can specify exactly how and why itās a failure if you want, and youāre not technically wrong. Iām just not principally concerned with being technically correct in the first place. Iām reframing the standard narrative because I hate to see it go unchallenged. So for anyone whoās hurting and reads this and feels like shit, this time Iāll be the one to say something.
Then I guess you, like me, dislike the concept of marriage. Because the whole point is forever. The forever part is not even what I hold against it though. Some people can and want to be together forever. Feeling forced to be by culture is a bad thing though.
I see it mostly as a legal contract and legal status, but with a lot of extra baggage heaped on top. Itās an overloaded concept that tries to cover too many things at once, making them all suffer. Separate out the legal business and youād lose the need for an explicit declaration that this union is to exist in perpetuity until cancelled by either party. Sure sounds full of romance when stated that way, doesnāt it?
And regardless of how you look at it, the idea is that itās for life, from the ground up. I could go into how itās rooted in other horrible things but yeah, the romance is retrofitted to get people to accept it. And itās worked.
Then I guess you, like me, dislike the concept of marriage. Because the whole point is forever.
As you get older, you may realize āforeverā isnāt actually forever. Its just for the few decades you have left on this planet in this existence. If you find someone that you like being around, they like being around you, and youāre both willing to put up with each otherās faults and shortcomings, then marriage can be a really good path forward.
When we age, our looks go, our health, and many times our minds too. Having someone that cares about you and has your back through all of that, is a wonderful thing as you will have their back too. You still see them as beautiful as you did when they were younger, and they see you the same way. You look past each otherās graying (or missing) hair, to lack of physique, the lines in your faces, the extra weight you carry in strange places, and eventually the loss of mobility youāll have and they still want to be around you. You still want to be around them.
Old age frequently brings loneliness too. When youāre not forced to work a job with people anymore, it takes effort to maintain social relationships with other people. When you have your mate, you always have that company irrespective of other social connections (or lack of).
Finally if your partner dies before you, I think it will give you something to look forward to in your own eventual death. You know youāll be at the same place as your mate, wherever or whatever that is. If there is something after, theyāll be there waiting for you. If there is nothing, you get to be nothing together. Life is really tough if youāre going it alone. A mate can shave off those sharp corners and make even the most unpleasant times bearable.
If you find someone like this, I encourage you to grab on and hold them tight. If you donāt, life will move them along and youāll be left with just yourself against a cold and uncaring world.
Thatās all well and good, but you absolutely donāt need marriage to stay together forever.
The point was that the concept shames you into it. Another option is just to stay together because you want to. Seems more meaningful to me that way anyhow.
Thatās what I strive for in any relationship: staying together purely because we choose to. I donāt want someone to stay with me for any other reason, and I want my partner to know that I choose them. Not out of obligation or necessity, but because I truly want them close to me. Itās simple but meaningful.
My wife just moved out after 30 years of marriage, and it sure feels like a failure to me. Maybe some people get to the point where itās not working, and they arenāt invested in the marriage so much that walking away is painful. I think most people would say they shouldnāt have been married if they werenāt that invested in making it work though.
A lot of people have suggested that we should have marriage contracts that have a renewable time limit. Like, āHey, letās get married for ten years and see how that goes.ā I could see that being a good thing, but I also think itās fundamentally a different mindset than the traditional expectation of forever.
Thanks for sharing your story. Similarly, Iāve been with my partner for 10 years. We planned on having kids, never materialized because of reasons. Nowā¦ We are distancing. It certainly feel like failure. I just moved to a new apartment last week.
So far, I havenāt āduelā the loss, except for some occasional irruption of either sadness (~95%) or rage (~5%). We keep talking daily, trying to part ways softly, we are both migrants in a new country, medium sized city, which adds some peculiarities.
I think we try to avoid the sentiment of failure by keeping an open mind, and a friendship. I even fantasize this is only temporary. But honestly, we have been on this for a while. Like after the pandemic.
Anyway, some comments in this thread really help me. I do want her to be happy. We both deserve the best, and frankly we may not be the best fit today. But we were powerful. We went through a lot, and we did good.
