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On music, I think our minds are especially open to appreciating music in adolescence and early adulthood. I think there's some science backing this up. It sounded something like the period when language acquisition is easiest, though this comes a little later in our development.
So the music we listen to as kids forms our tastes, contributing to a belief that it's better than earlier or later music.
The reason people look back in fondness to the good old days is that, it may very well be that things were better in the past. IMHO, lots of things were indeed better. My windows Xp computer was much better than my current machine. If you go back to the 50-70's lots of things were better for people in the USA. Crime was generally lower in most places, less divorce, more trust among people, lest political upheaval. You cant blame people for longing for the good old days, when there are many things about life that were indeed better, in the good old days.
Do you think there is any solution to that? I can't deny either of those things, frankly.
There's no permanent solution but there are things you can do to understand how the mind works. For example, studies say spending money on experiences (vacations, traveling, sightseeing, exploring, hiking) last longer than spending it on material things. They also say spending money on things that save you time (chef, grocery delivery, lawn mower, maid) help increase your happiness relatively.
But the key is no one can buy happiness. You can only pursue it and obtain it temporarily until the novelty wears off. I would suggest making a list of things that bring you happiness and go through it from time to time. For me that is reading, traveling, getting a massage, going to the beach, traveling, watching a documentary and learning something, etc.
Also, it's best to limit social media or take it with a grain of salt. It's very easy to be envious of some of the way people live, I'm guilty of it myself.
There's no permanent solution but there are things you can do to understand how the mind works. For example, studies say spending money on experiences (vacations, traveling, sightseeing, exploring, hiking) last longer than spending it on material things. They also say spending money on things that save you time (chef, grocery delivery, lawn mower, maid) help increase your happiness relatively.
But the key is no one can buy happiness. You can only pursue it and obtain it temporarily until the novelty wears off. I would suggest making a list of things that bring you happiness and go through it from time to time. For me that is reading, traveling, getting a massage, going to the beach, traveling, watching a documentary and learning something, etc.
Also, it's best to limit social media or take it with a grain of salt. It's very easy to be envious of some of the way people live, I'm guilty of it myself.
I agree on the money points, and in addition a certain level of income frees you from immediate day to day concerns about money. Not so much that you can't have money problems, but enough so that they may not occur, or they're rare. Chronic money concerns are a real happiness tax.
For me, in my mind things have always been fairly good, and I know that things will always get better. By looking back, I’m reminded of all the terrible things I’ve seen and witnessed. I’m an optimist that lives in denial, and I'm very happy.
Life was definitely better for me "back then". It is all individual. The people I loved most are now gone, I do not own my own home, I live alone, no kids, career uncertain...yeah, I'll take a time machine, thank you very much.
Also, cost is relative. While incomes are higher now, we are actually spending more of our income on housing than we were decades ago.
I think money is underestimated. Financial stability is crucial to well-being (that doesn't mean being rich). This includes owning a home, having a pension, even if it is modest.
I chuckle at this. My parents were much older than me. My father started his career in 1931, Depression. My mother was a few years younger but grew up in the Depression.
They would talk about the hardships of that time but later in the same day call it the "good old days".
TV programs were better back then, despite them being in black and white, and the sides of the screen being rounded. Back then TV programs had to have plots. And also, programs then were family oriented. Everything on TV was rated F (family). No need for parental controls. If a TV station aired a program with an f-bomb the station would be in deep trouble with the FCC.
We-ll, consider this "theory" I put out the other day in "The last movie you saw,".
The movie I saw was a 70s flick, a working copy DVD made from a VHS, shown on a flat screen. As such, the quality was pretty bad, fuzzy, with stalls as the analog tried to catch up in the digital system. Conceptually, however, this only mattered in the second of viewing but it won't matter in the memory of having watched the movie because the mind will fill in for the errors.
FURTHER, us humans only exist in one instance. Everything else that we know is based on memory. In this one instance, we can say everything is real but when that instance is 5 seconds ago or last week, then it is derived from what we know in our heads.
That is quite a difference, the difference between real and memory, in the basis of its construction.
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