I believe we get various role models throughout our lives. Yes, your parents are the very first ones you get and they have tremendous influence on your life in early ages but that influence gets diminished over time. For me it’s started being noticeable in my early to mid 20s. And no I didn’t have a fall out with my parents, in fact we have a very close relationship. But I met so many great people throughout my life who inspired me and majorly influenced the important decisions I had made career wise and personal. I just can’t claim my parents were my only role models.
Maybe you are referring to emotional support rather than role models? Than it’s a different story
What are you trying to say exactly? No one said that parents are anyone’s only life influence. However, for some people, parents are clearly a major influence.
Yeah, bchad was not a young guy, but his life path and personality were formulated years before this.
Parents do, indeed, have a great influence in their children’s lives, for better or for worse. If the children are fortunate, they figure out quickly if it’s for better or if it’s for worse and, in the latter case, mitigate that influence.
My father had a great influence on me, and it wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I realized (discovered?) that, in many ways, he was a real jerk. Good in many ways as well, but often a complete ass.
I think that it’s safe to say that, in the ways that he was an ass rearing me, I wasn’t an ass in rearing my three offspring. (Maybe in other ways, of course, but not in those.) Indirectly, they benefited from his influence.
(They didn’t meet him until they were all teenagers, at a birthday party for my nieces. On the way home, my daughter remarked about what jerks he and my stepmother were. Not much gets past my daughter.)
I’m sure you’re not talking about our fate being predetermined, but your statement could be taken that way. We all have free will. IMO, suicide is really only acceptable if you have a terminal illness or you’re about to go to prison for a sex crime. Otherwise, there are always other options and people - even complete strangers - willing to help you.
I don’t know what demons bchad was facing, but the path he chose (not what was chosen for him) was a poor one. What sucks most about suicide is your last act is ultimately a selfish one. You leave behind people that love and care about you thinking if they may have done this or that maybe you’d still be alive. It tarnishes the legacy you leave behind. Robin Williams is now known as a tortured soul who also happened to be a comedic genius. bchad’s legacy is likewise tarnished. And it’s a damn shame because he doesn’t deserve that.
I was not talking about his act of taking his own life. I was talking about him becoming an academic, his intellectual and not so practical way of looking at the world, and his general outlook on himself and others. Even if he was able to make his own choices, these choices were still influenced by his psychology and his personal circumstances.
At least most people don’t.Children raised in shitty families and grown up with feelings of constant shame, misery or anger do not have control over many of their impulses and behaviors. It has been proven your brain chemistry affects your mood and vice versa.Imagine being born into a troubled family raising you as an awkward kid in whatever way, you end up doing stupid stuff in school as a result and the cycle keeps on going and going. self-fulfilling prophecy keeps getting reinforced.This can be seen in many ethnicities in the U.S where due to lack of poor parenting generations are being raised acting pretty much the same way and doing the same stuff, each hardwiring their behavior a little more when they pass their genes.
I do believe healthier adults have more control over their lives and their actions than those struggling with depression or anxiety where these thoughts serve as chains to limit and push your actions in certain ways.
Hypothetically you can always claim we have free will and fancy statements such as these but honestly if you are struggling with even a mild mental illness your actions are very limited and biased thus rooting out free will.
I wasn’t even talking about free will earlier, but that’s a good point. And anyway, choice is biased by predisposition, so it’s hard to say anything is 100% free will, even if you are conscious of the action. STL try to not use the bidet for a day and see if you can really choose.
^We’re going to disagree on that. Without any immediate family, I don’t think his act was really selfish. It’s his life and his decision, his body. On a high level we’re passing a lot of judgment on an inevitable matter that is really about timing and semantics. I think Western society has some conversely self serving (and selfish) view of its own, that everyone must continue to live as Bchad similarly said - for the modest comfort of knowing they’re alive. These social conventions change over time (see the Greeks, also to his point). Which is why a good portion of your stance turns to social perception on the matter, which are only useful if you are of the mindset to defer your beliefs to social constructs. By this metric, One Direction was a pillar of good music.
It’s telling that only six states in this day and age allow for medically assisted death in terminally ill cases while all allow for abortions. As a society, we demand you suffer so we can have a clear conscience. For me personally, I understand that for him and his ideological system that this was a choice made in a clear mindset. I don’t support it or condone with it but controversially, I do ultimately respect his sense of conviction if nothing else. That being said, I may be biased from my own experiences on this one. At one point almost a decade ago I definitely came to a similar thought process that I stand by but came to a different conclusion out of responsibility to my immediate family that I also stand by.
On the other hand, Ohai’s perspective was really valuable to me in providing a more practical view and maybe some of the ingrained flaws in his thought process.
It’s disheartening that someone with such obvious intelligence, compassion and character couldn’t more easily find his way through the world – while at the same time many people of lesser traits seemingly have an easier go of it.
Did you read his letter carefully? (I’m not being asinine, genuinely asking) A lot of the points I outlined are drawn from that (including the one you’re referencing).