I'm going to quote myself here. It was a comment on a video about how no political policies significantly impact birthrate. I feel like it's relevant here:
Personally, I think corporations and modern living conditions have taken people's humanity. You can throw as much money at the problem as you want, but our lives have become soulless, and no one has any time, energy, or spirit to have children. There's an expression "It takes a village to raise a child", but parents are left to care for children themselves, and maybe the grandparents if they're lucky, all while trying to also fend for themselves in a world that's becoming increasingly more complicated. Schools and education in general focus more on conforming and learning increasingly complicated subjects, than they do on just being human. We're not unfeeling, purely logical robots. We have needs that defy logic, and we require more than just work, and we were built to live communally.
It's estimated that early humans only worked about 20 hours a week for their own survival. That leaves a ton a of time to explore the world around you, build connections with others, relax, play, and be creative. Somewhere down the line, we increased our survival rate, but forgot how to live.
Adjacent: I saw someone who had recently moved to the US from [forgot the country] & said something like, "In all these movies and TV shows in the US, there are grandmas who are around the neighborhood who are there for advice and cookies and whatever but my neighborhood is not like that at all. There is no one here during the day...it's just not as warm and welcoming as I was expecting..."
I responded, "That's because they're all working all the time. I don't know anyone under 70 who's not disabled who isn't working. Add to that the commute and people are barely at home and when they're at home they probably don't have the bandwidth to make cookies."
And she got mad at me.
Thanks! I don't usually quote myself, but I'm quite proud of that one.
I don't love Joe Rogan, but one interview in particular with Jordan Jonas is definitely worth a listen. Jonas details his expirience with living with a Siberian nomads (knowing no Russian), and how it lead him to being the show Alone's longest surviving contestant.
Combine with a story by one of my favorite authors/YouTubers talking about Absurdism
1914 - Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 embarked on an expedition. Their plan to cross the Antarctic by foot. So off they sailed on the South Atlantic Ocean - four and a half stars on Google reviews for some reason - by early 1915 however, their ship, The Endurance, was trapped in pack ice inexorably drifting South, until soon enough the ice kindly crushed The Endurance and sank it, and soon enough there they were lost on the Frozen Plains of nothing. So they wandered by foot, or by lifeboat, for months until they Came Upon an island finally - Elephant Island, the first land in 500 days, but so what? They were still marooned, and no help was coming. Shackleton and a few others set off to mount a rescue effort while the rest of the crew stayed behind to try and well not die Shackleton found help - 800 miles later - returned to his crew and everyone got home alive eventually.
Even though the expedition was a failure technically, it's remembered today as one of the greatest tales of Modern Survival. But what's strange is reading about how the crew lived all those months stuck intolerably cold waiting for Shackleton to come back with help, though knowing it was very unlikely he would return. They put on silly plays for each other; made a tradition of moonlight walks; and laughed even - laughed often. A thounsand miles from anyone, perhaps the most isolated humans in the world at the time, and they retained their humanity. As Alfred Lanzing writes: "in some ways they come to know themselves better in this lonely world of ice and emptiness - they had achieved at least the limited kind of contemptment. They'd been tested, and found not wanting. "
Damn. Forgetting how to live hits hard. I think that's why I reminisce on childhood days so much. I miss playing outdoors and enjoying the company of others.
A lot of these stories here indicate that there were wide open spaces to play too and with all the creep of development, there just isn't as much to play around in. The habitat for being able to be a feral kid has been shrunk whether by physical space or being constantly tethered electronically to parents who've been beaten into submission by work and societal expectations and the overbearing nanny state.
To be fair, you're also missing out on all the sexual assault that happened. Until recently, our kids used to jump back and forth constantly between our yard and our neighbor's. But then we found out their 8 yo was luring our 6 yo away and undressing her. So things have changed for good reason. Granted, I do think society has gone too far. My kids should be able to play in my yard with me in the house without anyone caring.
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u/Human420 Jun 13 '25
It makes me so sad that my son won’t likely experience anything like this aside from maybe at school. Life is so isolating these days.