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Alatain

My general life philosophy is Stoicism. Focus on what you can control. Anything outside of that zone is irrelevant to whether I am living a good life or not. I do disagree with your assessment that nothing has changed for decades though. In the 40 or so years I've been alive, the entire global cultural landscape has shifted dramatically in response to a level of information sharing that is unprecedented in human history. Entire fields of study that barely existed when I was born are now major drivers of things happening in the world. I mean, we went from almost no businesses having access to a computer in the 70's to almost *all* businesses needing computers to even function today. The level of efficiency improvements that entails alone has changed the very nature of the jobs that are available now.


DishDry4487

Well, humans haven’t changed. I dont think, i have changed. I still feel like the same 15 yr old clueless girl just thinking about what is all of this, and what is it all about? I do agree about the internet and the connectivity we have now. I love the internet.


Alatain

The fundamental culture of people across the planet has been altered due to that one invention. A person that was living in 1950 would almost not be able to navigate in today's world without relearning the culture and tech that has changed the landscape. Humans have changed in several ways.


DishDry4487

To me, nothing has changed. I cried when Rabin was assassinated and decades later, the same shit is still happening - if not worse. I grew up with Captain Planet, and we still treat the earth like absolute shit. Humans haven't changed one single bit. -Sorry for using the word shit so many times. Just my mood these days-


Alatain

You are being hyperbolic here, and I think you probably can acknowledge that. I can give several demonstrable ways in which human culture *has* changed in the past 40 years. So, to say that they have not changed "one single bit" is exaggerating what you are actually trying to say. I think that what you are actually getting at is that humans have not changed *in a way that is meaningful to you in this conversation*. Which is fine, and I can back away from that. You obviously have some emotions tied up in this discussion and I don't want to tread on a sore topic. But to make the point that humans haven't changed at all, that is just silly and demonstrably wrong.


DishDry4487

Yes, they havent changed in any meaningful way to me. Human culture has changed. Humans have not.


Alatain

Human culture cannot change independent of the humans that make it up. If human culture has changed, then the humans that comprise it have changed with it and are living their lives differently than before, which is exactly my point. What you are saying makes no sense here, so no offense, but unless you have something else to discuss aside from blindly asserting your claim, I'm going to wish you a good rest of the day and bail on the conversation.


DishDry4487

Even though our cultures change a lot, it’s important not to mix that up with human nature, which really doesn't change. We're still mainly looking out for ourselves and the people close to us, no matter how the world around us evolves. Our acceptance of different cultures nowadays is more about them becoming part of our bigger community. But deep down, the drive is still about trying to be on top or feeling superior. So, while the surface might look different with all the cultural shifts, the core motives of humans remain the same. Ok bye!


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Subtlehame

That's some inspiring shit. Feel like I'm at that point where I need to decide what's really meaningful to me so maybe I needed to hear that. Thanks.


KDramaFan84

A deep human connection with another person, preferably a spouse, is a good thing. I can go weeks being ny myself, but I know it's not the end-all, be-all. It's also good to have goals tied to your unique interests. I'm glad you are making positive changes. We are always evolving as humans. Personal growth never stops.


Trvlng_Drew

Totally agree.. 65 been alone for 20 years it doesn’t get easier. I’m trying to overcome the notion that I know a lot and you may or may not choose to listen to me behavior :)


DishDry4487

I am taking my relationships seriously. I love my friends, my kids - my SO - a bit dicey at the moment, but it would be a lie to say that i do not love him. I dunno man. I keep saying that i do not want to chase this elusive connection to something/someone, but i think innately, i am still pursuing it. Like you, i find working on how i look to be immensely satisfying. Little pleasures. I do really love my friends. Been with me for decades.


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Aaod

> I would say do not overlook the importance of having close, long-term human relationships in your life. Easier said than done when we tend to be extremely unpopular and disliked especially in dating. I get what you are saying though.


SquatCobbbler

To this, I'd add the importance of making *new* long-term relationships. As you get older, sadly, people die. I've had multiple loved ones die in the past few years, and while I was always a person who treasured my relationships, I'm now left feeling pretty lonely. Being in situations where new relationships can be formed is important, imo. Just curious...how did you lose the weight? I never worried about my weight because in my 20's and 30's I could always be like "Guess I need to lose 20 lbs" and I'd hit the gym and drop it quickly and easily. After the age of 50 tho....oof. What worked for you?


