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Does it take a Napoleonic hussar? Talk to a US military veteran after a couple of deployments.
Right (military family here).
There are lots of hardships to life still. Lots of sickness, death (everyone is going to do it), etc.
I don't think people were necessarily stronger - they died younger, and they also didn't treat mental health issues at all. I remember when I first heard of the CONCEPT of "healthy personal boundaries" (which in my opinion are critically important) - I was in my mid thirties. I mean, I didn't have a CLUE about co dependency, clinical depression, night terrors, PTSD, OCD, etc. I just thought people were either "normal," or "weird."
I will say that there's something about the long term deprivations of a war or serious depression (or both), or other traumas, that tends to put hair on one's chest. I think if we don't let something traumatic destroy us, we will usually become better people, so that's why I think we have such admiration for the survivors of past generations.
I'm a survivor, that's for sure. And I'm a better person because of the traumas I've experienced. I've experienced quite enough thank you very much.
I remember one of the first times I ventured into the grocery store after covid started and all the flour was gone. I laughed to myself because I was thinking that very few people actually know how to make bread but then my next thought was people are capable of learning and adapting pretty quickly, really from one minute to the next, and maybe that first batch of bread made a great football but eventually and with the help of professor google, they got pretty good at turning out a light delicious loaf.
And by that same token, people can adapt quickly to adverse circumstances and those with a tougher background have more survival skills but even the Barbie and Ken types could catch up. Truth is this pandemic, scary as it is to those who are paying attention, is not the worst thing in history by far but it’s the worst thing that’s happened in my boomer background and that’s enough.
Also, I have the feeling now that few of the future senior citizens will live as long as our grandparents did. Im just really glad it’s not the kids that we’re having to worry so much about.
And by that same token, people can adapt quickly to adverse circumstances and those with a tougher background have more survival skills but even the Barbie and Ken types could catch up. Truth is this pandemic, scary as it is to those who are paying attention, is not the worst thing in history by far but it’s the worst thing that’s happened in my boomer background and that’s enough.
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It is interesting that there are people on this very forum arguing that social distancing and isolation is ruining society. When you think about it, when in history did the average person have access to art, culture, constant outside entertainment, even basic literacy and education? And yet, humans survived. I recently reread some of my Little House on the Prairie books, and the Ingalls would spend months on the frontier without seeing people outside of their family. Going into town was huge endeavor. This situation is different *for us* but it's not anything that our forbears couldn't have survived.
It is interesting that there are people on this very forum arguing that social distancing and isolation is ruining society. When you think about it, when in history did the average person have access to art, culture, constant outside entertainment, even basic literacy and education? And yet, humans survived. I recently reread some of my Little House on the Prairie books, and the Ingalls would spend months on the frontier without seeing people outside of their family. Going into town was huge endeavor. This situation is different *for us* but it's not anything that our forbears couldn't have survived.
Excellent point!
Also remember, OP, that especially with social media, you're hearing people today complain because they are your contemporaries and all around you. Those who complain will, typically, be louder than those who are adapting and going on with their lives. Furthermore, for past generations, what you are generally encountering is a sample of often carefully curated responses, such as memoirs, biographies, speeches, and sometimes exceptional private letters (among other things). These need not reflect the opinions of most of the population at that time.
I think there were many cultural differences in the past. For one thing, young men were expected to go to war. Risking your life in wholesale slaughter was considered a duty of citizenship. People died of diseases that are treatable today. Every family had a relative who died young of disease or who had gone to war. When I was in high school there were no seat belts or air bags so there were teenagers killed in car wrecks every year. Faced with all this uncertainty about their future, people adapted a more stoic attitude.
And men, especially, were expected to be courageous. Courage was also part of the code of a gentleman and the common man, a code of honor. Men engaged in deadly duels and non-deadly fights rather than accept an insult. I had engaged in fistfights since middle school until my early 20's. There was no choice. You fought or got picked on. It was better to lose a fight than be considered a coward. Up to my 8th grade teachers (nuns and brothers) slapped students across the face, or punched them in the arm, or you were hit 10 strokes with a wooden dowel across the fingertips for fighting in school. We took it and laughed about it afterwards.
Vice President Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, then retuned to his job as Vice President. Can you imagine Trump and Biden fighting a duel to the death with the winner going back to work? When the Titanic went down, men willingly gave up their seats in lifeboats to women and children, bravely facing certain death rather than appear cowardly. You rarely see the concept of physical courage emphasized today. Even police are trained to shoot to kill rather than risk personal injury. When physical courage is reported, it's considered peculiar and unusual, like someone rescuing a motorist from a burning car while others stand around watching and shooting video on their cell phones.
There are lots of hardships to life still. Lots of sickness, death (everyone is going to do it), etc.
I don't think people were necessarily stronger - they died younger, and they also didn't treat mental health issues at all. I remember when I first heard of the CONCEPT of "healthy personal boundaries" (which in my opinion are critically important) - I was in my mid thirties. I mean, I didn't have a CLUE about co dependency, clinical depression, night terrors, PTSD, OCD, etc. I just thought people were either "normal," or "weird."
