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I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.
Like… 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, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. 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 “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” 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 it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.
Wasn’t there a study about that Man instinctively looks for other partners after while, this being the natural behavior?
Given that, christianity sets unrealistic expectations.
99% percent of the times a study calls some ‘natural behaviors’ on humans, it’s 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 doesn’t make being healthy an unrealistic expectation. It’s highly realistic, and many people are healthy.
Yeah, but you have to know how and have to motivation to do it.
Don’t know the study but any anthropologist can tell that’s a generalization on a certain time, place, and society. It’s (mostly) true, only under certain conditions.
Now did they study any other gender? Perhaps by Man they refer to all humans??
No, male humans.
Look, can we please not mix politics/ideology with science? You’re mistaken if you think human is 100% conscious decisions. In economy, it’s 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 wasn’t talking about free will. Somehow, this talk reminded me of a book, ‘the naked ape’… it was written by a zoologist. Probably had many things just plain wrong, and it’s 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.