PS. Feel free to write privately of you wanted to share more.
Sorry youāre going through that. Iām going to make the assumption that, with it being a ten year relationship, youāre not super young, but much younger than me (Iām 62). I hope you and your partner are both able to move on in a way you can be at peace with it, and once youāve grieved the relationship are able to find someone who works better.
Goes both ways, Iām happy to chat if youād like.
Iām sorry to hear about your circumstances.
Me and most of my friend/family group have married in the last few years and I donāt know if anyone would have bothered if there wasnāt a promise of forever. Thereās often the desire for a home and kids and itās (in my opinion) hard to do that if you donāt have a commitment from your partner. I donāt want to raise kids alone or have to do custody arrangements if I can avoid it.
If housing and child rearing were more communal it would maybe be different but I think the commitment is kind of the point.
If youād be willing to share your experience please feel free to. I didnāt have the experience of married parents or even watching them interact/divorce so Iām always on edge regarding the kind of issues Iām possibly missing in my own relationship.
Iām an open guy and didnāt mind sharing whatever, but Iām not sure which aspect youāre interested in. I had great role models - my parents were happily married for 50 years until my dad died. My wife and I had problems off and on for years, and weāve been more roommates than romantic partners for quite some time. We had an argument and she confessed that she hasnāt been in love with me for some time. Sheās not with anyone else or anything like that, but she doesnāt want to be with me.
Thank you for sharing. Sorry to hear about your father but it seems like he had a child and wife who loved him.
That falling out of love concept is really my big fear. I think I know what a healthy loving relationship is, but only because I think Iām in one. The thought I might wake up one day to my partner saying that no actually, we were not in one of those is my big concern. I donāt know what it should look like and having nothing to compare to so it feels like the biggest obstacle we could have.
Iām sorry to hear youāre going through that but glad to see that people can and do make it out relatively ok. I truly wish you the best.
Thanks a lot. No worries about my dad -he was pushing 80 when he died, and he lived a life most people would be proud of. It was also 24 years ago. Sadly, my mom lived ten years longer, and I think the only reason she didnāt die of a broken heart is because she got Alzheimerās and kind of forgot about my dadās dying.
I donāt think thereās one kind of healthy relationship. Every person has strengths and weaknesses. The key is finding a person whose strengths and weaknesses meshes with your own. Iāve seen people with significant issues have happy marriages with spouses who just love them and balance with them.
Ultimately, all we can do is try to work with our partners, understand that every relationship has rough times, and hope we can weather those times. Sadly, thereās no guarantees, as I can attest to.
That falling out of love concept is really my big fear.
Donāt overthink it. If you are aware that this could happen, you will be able to see it at its earliest ;)
Did you communicate about it with your partner? Thatās probably a great starting point. Go for a chill afternoon of opening. Sometimes, we go through so much together that we take the other for granted, or just forget to open-up and share our innermost feelings with enough room of both space and time.
Thanks for the reassurance.
Weāre generally pretty good and I think thatās the issue. It feels so weird to have a normal loving relationship it feels like that itself is cause for concern lol. Will definitely find some extra time today to tell them how special they are though.
The game Outer Worlds touches upon this concept a bit, although itās set in a space-capitalist dystopia.
Like a more administrative declaration of vow renewal, in a sense. Can feel a bit cold and could cause a lot of bureaucratic headache however.
Iām sorry for your loss/pain though, on a more serious note.
Thank you
I would agree if we stopped making marriage the end goal of relationships.
I tend to agree with you there. There are a lot of things intended to be temporary, and a lot of things intended to be permanent.
Wasnāt there a study about that Man instinctively looks for other partners after while, this being the natural behavior?
Given that, christianity sets unrealistic expectations.
Donāt know the study but any anthropologist can tell thatās a generalization on a certain time, place, and society. Itās (mostly) true, only under certain conditions.
Now did they study any other gender? Perhaps by Man they refer to all humans??
Perhaps by Man they refer to all humans??
