The New Coffee Room

@Horace said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

@Aqua-Letifer said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

@Horace said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

I hope those who find their old problems awaiting them after a grueling journey of self-discovery, aren't too hard on themselves that they didn't commit hard enough.

Spend much time out in the woods?

Significantly more than most people - maybe 100x more.

And no, I will never tell you about it. It is too personal, and magical.

Yeah, it's great talking to you, too.

@Horace said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

I hope those who find their old problems awaiting them after a grueling journey of self-discovery, aren't too hard on themselves that they didn't commit hard enough.

Spend much time out in the woods?

@Jolly said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

After my nephew did the trail, he ditched his dreams of a fulltime music career, finished his AgEcon master's, married a really pretty and talented young lady with a strong bohemian bent, bought a house and started making babies.

Yeah, those experiences are likely related.

@jon-nyc said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

I have 2.5 wisdoms to share. The rest I’ll need just to get through life.

You've got more than that.

@Mik said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

That's pretty elitist-metaphysical.

It's the freaking AT. I'm not talking about what some day-hiker should do, every time they go out in the woods. I sure as hell look forward to diner food once I get done a day-long walk. I'm talking about a certain kind of through-hike.

I know quite a few through-hikers (and far more would-bes). A great many would-bes feel stuck in their lives, and they have this idea that they'll go hike the AT to find themselves. That's a very common reason you'll come across.

A fine idea—we've been doing that sort of thing for tens of thousands of years—but if that's the goal, then you need to take that seriously. You need to keep the phone at home and stay out in the forest. Civilization is what put you in this existential crisis in the first place; freaking commit to the very place you went to find answers.

Fun hikes or doing the thing for the challenge is ay-okay. You're not obligated to have an existential experience when you do the AT. But a lot of folks go there explicitly for that, and either give up or come back finding out nothing about themselves because they didn't take that process seriously.

@Mik said in Hotels and hiking the AT:

I see no issue with hotels. You're still hiking the trail.

Yes and no.

There's hiking the trail, and there's offering a bit of yourself to be devoured to make room for wisdom.

Slackpacker.

@jon-nyc said in The poetry thread:

@Aqua-Letifer said in The poetry thread:

@jon-nyc said in The poetry thread:

A Yeats excerpt that feels all too current.

Know what he's referring to here, though?

Yes, which is why I excerpted it.

The change already happened, though, according to Yeats. Following along your reason for sharing this, Trump's not the beast but rather a byproduct of it. Same for Biden.

@jon-nyc said in The poetry thread:

A Yeats excerpt that feels all too current.

Know what he's referring to here, though?

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Being Irish, he means something very specific.

I wonder how much of each, though. A good portion of the time I lament the fact that she's absolutely going to grow up to be the kid with "those WEIRD parents." Inadvertent though it may be, we're not going to make it easy on her in high school, that's for sure.

@LuFins-Dad said in Well, what DID you get done last week?:

@Aqua-Letifer said in [Well, what DID you get done last week?](Our daughter has no setting between "off" and "high." None.)

I will confirm this assessment, but she is still wonderful. And I mean that literally. The girl is full of wonder.

Thanks, man, that's very kind of you to say!

We really lucked out in a lot of ways. She's the kind of kid that just makes people smile. Which, thank God for that.

1. Went record hunting with the family around Fells Point. Got some great stuff.
2. Taught kiddo how to work a record. (She did all the steps this time around.)
3. Got Mexican with a family who had the kiddo over for her first sleepover. Success. But our friends were worn out. (Our daughter has no setting between "off" and "high." None.)
4. Read Hiawatha and a couple Iain McGilchrist articles.
5. Spoke to my folks on FaceTime so they could say hi to the grandkid.
6. Wrote a poem in dróttkvætt. Did a couple blackout ones just for fun.
7. Did some birding out by a nearby nature sanctuary.
8. Hosted another writing seminar.