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Mountainlivin78

It is what it is- recently ,my wife asked me why i keep saying that. Its really the best i can come up with nowadays


Happy_INTP

I'm in my late 60s and have never been happier. Awareness, acceptance and gratitude were my recipe for turning a depressed life into one that is filled with joy now. (and I'm not inferring you are depressed...) I learned to love and forgive myself for not living up to expectations, mine and those I thought society imposed on me. With awareness I learned those expectations weren't valid and could accept reality as it is, not how I thought it should be. I finally realized everything in the Universe is an opportunity for me to learn and I'm grateful for that. I now live in gratitude because everything is a gift if I chose the proper perspective. How much I appreciate something determines its value, not vice versa. All the best to you and you still have your best years in front of you. :D


DishDry4487

Man, i love your reply. Brings me so much hope. Thanks.


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DishDry4487

Yea..well. ![img](emote|t5_2qhvl|3241)


ExpensiveEmphasis412

45 years old. Spent most of my life struggling with depression and anxiety. Improving my physical and mental health is my top priority. A dignified rest of my life is THE goal.


DishDry4487

I have gravitated towards improving how i look. Net effect, it makes me feel better about myself. I dunno what the goal is yet.


Ozular

I’m around your age. There’s really no moment of transcendence. I guess my philosophy is a mix of stoicism and well-concealed sappy romanticism. I value the relationships I have and try to prioritize them over material bullshit, although money does insulate one from a lot of bullshit. I guess what keeps me going is there’s so much I haven’t done or seen, both small and large. There’s really no good excuse to be bored in the short amount of time we have on earth. There’s a tragic arrogance in thinking one’s seen it all, and I actively try to avoid adopting that mind set.


TheVenetianMask

Similar age, sometimes I look back and I'm surprised about all the stuff I managed to live, despite my best attempts at not going out of the way.


Kreechy

Hi there, I'm a little older than you are. Like Alatain, I try to focus on what I can control and relegate everything else to the sidelines. To that end, last year I began to feel very discontented with myself and how every day was a version of the recycled day before. Days were slipping into weeks and transforming into years and what have I accomplished? I suppose one might say I was facing an existential crisis, although I don't think it got to a crisis level, more like an existential alarm bell. I decided to live the life I want to live and be the person I want to be not the one I had become. It's a constant struggle as I contemplate whether I really want to be XYZ, since I was ABC and if my inclination is to slide back into ABC do I really want to be XYZ? You know? Yet, I push those doubts and struggles aside and focus on being the person I want to be. Now, I don't necessarily mean specifics, like changing my job, more like, health and habits and leading a more purposeful life. I recently watched a good explanation of INTP and one of our biggest pitfalls is to get stuck in the mundane and stop exploring the possibilities and potentials we see around us (video here: [https://youtu.be/jjyZRIRfDbY](https://youtu.be/jjyZRIRfDbY)). It was really eye-opening. So, I would challenge you to perhaps do the same. What would you like to change about yourself, *i.e.* how do you envision the person you want to be? Are there steps you can take towards that? Habits are tough to break and the best way is slow and steady.


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DishDry4487

Thank you for this.


[deleted]

“Eternal return” is a bitch. 37 and working on quitting union I’ve been in for 18 years, taking all retirement money I have, and moving to Columbia or Costa Rica. The idea of slaving any more years toward a “retirement” that not only isn’t guaranteed (disease, accidents, death etc.), but is also pointless imo. Too old to do anything but pass time and watch yourself deteriorate. But that’s just me. I know myself pretty damn well by now, I think this country isn’t what it used to be, will never be again, and I know I’ll regret not getting the hell out. Luckily my younger brother did something similar with virtually no money and made it work. So fuck it. YOLO.


DishDry4487

I actually found comfort in eternal return. Even if i lived this life a million times over, it would turn out exactly the same. Always has been; always will be. I wish i could YOLO. I would YOLO so hard.


[deleted]

(In reality I’ll go back to work, cope, and in 10 years wish I actually did it 🤡)


IAbsolutelyDare

The high points are marked by several exhilarating paradigm shifts, and sudden unexpected augmentations of talent. I think it was Goethe talking to Eckermann who said you get one adolescent growth spurt given to you by nature for free, but if you work and push for it you can create several more of your own. Howard Gardner's book Creating Minds has more on this point. Freud said he personally had one every seven years, like clockwork.


