Good Life Recipe

August 31, 2023 ~ Clarissa

There’s a screed making rounds on social media by a childless woman who says it’s great to have no children at 37 because you can sleep in every day and leave the house at a moment’s notice whenever you want.

What struck me in this statement isn’t the issue of childlessness. I didn’t have a living child at 37 either. But I couldn’t sleep in every day and go wherever the fancy struck me because I had a job. Don’t people without small children usually have jobs? Who is that person who sleeps late every day at the age of 37? Don’t you have things to do? OK, so you don’t have children but you’ve got to have something. Where is it that you can even go at a moment’s notice? Shopping? With what money if you don’t have a job?

It’s really weird that people who are not at all young have these strange fantasies of life filled with doing nothing. Not being able to hang around aimlessly and not following your whims because you have responsibilities is normal. And it’s not in the least unpleasant. It doesn’t bother me that I have to go to my job every day and that I can’t leave the office until the workday is over. Or that I have to get up early to pack Klara’s lunch box and make her breakfast. I love it.

Not having a life structured by routines arising from responsibilities leads to depression and anxiety. There’s no doubt that the author of the screed is on some form of psych meds. Not because she’s childless but because her understanding of happiness is the opposite of what makes humans happy. “I need to be free from everything that constitutes life” leads to dark places. People have been sold the fantasy that aimless, shiftless, uprooted existences are the ultimate in joy but when they engineer such lives for themselves, the joy doesn’t come. And it’s not surprising.

Published by Clarissa

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14 thoughts on “Good Life Recipe”

el says:

August 31, 2023 at 14:40

Haven’t seen this screed, but the basic assumption is that leaving the house “at a moment’s notice” happens after work.

As for sleeping in every day, who knows what she means by it. May be, it’s waking up at 8:00 to arrive at 8:30-9:00 to work, instead of waking up at 2:00 am, 4:00 am, 6:00 am, 7:00 and so on.

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1. Clarissa says:
  
  August 31, 2023 at 15:47
  
  It’s a very short period of time that you have to feed the baby every 4 hours. Even at my advanced age, it was no problem at all. Teething was hard, but again it’s not a permanent state. I don’t know why people fixate on the infancy stage when it’s really very short.
  
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  1. el says:
    
    August 31, 2023 at 18:06
    
    \ It’s a very short period of time that you have to feed the baby every 4 hours. Even at my advanced age, it was no problem at all.
    
    One website in an article about the 1st year said it is still every 4 hours at 6+ months.
    
    If a woman returns to full time work at 3 months, it is brutal.
    
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    1. Pen says:
      
      August 31, 2023 at 22:55
      
      That depends on how well the baby’s sleeping at that time. If the baby’s sleeping through the night, you’re not going to wake her up to feed her; that doesn’t make sense.
      
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      1. methylethyl says:
        
        September 1, 2023 at 09:45
        
        Mine did not sleep through the night until almost age 3. None of them.
        
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el says:

August 31, 2023 at 14:59

Btw, I had been waiting and waiting for “Demon Copperhead” to arrive to my library till finally bought it yesterday. 🙂

Only at chapter 11 so far and with school year starting and lack of practice in reading books it’ll take me a while to finish, but am glad.

Now I understand why people compared the narrator to Huck Finn; there is something similar in the sense of humor.

You called it an American novel of the crisis, so is it finally the book that can be analyzed with the help of Zygmunt Bauman’s theories? If so, hope to come back with some theories to share and discuss with you about this novel, even if it takes time.

Couldn’t force myself to read any novels for a long time, partly because everything seemed like usual plots and things I’ve read before many times. So far, this book did draw me in.

Another novel I’m planning to read is “Granddaughter” by Bernhard Schlink. May be, you’ll want to try it too. The reviews sounded interesting. Don’t post here because of spoilers, but this part sounds great:

// Автор пытается наладить диалог не между разными поколениями, а разными политическими и историческим взглядами. И взглядами на простую человеческую жизнь. Да, формально столкнутся три поколения, но посыл совсем не в этом, на мой взгляд.

// Внучка” — это путешествие от одного поколения к другому, от западной Германии к восточной, от нацистких будней до наших, от ненависти до любви к своей стране. Посредством такого наивного и простого сюжета, Шлинку удается копнуть намного глубже, проникнуть в сердце, душу, под кожу …
Споры поколений на разные темы – музыка, политика, литература, война и холокост. Они верят в разное, у каждого своя правда. Но сойдутся ли они воедино?!

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1. Clarissa says:
  
  August 31, 2023 at 15:49
  
  I will not rest until as many people as possible read this book. It’s a true work of art.
  
  Between this novel and Jennifer Egan’s books we can say that American literature is definitely alive. And that’s great.
  
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2. Clarissa says:
  
  August 31, 2023 at 15:55
  
  I will not rest until as many people as possible read this book. It’s a true work of art.
  
  Between this novel and Jennifer Egan’s books we can say that American literature is definitely alive. And that’s great.
  
  The Schlink novel sounds interesting but I can’t find an English translation. There will be a Spanish translation later in the year, it seems.
  
