Interesting perspective but I'm left wondering why so many men burn it up - affairs, abandonment, addictions, etc. It is the woman who is left to tend to the wreckage. Sometimes it might have been preferable for the man to have chosen celibacy rather than selfishness.
I've heard it told, and seen, that in India once a devout (hindu) man has done his family duties (marry, children, providing) he will then leave to live the pilgrim life. Sounds like the middle ground!
Appreciate your thoughtful post, and this thoughtful reply by you. My thought is that Walter White uses TV 'bumper sticker' philosophy to inform his own path, i.e. "a man provides" which is something Tony Soprano says. Both Tony Soprano and Walter White are sociopaths. The 'family' is their excuse for lives of quiet desperation, but they (and the wider world) would have been safer and unharmed if they didn't lean into their sociopathy. The 'second half' of Breaking Bad, by which I mean Better Call Saul, is the flip side of sociopathy. Walter White is 'nurture' while Saul/Jimmy McGill is 'nature'. Both funny and charming, but the world is better off with White dead, and McGill in Supermax.
I hope it isn't rude of me to chime in on an older article, but it just popped up on my feed and I wanted to share my view on it.
I think the issue is humans are very sheep like. Now I don't mean that in the usual way of people all follow the heard. I mean that if you put a sheep in a field and fence it off, it will also want the grass on the other side of the fence. They'll do themselves some pretty serious injuries in their determination to get there, even if the grass on the other side is worse. Same for cows, horses and whatever else you csn think of.
Well we humans are the same on both an individual and societal level. We abandon small towns or villages as they sre suffocating and the big city looks so much more exciting. Then we lament the lack of community in the big city and long for the smaller town. Doesn't matter for a second if that actually exists or not, through the fence it looks like it does.
We quit this job for that job. Regret the path not taken, or the path taken. Wish we had never got married, or hate that we never did.
Interesting perspective but I'm left wondering why so many men burn it up - affairs, abandonment, addictions, etc. It is the woman who is left to tend to the wreckage. Sometimes it might have been preferable for the man to have chosen celibacy rather than selfishness.
Do you think there some who are able to bridge this binary and live in the middle ?
Able to have a family but also continue to take high amounts of risk. Musk comes to mind but also many other founder types.
I've heard it told, and seen, that in India once a devout (hindu) man has done his family duties (marry, children, providing) he will then leave to live the pilgrim life. Sounds like the middle ground!
Yes but it's tough.... not sure how to think about Musk. How good a dad is he? Does it matter? Does quantity have a quality of its own with kids?
Appreciate your thoughtful post, and this thoughtful reply by you. My thought is that Walter White uses TV 'bumper sticker' philosophy to inform his own path, i.e. "a man provides" which is something Tony Soprano says. Both Tony Soprano and Walter White are sociopaths. The 'family' is their excuse for lives of quiet desperation, but they (and the wider world) would have been safer and unharmed if they didn't lean into their sociopathy. The 'second half' of Breaking Bad, by which I mean Better Call Saul, is the flip side of sociopathy. Walter White is 'nurture' while Saul/Jimmy McGill is 'nature'. Both funny and charming, but the world is better off with White dead, and McGill in Supermax.
Great stuff as usual
thanks!
It's different for cats. Maybe because cats don't really do romantic love or pair-bonding the way humans do.
I hope it isn't rude of me to chime in on an older article, but it just popped up on my feed and I wanted to share my view on it.
I think the issue is humans are very sheep like. Now I don't mean that in the usual way of people all follow the heard. I mean that if you put a sheep in a field and fence it off, it will also want the grass on the other side of the fence. They'll do themselves some pretty serious injuries in their determination to get there, even if the grass on the other side is worse. Same for cows, horses and whatever else you csn think of.
Well we humans are the same on both an individual and societal level. We abandon small towns or villages as they sre suffocating and the big city looks so much more exciting. Then we lament the lack of community in the big city and long for the smaller town. Doesn't matter for a second if that actually exists or not, through the fence it looks like it does.
We quit this job for that job. Regret the path not taken, or the path taken. Wish we had never got married, or hate that we never did.
It's our way, not much can be done about it.
Nice. I'd be interested to hear your take on the Lonesome Dove books.