Life questions - Newly Old

3 followers

173 daily readers

rank of 693

Category Quick Links

Is it possible to live, work and play in an ethical way without the guiding hand and stabilising influence of religion?

According to a study at America's Harvard University, it is a result which some may dismiss as oxymoronic and others may dismiss as trivial.

The Harvard researchers apparently thought neither, analysing a series of psychological studies aimed at testing the morality of individuals.

Their conclusion, according to Dr Marc Hauser, a co-author of the final report, is that atheists have a sense of right and wrong which pretty much matches that of believers. The study also found that ethical standards vary little between most religions.

Dr Hauser said the findings could help explain the complex relationship between morality and religion. What he didn't say is that atheists have no need of such an explanation.

The findings of the study were published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Vote

Comments (18)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Life questions, Psychology

Email this Post to a Friend

Don't hold your breath waiting for a mid-life crisis

February 2nd 2010 10:40

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.

- Samuel Ullman

What is, for most of us, the happiest period of our lives? When we are young and carefree? When we are old and wise? Surely not somewhere in the middle, in the roiling waters infested by that terror of the psyche — the mid-life crisis.

Yes. Just that.

According to research by Tel Aviv University psychologist Carlo Strenger, not only are our middle years our happiest but their nemesis, the mid-life crisis, is actually a myth.

Strenger and his team got into the heads of about 1,500 people before coming to this conclusion. "Most of them actually say that they are better off and happier and more balanced than they were when they were 20 years younger," he found.

The psychologist Elliot Jacques coined the term “mid-life crisis” around 1970. He had started with the fact that the average human lifespan was 70 years, and he surmised that the average person’s quality of life started going down after age 35. If that was the case, thought Jacques, it was natural to expect some extreme reactions as one contemplated mortality.

"Shiver with anticipation," as Frank sibilated in the Rocky Horror Show.

The surprise responses to Strenger's survey attracted the attention of a another psychologist, Peter S. Kanaris, of Long Island in the US. And he decided they had a point.

The 40s and 50s, Kanaris said, can be viewed as times of contentment. “People in mid-life have reached a time where they are a little more settled and established. Prior to mid-life, people are building families, paying mortgages, developing in their careers at a time when there is much more uncertainty than usual. This creates a great deal of stress.”

By the time we are middle-aged, he concludes, we typically have substantially lessened the financial strains on our lives.

So must we let go of the potential of a mid-life crisis? I mean, let's face it, the word potential there could be replaced by allure. Promise. Attraction, even already. We are talking about, y'know, young women and sports cars and revisitations of youth.

B.J. Gallagher, author of a book entitled It’s Never too Late To Be What You Might Have Been, pours cold water on all that, and agrees with Strenger and Kanaris. "A so-called mid-life crisis these days is really more of a mid-life transition," she says.

It's nice that such revolutionary and revelatory scientific endeavour brings us ever deeper understanding of life.

But what about my Ferrari?

New York Daily News

Vote

Comments (3)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: 50s, 60s, Life questions, Mid-life crisis

Email this Post to a Friend

Do hobbits understand what man does not?

October 28th 2009 23:38

JRR Tolkien

JRR Tolkien was once asked if he would write further episodes of Lord of the Rings. His response was extraordinary.

"I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the downfall of Mordor," Tolkien said, "but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice, and prosperity, would be become discontented and restless, while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors, like Denethor or worse. Not worth doing."

The words come from a letter by Tolkien written to Colin Bailey in 1964, and show both his humanity and insight. I like the comment on the livestrong.com blog: "Tolkien was a great man. To realise the worth of a story even before it was written and then abort the project speaks volumes to me. He was a story teller and not a mercenary."

The words in the Tolkien quote I find most interesting, however, are "... the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good".

Gondor in the Lord of the Rings is the land of men, and so Tolkien is saying that the worst thing about human nature is an inability to cope with the very things we seek. Tolkien thinks that the more we get what we want, the less content we are.

This is something of a conundrum. How can good be bad?

Father James V Schall, Professor of Government at the Jesuit Georgetown University in Washington DC, says in a fascinating commentary that Tolkien's idea is related to earlier philosophical ideas. GK Chesterton, for example, said we are more likely to lose our souls if we are rich than we are poor.

From a less religious point of view, Fr Schall brings together ideas by Plato and St Augustine. The first said the desires of man are unlimited. The second said all finite things are good.

It all makes a strong case for what most of us suspect, and what becomes slowly clearer as we get older: neither money nor material possessions guarantee happiness.

Peter Jackson's wonderful portrayal of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy begins and ends in the village of Hobbiton, the idyllic home of Bilbo, Frodo, Sam and their fellow hobbits. The hobbits have their foibles and their squabbles, but they are generally content in such serene surroundings in a way man, it seems, can not be.

If Tolkien could have seen Jackson's pictures, I think he would have nodded in recognition and appreciation.

Vote

Comments (2)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Life questions

Email this Post to a Friend

Alone with our thoughts

August 31st 2009 00:33

Hermann Hesse

The hero of Herman Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, which won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, is Joseph Knecht, the brilliant young teacher and leader. The main themes of the book — conflicts between looking within and without, between elitism and secularism, between the need to concentrate on research and the need to teach the lessons of that research — are built around the character of Knecht.

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (9)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Life questions

Email this Post to a Friend

Do you prefer the ocean, the mountains or ... ?

May 30th 2009 20:14

The question is sometimes asked, are you an ocean or a mountain kind of person.

[ Click here to read more ]

118

Vote

Comments (26)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Life questions

Email this Post to a Friend

The best things in life

March 17th 2009 06:37

There is a question doing laps of my mind and refusing to leave. The one good thing is that I get some relief from Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, which has been on permanent relay in my head for approximately 37 years, but I'm beginning to wish I had the music back. At least I don't have to think about that.

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (5)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Chris Champion - Category: Life questions

Email this Post to a Friend

[ Newly Old Home ] [ Create A New Post ]