No, male humans.
Look, can we please not mix politics/ideology with science? Youāre mistaken if you think human is 100% conscious decisions. In economy, itās long known already that homo economicus is a fantasy. We are mammals too.
The way hypothesis are drawn, which programs are promoted, where budgets are cut, etc. are all political decisions that shape science. But I understand your point, although I wasnāt talking about free will. Somehow, this talk reminded me of a book, āthe naked apeāā¦ it was written by a zoologist. Probably had many things just plain wrong, and itās more speculative-observations than actual rigorous studies. But I enjoyed reading it when I was an life sciences undergraduate. Btw, why are we writing Man with a capital letter? This is what prompted my previous question.
99% percent of the times a study calls some ānatural behaviorsā on humans, itās just propaganda looking for legitimacy.
Only if you think humans are slaves to instinct and are defined by them.
Man also instinctively eats lots of sugars and fats because they are high in energy, so is restraining oneself to a healthy lifestyle unrealistic?
You think all your decisions are conscious too, hm?
A large part of modern world is obese. Going against your instincts is a informed struggle. In case of high sugar and fat meals, whilst circumnavigating the instincts with a healthy diet.
Yes many are obese, and it can definitely be a struggle, but that doesnāt make being healthy an unrealistic expectation. Itās highly realistic, and many people are healthy.
Yeah, but you have to know how and have to motivation to do it.
Reminds me of last week when everyone was talking about how Bluesky is worthless because itās just going to go the way of Twitter. And Iām like, Twitter was a good thing for like 15 years.
If Bluesky follows that same pattern, great.
I feel an adjacent thing about Lemmy ā The conversations I most value are ones I used to have on Reddit, but dwindled over the years, as Reddit discourse degraded. Something thatās notable is that, on Reddit, the last bastions of meaningful discussion were the little niche subs, indicating that quality of discussion may be inversely correlated with the size of a community.
The federated nature of Lemmy makes it far more resistant to Redditās fate, but I still feel a sense of inevitability that there is a timer on how long this can last. (Speaking as an aging punk), it reminds me of what happened to Punk: it went mainstream, and thus less punk. Some people have the instinct of gatekeeping a thing to preserve it, but everything needs fresh blood, and some of the people who discover punk via the mainstream are have a heart as punk as anyone Iāve met ā we canāt exclude the masses of ānormiesā without excluding these people too. In the end, I see that punk is probably dead, but the ātrue punk spiritā is alive and well, having moved into spaces that were less visible to the mainstream. Similarly, I expect that Iāll always be able to find online clusters of cool nerds to have meaningful conversations with, because even if Lemmy dies a slow death, they will find (or build) a new space.
Ultimately, the inevitable temporariness of Lemmy (and other platforms like Bluesky) is quite a beautiful thing for me, because it forces me to be more mindful of the moment Iām in, and how, despite the world being shit in many ways, here is something that I am really glad I get to be a part of
Leave it to the Internet to be the best (and worst) of all.
Iām at best a poser punk but the diy ethos always rung true. That said one of my favourite places online is a local old school punk forum. Itās niche enough that with its own problems thereās still a community.
In my experience thatās kind of what an online community needs to be. Not exclusive, but niche enough. I too used to be on Reddit, got there when the great Digg migration happened. Those days it was small enough to have have a community on some subreddits. Gradually it got the point that when Iād read the article or had a reasonable thought about the question there were 11000 replies and anything worthwhile was already said.
These days Lemmy feels kinda similar to the old Reddit. Maybe things stay the same or maybe they change and thereāll be another place I log on.
All that said, what OP posted is profound. What you posted is too.
Iām at best a poser punk but the diy ethos always rung true. That said one of my favourite places online is a local old school punk forum. Itās niche enough that with its own problems thereās still a community.
