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Ticking away
The moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours
In an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground
In your hometown
Waiting for someone
Or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
You work your entire life to pay for your headstone.
(Approximate translation of some french punk lyrics that capture the same sentiment)
We bought a travel trailer back in 2011. A neighbor asked for a tour, so I showed it to him. He was telling me that it had been him and his wife's dream to buy an RV when they retired and tour the country. Unfortunately, medical issues meant that never happened.
He told us we were smart to do it young. You just never know. And we've had many great experiences in it.
And we've had many great experiences in it.
Oh, I bet you have ... ಠ◡ಠ
THE IMPLICATION HERE IS SEX
Oooooooh.
This is a good place to remind everyone that if you wait for social security retirement in America you have a really good chance of dying shortly after that retirement. The great die off starts at 65.
And yes you can live healthier to have better odds of getting higher on that chart. But you cannot add young years. So if your idea of Europe includes skiing in the alps or something then you need to go before you retire. Don't let the idle rich dictate your life. They aren't waiting around.
And yes you can live healthier to have better odds of getting higher on that chart.
Living healthier means keeping your stress low, saving time for exercise, and limiting your intake of fast food.
But these are luxuries primarily reserved for the already wealthy. Luxuries afforded through cheap service sector labor.
Like so much else in this country, good health is paid for with a labor tax on the poor.
That population pyramid is a bit misleading because the baby boom coincides with the ages with the steepest declines. In part, there were significantly fewer people born in 1939 compared to 1959, so you'd expect way more 65 year olds than 85 year olds in 2024.
Yes, the death rate is higher among older people, but the life expectancy of a 60 year old man is still another 20 years.
the life expectancy of a 60 year old man is still another 20 years.
Also, importantly, Americans (born in 1980 as a reference) have a 95% chance of living to see age 60.
Even in relatively poor and disadvantaged states (W. Virginia or Mississippi) you're looking at 92-94% odds.
We've solved for a lot of the early mortality threats common to prior generations - childhood diseases most prominently. We've also seen a general improvement in public health with respect to smoking and drinking. And workplace safety has improved dramatically as we shifted from Ag Labor to Industrial work to Office jobs.
You're not wrong but you're not right. Life expectancy is an average. Here's a 1980 chart that shows the same trend.
Also baby boomers are 60-78 years old. You can clearly see the die off happening within their generation.
Poor bastard was waiting for Windows update to finish.
I think I'm the second frame, quickly becoming the third
I might still be first, how do I break out, waiting for instructions......
Maybe it's time to finally give it all up and buy that little sailboat ⛵
I suffer from catastrophic seasickness
there are pills for that
I keep having dreams of things I need to do
And waking up but not following through
But it feels like I haven't slept at all
When I wake to a silence and she's facing the wall
Posters of Dylan and of Hemingway
An antique compass for a sailor's escape
She says, "You just can't live this way"
And I close my eyes and I never say
I'm still having dreams
God I love Pink Floyd!!
Same. Especially this song. More chills given than any other song. I'd assume I've listened to it 200 times or more at this point
It's brutal, isn't it? 7 minutes of pure distilled existential terror
Yeah it's breautiful™
Mine is "Dogs." The combination of the message and the barking in the solo is just...
I had this happen to me once when I was trapped in a whale. Sat down to play hand of poker. Next thing you know 40 years had passed by.
Its ribs are ceiling-beams, its guts are carpeting, I guess we have some time to kill.
I was going to run, but I had to stay for the epic solo...
Bwahhhhhhhhh
Bwaaa waa waahhhhh
Do doooooo deeeewww dooowoooo
Doo doo doo
BlununinhNUH NUUHHHHH
Sad modem noises.
I wonder what motivational posters workers in the Bahamas have on their wall
People crave what they don't have.
A big rusty secondhand spaceship, with which to run a dinky little trans-lunar scrap and salvage company. My second mate would be a cat.
I too crave the carve
A lot of "third world" countries don't work the hours we do.
Who is "we"?
The Americans grinding 60-90 hours a week.
This claim doesn't really pass the smell check for me - can you point to where you get the notion from? Checking the lists for average hours worked per year per worker, richer countries routinely have lower numbers than poorer countries.
Mostly it's for areas that aren't even in the developing category yet. Once you're developing you're talking about 9-5 work with less pay and benefits than in the West. But traditional work doesn't do office/factory hours. That means periods of lots of work and periods with little work where you live off the previous gains.
Skyscrapers, most likely.
I used to live in a resort city for the past year, and really missed big city things, like specialty stores - for the whole city there was only one PC store, one bicycle store, one music store - and all of them sucked big time. So I had to rely on online marketplaces... oh wait, there were none, so I had to order international and wait for months. Local taxi was also not good, food delivery business practically non-existent. Same for furniture and appliances, instead of home depot and radioshack you'd have to go to bazaars and ask around. But the most important one is opportunities. I was a digital nomad and lived comfortably, but locals, holy hell, I don't have any idea how they survive with wages this low. Pretty sure some of those construction workers would trade it all away to live as street musicians in SF or NYC, as just surviving there would put them in like worlds top 0.1%, but instead they work for hours on dangerous jobs for what I would've spend on a cup of coffee in a local cafe catered to tourists.
Maybe they just have a big sign that just says "HERE".
~~DON'T FORGET.
YOU'RE~~ HERE
~~FOREVER.~~
Or possibly a window?
I'll see you on the dark side of the Moon.