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  1. el says:
    
    August 31, 2023 at 17:22
    
    \ The Schlink novel sounds interesting but I can’t find an English translation.
    
    I loaned a Russian translation from the library.
    
    https://www.litres.ru/book/bernhard-shlink/vnuchka-69130984/chitat-onlayn/
    
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el says:

August 31, 2023 at 15:12

One more book that was too long for me to read online, so I hope to buy it too after finishing DC, is Winston Churchill’s “My Early Life”.

Аннотация к книге “Мои ранние годы: 1874-1904”
В этой книге Уинстон Черчилль вспоминает свое детство, школьные годы, свою службу в гусарском полку, участие в боевых действиях на Кубе, на индийской границе и в Египте, свои корреспондентские подвиги во время Англо-бурской войны, пленение и побег из плена, а также свое вступление в политику в качестве члена парламента.
“Мои ранние годы” не только позволяют читателям проследить за формированием великой личности, но и, как пишет сам Черчилль, рисуют панорамную картину ушедшей эпохи. При этом читаются они как самый захватывающий авантюрный роман.

Loved the quotes:

// “Вы живете и творите свой собственный мир. Чем богаче ваше воображение, тем разнообразнее ваш мир. Когда вы перестанете грезить, мир кончится”.

// Именно в Охотничьем домике мне впервые явило свой грозный оскал Образование. Ожидалось прибытие жуткой особы, именуемой гувернанткой. День ее приезда был назначен. Готовясь к этому событию, миссис Эверест достала книгу «Чтение без слез». В моем случае название, конечно, не оправдало себя. Мне внушили, что к приезду гувернантки я должен читать, не обливаясь слезами. Мы трудились каждый день. Нянька пером показывала буквы. Это была мука мученическая. Муштра еще далеко не завершилась, а уж грянул роковой час встречи с гувернанткой. Я сделал то, что обычно делают затравленные люди: ушел в кусты. То есть забился в окружавшую Охотничий домик кустарниковую чащу, казавшуюся мне лесом.

// Годами я считал, что отцовский опыт распознал во мне военную косточку. А оказывается, как мне сказали позже, он так решил, потому что, по его наблюдениям, для адвокатуры я умом не вышел.

// “Когда одолевают напасти, не следует забывать, что они, быть может, уберегают вас от чего-то похуже, и какая-нибудь чудовищная ошибка порой приносит вам больше благ, чем самое разумное, по мнению многих, решение”.

“Не миритесь с положением вещей. “Ибо ваша земля, и что наполняет её”. Вступайте во владением наследием, берите на себя обязательства. … Не спешите сказать “Нет”. Не миритесь с неудачами. Вы наделаете массу ошибок, но, оставаясь великодушными, честными и пылкими, вы не навредите миру, даже не причините ему сильной боли. Он для того и существует, чтобы его домогались и завоевывали молодые. Только раз за разом покоряясь, мир живет и процветает”.

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methylethyl says:

August 31, 2023 at 18:42

I’ve known a couple of people who got married and opted out of kids because they felt they were too selfish to be good parents, didn’t want to share the spouse’s attention with anybody, didn’t want to crimp their lifestyle by having to move to the suburbs. I don’t get it ,but they seemed content enough.

I’m the sort of person who completely goes to seed if nobody needs me to be anywhere or do stuff in a timely manner. Having a family keeps me from mouldering.

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1. xykademiqz says:
  
  August 31, 2023 at 19:49
  
  “I’m the sort of person who completely goes to seed if nobody needs me to be anywhere or do stuff in a timely manner.”
  
  I feel this so hard. I am quite self-sabotaging, and would probably weigh 600 lbs and live in squalor if I didn’t have a family. The people who are able to boss themselves around (for instance, in a gym) are a complete mystery to me. I can’t help blowing up any barricades I put on myself because I know they are aren’t real.
  
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Avi says:

September 1, 2023 at 01:40

Most of these self-deluded people, like the woman whose screed is doing its pathetic round of social media, don’t seem to understand that what may sound fun or great or liberating at 20 and 30, and maybe even at 40, will look increasingly depressing at 50 and 60, and positively despair-inducing the older they grow. They may still see themselves as bachelorette girls at 67, but from the outside it’s a very different look. And this no matter how rich, or successful, or good-looking they may be.

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1. Post Alley Crackpot says:
  
  September 5, 2023 at 03:12
  
  Should you wind up near Orlando, have a little time to check out The Villages.
  
  It’s the kind of place that exists because some people, mostly of one generation in particular, decided that instead of letting the kids have something to inherit that might get the kids off the track of inevitable basic lifestyle unaffordability and being stuck in their jobs out of fear of backsliding, they’d blow the entire wodge they’d stored as equity in their houses, vehicles, and other stuff they can liquidate so that they may invent an aspirational retirement lifestyle in which being 70+ is in and of itself attractive, cool, and interesting, with so many ultimately meaningless leisure and entertainment options in that Brave New Development that even Aldous Huxley would have thought he had been too conservative.
  
  The hotel on a lake near the cluster of shops and entertainment on the north side of The Villages is a good place to start.
  
  Brush up on the rules for “pickleball” before you visit, of course. 🙂
  
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