Eh. I donāt think itās actually as easy to be a āposerā as old purity obsession tropes (I admittedly was a bit skewed that way when younger). What is it isnāt āpunkā is purely subjective. Basically, requiring willful appropriation of subcultural signs and aesthetics for profit without any desire to engage or contemplate the community or philosophies (Good Charlotte, looking at you). To me, itās about love and anarchism (the no gods, no kings, no masters mindset of equality) not having a mohawk, a pair of Docs, and chucking molotovs at riot cops (to be fair, it takes all kinds).
In the end, I see that punk is probably dead, but the ātrue punk spiritā is alive and well, having moved into spaces that were less visible to the mainstream.
Punk in the form that existed in the early 80s hardcore scene died around 84 (before I was even born). It came back in other, different forms, in different places over the decades. Iād argue that punk really isnāt the first incarnation of the ātrue punk spiritā, just the one that we associate with the anarchic and rebellious, possibly in part due to the concerted effort to demonize it in mainstream media in the 80s and 90s (couldnāt have any of that peace and love shit being seen positively, especially with greater acceptance of direct action).
The federated nature of Lemmy makes it far more resistant to Redditās fate, but I still feel a sense of inevitability that there is a timer on how long this can last
Hell, the drama right now about the devs running out of funds and people refusing to donate because of their association with .ml might accelerate lemmyās demise before it can even get big.
One of the reasons reactionary content tends to endure and progressive content fails (in Western countries, anyway) stems from the far-right having deeper pockets and a far more pliant creative base.
You donāt see Tucker Carlson or Candice Owens ever really going away, because theyāve got these sugar daddies that always pony up. The fucking Adelsons will keep shoveling naked antisemites money, just so long as they toe the economic orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, Lemmy admins associating with Lemmy developers is unforgivable, because the OG developers wonāt let you say āI hope someone murders Xi Jinping with a rusty spoonā on their bespoke instance without getting banned.
Amazing, thank you for your comment
Thatās beautiful.
I donāt like the pattern of having to pay a search cost, then finally getting everything set up, and then they gradually enshittify until the process repeats. Iād rather just have stable infrastructure, like email.
I feel like the concern with Bluesky is that Bluesky could enshitify much faster than Twitter, in part because market conditions push for a faster path to profitablity.
Yeah, I wonāt claim Twitter was great, but it was widely considered too good (to its users) to be profitable. That was possible during that early investor optimism when the internet was still new, but I also donāt see that happening now anymore.
A social media platform needs to decouple from the typical company structure and democratize its improvement, otherwise investors will necessarily make it as bad as they can without immediately losing all users.
Twitter was never a good thing, AND I was never a Twitter user so i can actually say that.
like it actually did permanent damage to our culture
And Iām like, Twitter was a good thing for like 15 years.
See, I was going to say that Twitter was a bad thing for 15 years.
But then it was just stupid, it wasnāt a Nazi bar like today.
Peter Thiel, the Adelsons, the Mercers, and the rest of the Trump crowd were sponsoring reactionary fascist content on the site long before Elon bought it.
Twitter was equal opportunity - willing to take money from all the highest bidders to promote any kind of commercialized content - prior to the buyout. But plenty of that content was fascist af.
About marriage: the whole concept reside in the mutual promise of a āforever afterā. If thatās not your thing, totally fine. But then you wouldnāt engage in it in the first place? In that sense, the marriage would indeed have failed (to deliver on its core premise).
Putting aside an afterlife, common wedding vows have āfor better, for worse, ā¦ in sickness and in health, until death do us part.ā So at least for people using those vows, they are committing to stay together until one of them dies. A divorce would mean a failure to follow through with that commitment.
what youāre saying is only true for some religions that donāt allow divorce. most do. thereās no forever after promise in most cases, just living together and caring for each other.
Then you shouldnāt use that phrase in the marriage vows, thatās the issue. If you donāt promise the forever, you are not failing the promise
itās not a requirement in vows; Iād be surprised if most people did it. your perception is colored by TV and movies which generally uses Catholic traditions because itās more suitable for visual representation.
I grew up in a Swedish pentecostal church so my experience in vows are more coloured by experience from that denomination rather than catholic tv
fair but still thereās a lot of religions and countries out there. where i live people usually just promise to take each other as spouses.
what youāre saying is only true for some religions that donāt allow divorce.