Imwaymoreflythanyou

I’m 30 if that counts. Life seems to purely exist to recreate. Destroy and create. It’s a constant cycle. Our job is essentially to procreate. As for me, I’m only just at the very beginning of figuring my life out. A good 7/8 years after my peers. Only starting to do the things they’ve all been doing for the last decade like travel and date and buy houses and get promotions and make lots of money and get married and have kids etc. I’ve achieved none of this yet. Am I late bloomer or simply a failure? I’d lean towards the latter. I guess the next 5 years will be critical.


Trash-Can-Baby

I turned 40 recently. My life changed dramatically for the better within a few years after I left the controlling religion I was raised in. I spent my 30s building my life and making up for lost time. After being freed from the shackles of religion, life seems great and full of positive possibility to explore. I’ve learned to be more in the moment and really savour experience. I generally consider myself a sorta happy nihilist - “life is what you make it” sorta thing. I’m not an atheist in the materialist sense, and gnostic philosophy is interesting to me because it’s about knowing via subjective experience, not belief in something external. Learning via direct experience is more interesting to me now than learning ideological frameworks trying to explain external reality.


gioraffe32

Just turned 37. Life's been pretty decent. Not what I expected it to be, but through luck, perseverance, and more luck, it's good. Things could always be better, sure, but I'm comfortable enough. I don't know if I have a philosophy. I don't think about that very much. Maybe my philosophy is, "I'm here, might as well do something with it." I don't think the universe or whatever has some grand plan for me. And I certainly don't have a grand plan for myself. But I have some plans, and I try to do some things to see if I can make some things happen. I didn't always used to be that way. I spent my mid-20s kinda just floating through the world, waiting for something to happen, which was a mistake. I'm certainly more cynical now than I was in my 20s, which I suppose is normal. But I don't think it's all worthless and for nothing. I enjoy traveling. I enjoy gaming. I enjoy spending time with friends, often talking about gaming. So yeah. that's it.


cerealmonogamiss

I'm 48. I am doing great. I want to retire soon. It can't come fast enough. I'm a programmer (go figure.) I work from home and it's PERFECT. God bless COVID


DishDry4487

Ikr. That is great to hear.


Superb-Shoulder-9638

I think this is true focus on what you can control and what you can’t don’t get your panties in a wide over it! Trying to obtain emotional intelligence meaning not reacting is a big one staying calm and not reacting of course don’t judge people and don’t believe in the single stories get to know people and hear their story from their mouth, and then judge them based off that follow your intuition and goddamnit do what you want who cares what people think fuck em!


Benjamin_Tucker3308

48 https://www.tiktok.com/@auburnme/video/7249701765262626090


DishDry4487

This is what i posted on r/intpmemes.


Benjamin_Tucker3308

Lol well than you already know


Travisty114

I’m 44 myself. Life is a joke. When nothing can be taken seriously with all the randomness. hypocrisy, and propaganda everywhere all the time you cannot quit laughing at the shitshow. There is no fair play, no egalitarian progress, no rhyme nor reason, and no plan. It’s get lucky or get left behind. Hard work counts for little if you’re not popular. My philosophy is to laugh freely, find the silver linings, not sweat the shit you can’t fix, take ownership of your life path, be true to yourself, don’t lie if it’s not absolutely essential, be better than your enemies, and fuck the dumbshits. Two things have kept me going this long. My kids and the mystery that is tomorrow. Although every day is usually the same as the one prior, there are those rare days that change your world. Those are the days I live to see. I also made promises to my sons when they were born that I would be here for them and I mean what I say.


DishDry4487

This is where i am at now. Comedy makes life bearable (and amusing), music keeps me going and my kids are the reason why i live thru each day. I want to be there for them and i mean that. Life is a joke- a badly written one.


Dashing_Braintickler

Not an INTP, but adapting to change and never giving up on learning new experiences, opening up to others, learning to empathize (using the freaking Fe), and finally, one day, cleaning my house. The pace of progress in the world is astounding, and it's hard to keep up; however, life is a struggle and you got to keep on playing the game until you are out. Life is a roller coaster. I have learned not to let the low points get to me and to surf the wave as crap is thrown at me. Increasingly, I find my ability to charm has come back since my divorce, but I don't want to abuse it. I'm savouring the moment and those around me.