@LuFins-Dad said in Unmarried, With Children:

But there has been a significant change over the last few years. There’s a surprising and frightening number of young men that don’t even want any significant relationship with a woman, childless or not.

There are many, many reasons for that.

1. Online dating apps. Guys will date above and beneath themselves on the dating hierarchy. Women, on the other hand, only go across and up. And the guys at the top know this. So they sleep around and do whatever the hell they want because they know that short of incarceration, they'll always have a dozen women lined up no matter how their last relationship panned out. Sociopathy and narcissism is much more prevalent in this group. Which women clamor to date. Which makes them believe all men are scum etc. So in the off chance any woman is willing to give average dudes a go, it's after they've spent years chasing after narcissists and sociopaths who own Beamers. But most just give it up. Some change teams to feel less alone.
2. Many women today are told by their media, their parents, their schools, their friends and their commercials that guys are either (a) Handmaid's Tale supervillains (and hey, look at what their dating app experience has told them) or (b) incompetent assclowns. They're not looking to share a life, they're looking to maintain their independence and not be lowered by some man. (Nothing wrong with those things—just that "me" without "us" lays no relationship foundation.)
3. Guys today are told by their media, their parents, their schools and their commercials that the best mark upon the earth they can hope for is not engage in a noble pursuit, but support women in theirs. No one cares if they get left behind so long as they aren't holding women back like freaking always. Their getting left behind is good actually because then that paves the way for more women, historically marginalized, to thrive.

It's an absolute mess. Young couples who get and stay married are committing minor miracles.

My dinner order tonight included the phrase, "Thai spicy and yes I'm serious about that."

They delivered as promised, which is why I started drafting this in the bathroom.

@Horace said in This number surprised me:

@Aqua-Letifer said in This number surprised me:

@Horace said in This number surprised me:

I've never been able to quite swallow the notion that joining the military constitutes a selfless personal sacrifice.

Watching you share that opinion at your local post would be interesting.

Unimpressive response.

Geez, tough room today.

Is it to say you disagree with my point, or just that you would find it interesting to watch me get beat up, or whatever your imagination projects onto that thought experiment? I mean, I don't plan on driving down to the local fort and bullhorning about how troops don't care about their country, but I just bet there are congenial ways to introduce the economic motivations into conversation without getting punched out by big bad soldiers.

I think it's weird that you're talking about "joining the military" as an act of singular motivation. To me it indicates a lack of understanding about veterans, either academic or personal. Some of them are indeed desk jockeys who wanted to be so, and personal sacrifice was in no way a motivating factor. They would agree with you about how ridiculous that assumption is. Others join up for very personal reasons and the possibility of sacrifice absolutely factored in. I would have thought that was obvious.

@Jolly said in How wealthy are the wealthy?:

I'm not sure it's do-able...

It absolutely is when you pull yourself up by your bootstraps live in your parents' basement until you're about 30.

People are finding weird workarounds. In my neck of the woods, there are a couple of families, entirely unrelated, who are living together to share expenses. I don't know any details beyond that, but it's an interesting solve.

@Horace said in This number surprised me:

I've never been able to quite swallow the notion that joining the military constitutes a selfless personal sacrifice.

Watching you share that opinion at your local post would be interesting.

@89th said in Is anyone tracking DOGE lies?:

What if Elon has a falling out with Trump in the summer?

When, not if.

@Mik said in How wealthy are the wealthy?:

Bah. Commie propaganda. As far as I can see there are a whole lot more relatively affluent Americans, and the poor do not look nearly as poor as they were when I was growing up.

Depends on the metric. Amenities like TVs and such have plummeted in price when adjusted for inflation, but necessities have blown up. So while you can furnish your apartment with extras your parents could never afford just starting out, you ain't getting a house anytime soon—and going without a wifi-enabled Roomba and foregoing Starbucks isn't going to get you there.

It's a good litmus test for the level of understanding people like Dimon have about their employees' jobs and how they work. Which is to say he has no understanding whatsoever.