Iāve watched people who got married in high school go through divorce in their twenties and thirties and forties. Itās more than religion. You come out of the situation angry and insecure. You plunge into a dating pool thatās anxiety ridden and full of other jaded people. You carry your own insecurities with you. Often, the divorce is necessary, but itās rarely fun.
thereās no forever after promise in most cases, just living together and caring for each other.
Feeling as though you have someone who wants to be near you and care for you, then waking up to discover that person is gone is extremely difficult.
Thereās no forever. Everything ends. But the end of a relationship means assuming a great deal of emotional and financial and physical baggage. A home built for two people is radically changed when one is gone.
It isnāt something to trivialize or make light of.
To clarify: I meant this purely at an interpersonal level, i.e. if you enter a marriage, you should at least honestly intend it to endure.
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Plenty of people get married and donāt believe in an afterlife.
Iām all for ridding our society of marriage and transitioning to civil unions instead. Itās a dumb-ass concept to promise to love someone for your entire life when both of you are bound to change a lot, sometimes becoming unrecognizable. The only reason it āworkedā in the past is because the primary concern wasnāt actually love or happiness but rather performing the duties assigned to genders by patriarchy.
On a more philosophical note, did the marriage really āfailā if the person you promised to love changed so much so as to become a different person in the same body?
The āshipā of Theseus
Very good perspective and this is actually similar to some of the ideas of Buddhism. Everything in this life is temporary, enjoy it while it lasts.
Donāt be afraid to enter the water knowing that you are not going to swim forever.
I think the fear isnāt simply exiting the pool, its drowning.
The ācoffee shopā analogy breaks down when you look at the before - assuming debt, developing skills, building business relationships - and after - owing more than you earn, filling for bankruptcy, hemorrhaging staff, going back to being a wage earner rather than an owner-operator.
Same with marriage. You get older and slower and tireder, you have this shared history that doesnāt exist between anyone else, you have shared assets that canāt easily be divided up, you have a shared family.
These arenāt just whims, theyāre economic events and deeply psychological ones, too. Bad ones. They are describing a material decline in your quality of life.
Yeah, the fixation on nostalgia and fandoms is bad for us as a society. No, you shouldnāt feel leashed to your hobbiesā¦ or your job or your relationships. But thereās also feelings of stability and reliability and security that comes with an enduring institution in your life. Knowing you can substitute experience for raw energy and you donāt have to relearn a trade or another person or rules to a new game from scratch has value. It pays dividends.
You donāt want to get into the water and find out you need to relearn how to swim. Especially when youāve so far from shore.
This reminds me of a friend who opened a bakery. The business was successful, and the food was good, but she decided to give it up after a few years when she and her husband started a family.
I donāt consider that a āfailureā by any definition. For her, it was a great experience that had run its course.
But she didnāt make infinity+1 dollars so what was even the point
What happened to the bakery? Did she sell it or transfer ownership to someone else?
She didnāt own the building. Last I saw, there was an ice cream shop in the space. It was a good one, too. I think that location is lucky.
Yeah. I would usually see a business as failed only if it is going through bankruptcy.
If you ācloseā it, itās because it failed. Successful business are transferred or sold, because a loyal customer base and a successful business model have a lot of value.
Same for 90% of the other things mentioned. If you do a hobby for a while and you abandon it, itās by definition a phase. Etc.
Not really true. Plenty of mom and pop shops close because no one wants to run it and they donāt want to ruin the reputation of their family business by selling it to someone who might not run it well. I worked for a few places where this happened.
Who are these people that decline tens of thousands of dollars/euros/pounds for their image? Must be nice being that richā¦
Plenty of otherwise successful businesses could not be sold for tens of thousands of dollars just for the name. Several are in business solely because of personal connections with other small businesses. Once that element is gone people go elsewhere. At least in my community/experience.
Thatās freelancing then, not really a business, isnāt it?
