Or the fifth state, colic. It can last for months and the child will cry every waking hour. The binary flag is stuck 'on' which in my experience set every family member into a meltdown so you'll get no relief, because a baby that cries inconsolably for hours (months!) on end and can't be fixed is kryptonite to many people.
So yeah, good fucking luck if that happens. You'll have to feed on a schedule, change regularly and check even more regularly, guess appropriate temperature etc because the baby will be screaming bloody murder if awake no matter what.
Once you experience the other side, outside of a psuedo-anonymous forum you're not really allowed to have the other opinion, and you'll quickly learn to shut up or 'lie' or become a hated pariah. It becomes a bit of an echo chamber.
Meh I mean it's true for some not others.
I had a kid and never particularly found the richness and depth emotional feeling.
Of course if you express the opinion you find parenting to be basically another duty you must fulfill to the best of your ability despite finding little to no joy from the task, it will be taken poorly. So you internalize the lie, buy into it the best you can to pretend to yourself you don't have an opinion that makes everyone hate you, because apparently parenting is the one duty that is 'wrong' unless you find it satisfying.
Feels like a bunch of people got the 'dope' that makes parents feel emotional rewarded from the insane amount of labor it requires, others internalize the 'lie' so they have a way to respond to others in a socially appropriate way.
I feel in anything you do or have to do, you can find richness and depth. At least that’s somehow what I like to believe and trying to make my life experience be by practicing meditation.
The duty of being a parent however, just comes with so much expectations from society and therefore within yourself - It is super hard to find freedom within that duty, to then actually find your relationship to your child, the specific richness and depth it can be for the both of you.
So in that regard, saying „I don’t find that in there for me“ is just as good and right as any other point of experience.
actually, i believe this experience is more common for fathers at least than people want to admit. especially in western society fathers are generally expected to be more involved, and have a hard time when they come from a family where this wasn't the case (so they don't have a good role model) nor have a partner that encourages them to be involved, or worse a partner that actually discourages them.
i have been struggling with this too, especially because i had quite different expectations going in.
but the thing is that what gives you joy very much depends on your own expectations, and you can change those. i believe it's the same thing as with a job. there are people arguing that you should love your job, and if you don't you should not be doing it, while others claim that most people don't have a choice but to take a job that they don't enjoy.
I think it's ok if you don't find joy. Personally I had a very involved father and supportive partner. I understand my duty and am fulfilling it with full acceptance and gravity, I just keep this one piece of independence for my sanity-- the right to the validity of my emotion regarding how that duty makes me feel.
i do find joy, just not only in the way some people may expect it. (like i enjoy playing with the kids, but i don't enjoy not having much time to do so)
i think the primary problem is expectations of others. i may be lucky, that i do have a supportive family and partner that do not push any specific expectations on me, so i am free to find the enjoyment where i like. and a strong part of that for me is that i enjoy that i have been given this responsibility and am able to take care of my family to the best of my ability. in other words: i wanted this life and i am thankful to have gotten it, even if it turned out different than i thought it would be.
The main expectations I am driven by are to provide the child with adequate resources to thrive, to not neglect the child, and to give them a good footing to navigate this life. I'm not sure if these are expectations that can reasonably be relaxed, I'm just pretty much resigned I'm in for a long slog to provide these for the good of the child at great effort to myself whether it pleases me or not -- the circle of life I guess.
I see you, fellow dad. Thank you for having the courage to speak up and for fulfilling your duty as a parent, rain or shine. No judgement from me, only respect.
I was no "real" soldier but due to some weird circumstances I fought in a war. The difficult part of returning home is everything is so low stakes, the freedom to ride around on a Hilux living by your wits and a rifle turns into a world where you can easily survive flipping burgers and you have a toddler screaming at you because you selected the wrong color cup and the HOA has a meltdown because they decided the wrong species of plant is growing on your yard. Boring.
Sometimes you dream of the war because life is so simple and the goal is obvious, and every decision seems impactful to your survival.
There's a section of Gustav Hasford's 'The Short Timers' that describes this well. Two soldiers have recently returned from the front lines and hitch a lift to a base, or PX, or something of that nature. The gate guard - some fat fuck who's clearly never seen the enemy face to face - won't let them in because they're Marines and Marine day is Tuesday, or something of that nature, so our man just cocks his rifle and sticks it in the guy's stomach, finger on the trigger, and looks the guy in the eye.
It's a very well written book.
I don't know really whether I should recommend war stories to a guy who's been to war but if you do enjoy reading that sort of stuff, both of his novels (The Short Timers - which turned into Full Metal Jacket - and the sequel 'The Phantom Blooper' are excellent.)
I love this quote, and suspect the lack of wisdom was referring to wisdom to be a good steward of the public resources rather than their infinite wisdom in finding cunning and deceptive ways to plunder it.
No, even this is just a darkly comforting illusion.
We like to feel that we as a species are still in control. That yes, we are gutting and destroying natural earth, complicit with modern slavery and war, and that's all terrible and we should do our best to stop it. BUT - at the very least, those bastards at the top know what they're doing when it comes to making money, so at least we'll have a stellar economy and rapid technological advancement, despite all that.
The painful truth here being that no, there's no cunning. There's no brutal optimization. Any value created and technological progress made is mostly incidental, mostly down to people at the bottom working hard just to survive, and a few good ideas here and there. The ones at the top are mostly just lucky and along for the ride, just as bumbling and lost as the rest of us when it comes to global happenings or even just successfully interacting with others.
I mean the US effectively outlawed an arguably most versatile of all vehicles for vast spaces of US, the compact truck, which fits somewhere in the middle of vehicle sizes. I suspect most of those people had to move to another class, perhaps to these larger trucks.
>decades because the only force acting upon carmakers is the desire of the car buyer.
Trucks, and perhaps some cars also got bigger also because of fuel efficiency regulations (CAFE) that require a larger footprint if gas mileage is worse. They had to make for instance the Tacoma much larger to match a barely changed engine. And foreign small import trucks were stifled with the chicken tax, pushing consumers towards Americas McGigantic brands.
Privatizing all roads would ironically probably be the fastest way to cut down on oversized vehicles. Nobody wants to pay a quadratic weighted toll on the GVWR of a bunch of extra SUV, but when they have to pay it all in taxes non-quadratically anyway it's a fuck it go big moment.
Let's see... If we privatize roads and every owner (pinky promise) only makes everyone pay basod on vehicle weight... That almost sounds like a tax based on car weight.
Yeah I bought some extremely cheap property through a realtor and felt I made out like a bandit vs through a lawyer or dealing with that shit myself. Realtors want to charge a percentage? Cool story bros, I'll burn out the green labor doing my work for pennies on the cheap shit then use a flat lawyer for anything real money.
So yeah, good fucking luck if that happens. You'll have to feed on a schedule, change regularly and check even more regularly, guess appropriate temperature etc because the baby will be screaming bloody murder if awake no matter what.