I will say that there's something about the long term deprivations of a war or serious depression (or both), or other traumas, that tends to put hair on one's chest. I think if we don't let something traumatic destroy us, we will usually become better people, so that's why I think we have such admiration for the survivors of past generations.
I'm a survivor, that's for sure. And I'm a better person because of the traumas I've experienced. I've experienced quite enough thank you very much.
OP is an unemployed chemist in Spain with a wife in a similar position and living in a place his parents own. Has not held a job to support him/her according to his posts.
Family lore claims a royal hussar a few generations back. Reality says it was probably a fox in the hen house. Or not:>)
It is interesting that there are people on this very forum arguing that social distancing and isolation is ruining society. When you think about it, when in history did the average person have access to art, culture, constant outside entertainment, even basic literacy and education? And yet, humans survived. I recently reread some of my Little House on the Prairie books, and the Ingalls would spend months on the frontier without seeing people outside of their family. Going into town was huge endeavor. This situation is different *for us* but it's not anything that our forbears couldn't have survived.
What I also remember from the Little House books (I reread the series each year, too!) is when Laura began teaching at not-quite-sixteen years of age, she boarded with a family who lived close to the school where she'd been hired to teach. She was away from home and family for the very first time and had to bear uncomfortable witness to the lonely misery and angry depression of a wife who longed to be back east near family and friends and where life was far easier than eking out an existence out on the Dakota prairies. The lady of the house threatened her husband in the dark of night with a butcher knife while a terrified Laura huddled on a narrow sofa on the other side of the curtain dividing the "parlor" from the rest of the claim shanty's living and sleeping areas. She was loathe to tell her parents about the occurrence lest she not be permitted to finish teaching her first term. Quitting part-way through would have meant not being hired for another position which would cost her sister Mary her schooling.
There was also another interlude where she went and stayed for a time with a homesteader's wife and child who had to stay on the claim while the husband worked for the railroad. The isolation and resulting loneliness and the never-ending workload of a turning a shanty into a home broke some folks' spirits.
The books were sanitized to a degree for younger readers and Laura's daughter Rose was an ardent Libertarian, so that affected how these stories were presented. Still, the psychological hardships and their effects on the homesteading population are clear if one reads between the lines with the eyes of an adult.
That isolation was enough to drive more than a few people mad. Rose Wilder Lane herself suffered lifelong physical and emotional ill effects from what was a rather deprived early childhood.
All of that aside, when there was time for fun and socialization, settlers took full advantage of it. People did make their own fun; church in particular was a social event as much as it was one of religious belief. Still is, come to think of my own church experiences.
What's interesting to note, is that before the Little House books came into existence, Laura wrote extensively for various publications. In them, she often celebrates how much easier things were for her as a farm wife in first decades of the twentieth century when compared to when she was a girl and later a young wife in the waning decades of the nineteenth century. The innovations and bounty that she'd come to take for granted but could never have dreamed of when she was a child in that little house is the big woods of Wisconsin amazed her.
People in general are rather resilient, but there have been and always will be those who break under certain circumstances. Modern life may be easier and far more cushy than ever before in human history, but it's still a tough row to hoe at times.
I remember my mom and dad. Children of the great depression. They were orphans together lived and raised us 3 kids together and died still together. They were tough but not mean simple but not ignorant. My father never took a vacation in his life more ambitious than a 2 day camping trip. He worked 7 days a week for most of my childhood.
Mom was frugal, she wasted nothing and had nothing against repairing socks and torn jeans. She didn't throw out orange or potato peels. We had a garden and several times rabbits and chickens. From about the age of 10 I got to go to McDonalds once a year. We all went shopping for clothes once a year. She did not spare the rod when needed either.
Looking back I think that life after WWII for them was just gravy. I hold nothing against them. I do wish they had seen more of the world. I think that my life compared to theirs has been much much easier.
OP is an unemployed chemist in Spain with a wife in a similar position and living in a place his parents own. Has not held a job to support him/her according to his posts.
I am now living in Mexico, working hard to beat such situation, my parents can't support me anymore, I live with my wife and my newborn. We, my wife and I have a baby and we are rising him the best as we can. My wife has a job and I have some savings, I understood and I learned how to live with few resources. I don't complain at all about my situation, just look at my surroundings to understand... that despite the problems I have in my life, is nothing compared with others... Just today, I had to go with a lawyer in a place with people trully living in poverty, a family dad raising 5 kids that barely has something for him... I know I will overcome this, in Mexico or Mongolia... but there are others that you easily understand, they are condemned to a life of misery. Spain is in a bad situation but the situation of lots of families here is trully dramatic. I consider myself lucky. I was about to work in Netherlands, unfortunately, I failed in the last stage, but I know I will get it working hard. I feel a little sad today, because I see things I didn't want to see. Kids living in misery, you know they will never overcome their situation... Yeah, life is by far harder in Mexico.
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