- Freelancing is a valid business. I donāt know why thereād be a distinction in this case.
- I donāt think people would be considered freelancers just because they have personal relationships with other small businesses.
There was a dessert business I used to do work for that catered a lot of local businesses events. She got plenty of work there and then had a loyal customer base because of the introduction to her desserts at these events. That seems like a valid business to me. She retired and moved to be closer to her kids and that was it. No one to take her place. I donāt know what you consider freelancing but she put her kids through school off of it so I donāt know why it wouldnāt count as business even if she technically never had long term contracts. She had her stuff in stores in the area because she made a name for herself and her products. People liked her and her story as much as the food so I donāt think people wouldāve kept buying it if they found out she didnāt own it anymore.
I think you might not be aware of how many people have small businesses. 10% of American workers are self employed. I have done a lot of work for small businesses and itās very different than what a lot of people who had a teacher and a factory worker as parents think.
This translates to tv shows too to prove the point.
Tv shows that only have a few seasons that are high quality start to finish are so much better than tv shows that go on and on and on and on.
For example, the simpsons, whilst an excellent show, should have ended many seasons ago. Itās 30 odd seasons in, and itās stale. Itās a little funnier recently, but i dont think it will ever be as big as it was.
I would consider it a failed show now but a successful show back when it was popular.
So itās pretty much proof of the point that forever is not the definition of success.
Open ended and no another season planned? Fuck em.
Great TV show that ended well? Sign me up.
This post wasnāt sponsored by Good Place (seriously, go watch it, and watch The Selection right after).
The good place is such a motherforking good show
Whats The Selection about? The Good Place was amazing and it was a shame they cancelled it. Could have done with just 1 more season.
The hell do you mean cancelled? Itās a complete show, from start to finish
Wow! I must have dreamt that. I felt sure it was cut short so it all got wrapped up quick in season 4. But googling it now is giving mixed messages, some showing michael schur intended to or decided to make the 4th season the last and others saying people were mad it was cancelled.
It is a spinoff about the Bad Place
At the hillās foot foot Frodo found Aragorn, standing still and silent as a tree; but in his hand was a small golden bloom of elanor, and a light was in his eyes. He was wrapped in some fair memory: and as Frodo looked at him he knew that he beheld things as they once had been in this same place. For the grim years were removed from the face of Aragorn, and he seemed clothed in white, a young lord tall and fair; and he spoke words in the Elvish tongue to one whom Frodo would not see. Arwen vanimelda, namariĆ«! he said, and then he drew a breath, and returning out of his thought he looked at Frodo and smiled.
āHere is the heart of Elvendom on earth,ā he said, āand here my heart dwells ever, unless there be a light beyond the dark roads that we still must tread, you and I. Come with me!ā And taking Frodoās hand in his, he left the hill of Cerin Amroth and came there never again as living man.
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of The Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, last paragraph of Chapter VI: LothlĆ³rien. I bolded the last 8 words.
Aragorn knows to let go, while deeply, profoundly, cherishing what was. Be like Aragorn.
Isnāt this more about things falling apart when the person wanted to continue doing it? If I want to run a shop but it doesnāt work financially, then my plan has failed.
Yeah, I think youāre right here: itās all about intent. If someone starts a business, it does well, but then they end it because they want to do something else, is not a failure. If they wanted the business to keep going, but people werenāt buying enough of their product to keep the doors open, thatās a failure.
You could do the same with any of the examples. Itās not a failure if the people are happy to stop or it lasted as long as could reasonably be expected, but if it ends before the people wanted it to, thatās a failure. The rocket that lifts its payload to orbit, then shuts off and falls back to earth is a success. But no one says āWell, the rocket ran great halfway to the planned orbit, so even though it and the payload fell back to earth, it was successful.ā
Yeah, the OOP is a serious cope. They are basically saying ānothing is ever a failure in the world of unicorn sprinkles, weeeeee!ā They are invalidating peopleās negative emotions about failure by trying to reframe it - but this is the behavior of narcissists who never want to admit they have failed at anything.