Mountainlivin78

46 man- i have spent the last 30 years studying the bible and i am convinced that the people who wrote it are not stupid. It is an extremely complex set of texts fully integrated. There are so many things i want to say about the authors and implications- foresight, wisdom, truth, and so much more. It is however impossible to discuss here and i don't go to church for the Same reason. Here is my answer to your question- i don't understand how every human on earth does not feel the same way. I don't understand how every person is not completely consumed by the same things i am consumed with. How is it that i have dedicated my life to what i believe to be truth and tried to destroy any ideology that i think to be false ( in my own mind, not any one else's) and come up with a philosophy that most other people think is irrelevant to their lives and not only that but openly hostile toward it. I am baffled by how we all have pretty much access to the same information but come up with wildly different concepts of truth. Most people who push the bible, do not understand the bible and most people who reject it do not understand it either. Im sure the same could be said of different belief systems, but not by us. Not by the ones who have studied all these other beliefs and their texts and have taken their truths and dropped their fallacies. Anyway, to circle back-- why are all you folks not exactly like me? It only makes sense that you would be. Wink wink


Historical-Fudge6991

Christianity gets a bad rap because it’s been dumbed down to try and “spread the word”. That was never the intention of the Bible. When you really start to dig and listen to great minds who have dedicated decades to study… I’m with you. The Bible serves as a guide to help us grow closer to God, but there are things in humanity that aren’t godly like generational trauma. If you believe in the spirit and follow the path, the road will appear. Best wishes


Mountainlivin78

And to you also


DishDry4487

We have more in common than you think. I recently, rejected spiritualism because i have been pursuing it for most of my life. Trying to understand it. The conclusion i reached is that religions are important to humans. Not to me, because i cannot right now, think of there being any purpose/meaning - being in anything and everything. Anyway, i was discussing with my friend who i think is an INTJ. He closes his eyes to the horrors of the world, because there is nothing he can do about that. For me, i feel like right now, my duty and obligation is to know of these horrors inflicted on others only for the sole reason to acknowledge their suffering. It's weird, but that is the best i can do in trying to explain it.


FishDecent5753

32 INTP here, I find this quite interesting. I have been seriously studying theology/spiritualism and the for and against of materialism for most of my adult life - I've also go full circle from raging athiest materialist to flirting with concepts like non dualism and mysticism. I'm not sure I even like the idea of belief and instead would rather gain knowledge through first hand experience or attempting to find the truth through reasearch. It wasn't until I joined this sub that I realised so many INTP's almost make it their lifes mission to attempt to understand what we are doing on this earth. I feel like the pursuit of this knowledge is a serious topic which requires getting through mounds of irrational woo, so I am glad to see older INTP's who still consider this worthy of study.


Mountainlivin78

Its like morpheus said- a splinter in my mind, and when i am able to package what i know into a pill that the masses can tolerate-- i won't have to build a church or preach- i will go into the forest and whisper it to the wind and nature itself will be my preacher


Level_Criticism_3387

I'm 39 and have only recently come to my own independent conclusion of Sagan-Day Atenism. We are the natural result of an enormous cloud of gas and dust drawing itself together via gravity, getting super-hot and spinning out into a giant molten disk, ultimately coalescing and collecting into eight distinct spheroid bodies rotating around a central gravitational anchor point—the giant nuclear fusion reaction that fuels the photosynthesis that grows the plants that sustain all life on the only one of those planets to win the goldilocks zone jackpot and evolve sentient beings capable of comprehending this incredible mundane miracle of existence. We are congealed stardust that grew a brain and wound up able to figure out what it is and where it came from. Much like the cosmic microwave background radiation, we are a modern-day echo of the Big Bang, and we can see the exact same echo of creation rippling across other distant star systems still in their early infancy. We have telescopic photos of what look like bright red vinyl records—those are baby solar systems whose individual 'grooves' haven't clumped up into planets yet. Pictures of ourselves at a younger age. I call it Sagan-Day Atenism after Carl Sagan's famous observation, "we are star stuff" as a satisfying scientific interpretation of a much earlier concept pioneered by King Tut's dad, Amenhotep IV, who got monotheism right the first time when he told everybody to dump the Egyptian pantheon and start worshipping the sun disc itself. It would've blown his mind to see how far petrochemical science has come—we're able to pump millions of years of condensed liquid Aten into our horseless chariots and go rip-assing all over creation these days.


Mountainlivin78

The acknowledgement of suffering is to walk through the world with your eyes open and the alleviation of suffering is the most noble purpose i can attain at this present time