Itās okay to fail. It sucks. It hurts. It happens. Thatās life. Accept it, learn from it, and move on.
Itās a failure if itās your experience and you think you failed. You donāt get to say others failed if they feel otherwise about their own experience.
You have no idea what narcissism means even if youāre using it in the colloquial form with is almost meaningless at this point. A narcissist wouldnāt put the question up for debate.
You pretending you get to decide how others should feel about anything is fucking ridiculous.
If someone says āI really wanted to keep my bakery open but the books didnāt balanceā itās a failed business. If someone says āI had a goal to get a book published but I could never get it acceptedā theyāre a failed writer.
Yes, they could have just gotten bored or stressed or retired or life happened, but thatās not the same thing. When someone set out to do something with their best effort but couldnāt, they failed.
Failing to do something isnāt shameful and it doesnāt devalue you. It doesnāt even mean youāll never be able to do it (go start a new business, write another book, have a happy second marriage). Youāre only a failure if you let yourself be one, nobody can tell you to feel anything.
OOPs post isnāt healthy because it validates the fear of failure with mental gymnastics. Sometimes you fail and you just gotta work through it, you canāt put your all into something and shrug it off at the same time.
Yeah, most of his examples really donāt work. As long as you make more money than you put in, any business is successful, and if you terminate it without going bankrupt or accruing debt, itās not failed, itās just closed. Same for a writer, you write a couple of books, they sell enough to cover the costs, then stop because you donāt care anymore, nobodyās gonna call you failed.
Yes, that. And also the point of marriage is to be forever. Like thatās the idea of it to begin with.
If they end up starting again the same business, then I guess it could be seen that way. But if they just decide to move on without feeling like it was wasted time and try new things, āhow long it lastedā shouldnāt be the only metric of whether it was a success
I feel like with the business example, you could sell it and move on. No matter what happens to the business afterwards, you are fine.
That said Iād agree it depends on the circumstances. Want to keep going but canāt because <reason> = failed. Could keep going but decide not to, not failed.
Iām not sure what youāre asking hereā¦
Happily Ever After only exists if you happen to die at the happiest moment of your life.
we as a culture have turned āforeverā into the only acceptable definition of success.
I really donāt agree with the premise, and would encourage others to reject that worldview if it starts creeping into how they think about things.
In the sports world, everything is always changing, and careers are very short. But what people do will be recorded forever, so those snapshots in time are part of oneās legacy after theyāre done with their careers. We can look back fondly at certain athletes or coaches or specific games or plays, even if (or especially if) that was just a particular moment in time that the sport has since moved on from. Longevity is regarded as valuable, and maybe relevant to greatness in the sport, but it is by no means necessary or even expected. Michael Jordan isnāt a failed basketball player just because he wasnāt able to stay in the league, or even that his last few years in the league werenāt as legendary as his prime years. Barry Sanders isnāt a failed American football player just because he retired young, either.
Same with entertainment. Nobody really treats past stars as āfailedā artists.
If you write a book or two, then decide that you donāt actually want to keep doing that, youāre a āfailedā writer.
That is a foreign concept to me, and I question the extent to which this happens. I donāt know anyone who treats these authors (or actors or directors or musicians) as failures, just because theyāve moved onto something else. Take, for example, young actors who just donāt continue in the career. Jack Gleeson, famous for playing Joffrey in the Game of Thrones series, is an actor who took a hiatus, might not come back to full time acting. And thatās fine, and it doesnāt take away from his amazing performance in that role.
The circumstances of how things end matter. Sometimes the ending actually does indicate failure. But ending, in itself, doesnāt change the value of that thingās run when it was going on.
| just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good.
Exactly. I would think that most people agree, and question the extent to which people feel that the culture values permanence. If anything, Iād argue that modern culture values the opposite, that we tend to want new things always changing, with new fresh faces and trends taking over for the old guard.
But what people do will be recorded forever, so those snapshots in time are part of oneās legacy after theyāre done with their careers.
Thatās just the same with extra steps. Rather, you should ask āBut was it fun?ā.
All Iām saying is that continuing effort is not necessary. Permanence/longevity can be achieved through other means, in situations where permanence is important. The lack of need for continuing effort is even more obvious in situations in which permanence isnāt even a desired or intended outcome.
you raise an interesting discussion, but isnāt being remembered as a legend just another form of permanence? every example you provided is of someone viewed as a āsuccessā in their field, someone remembered.
I would discourage you from discouraging others from examining the way our culture relates to mortality, because thatās what all of this is about: death anxiety.
Iām basically saying two things.
- Permanence isnāt required or expected, although in some instances permanence is valued, in defining success.
- Permanence itself does not require continuing effort. One can leave a permanent mark on something without active maintenance.
Taken together, success doesnāt require permanence, and permanence doesnāt require continued effort. The screenshot text is wrong to presume that our culture only values permanence, and is wrong in its implicit argument that permanence requires continued effort.
I think you are looking into things in a non healthy way.
You are right that success and failure are not binary. Furthermore, every system, be it physical, living, or social, fails sooner or later.
That doesnāt mean we shouldnāt strive to not fail for as long as possible, for if something brings joy or safety itās continued success is important. It follows that if something thatās important to someone fails itās healthy to morn it and to try to learn from it to not repeat the same failure.
Agreed, the flip side is allowing something ending to be sad too. Not everything needs a positive spin.
This just reads to me like a classic step of linguistic evolution, where people canāt be bothered to caveat the normal word with a deeper meaning (eg āmy business ultimately ended, but it was the right call and it was always be a great time in my lifeā¦ā etc) and so think a new word is necessary, until inevitably the same thing happens, ad naseum.
why do you call it āfailā when you mean āendā?
Because I mean fail and trying to frame everything as positive, or at worst, neutral is not healthy and will lead to people not acknowledging their feelings?
you claim to challenge a paradigm but you merely inverted it. you are still operating under the illusion of good and bad. things end. other things begin. is one thing good if it leads to bad things? is it bad if it leads to good things? or are we just adding our own transient perspective to it? by passing judgment, weāre creating good and bad.
this has nothing to do with acknowledging feelings or not. feelings are things too. feelings end. feelings create other things, and those too can lead to other things that we might call good or bad. just because we feel a certain way does not mean the events that led us there are good or bad.
so those āfailuresā have nothing to do with being real with yourself. itās quite the opposite: you are taking your feelings and attributing them to things in the world.you neglect to recognize them for what they are: transient sensations, that end.
There are failures and there are endings. Not being able to cope with a failure is not healthy. Calling everything that ends automatically a failure is not healthy either.
This is nice ways of saying you can change perspective on things by using more appropriate words. At no point do your viewpoints clash with op. But success and failure can certainly be binary if you want. They are words and mean different things for different people, and we hope to sometimes communicate a specific point and sometimes a philosophical one. It can be used for much. Failure as a word is useful but also touchy for a lot of modern achievers, or sofa enjoyers. It can be oh so binary for some people. Like, did you vote and try to prevent the faschist uprising that will ruin your life? Itās a yes or no and one of those are very much a failure. If you donāt want to see your failures you will become like the wounded manchildren that has need to use power and assert dominance to exist. At that point thereās not much left of the reflection you wrote about. Itās an antithesis for the practice.
I see where youāre coming from, but I donāt think this post is about giving up all the time. Itās about accepting when something doesnāt work anymore, or isnāt fun anymore.
If you started doing something for fun, but the fun is gone, continuing to do it may actually be detrimental.
Nowhere does the post say that we should just give up, merely that we shouldnāt stigmatize endings.
Yup. And god forbid you start a small business thatās successful and decide to pay your employees a good wage and set aside a fair amount of profit for yourself. Thatās loser talk. You need to go public or sell the business for a giant payout at the expense of your employees, and then you have to keep making more money every year for shareholders, or else theyāll consider you a failure and jump ship
We are surrounded by capitalistic thinking. Itās hard to avoid, or even notice.