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Author Topic: How good exactly were the good old days?  (Read 30300 times)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #80 on: December 28, 2010, 02:23:47 pm »

… Happiness has very little to do with the things that we have. It is first and for most an inner feeling, it comes from inside, not from outside...
It's from inside-out, and in our culture, we where trained that it is from outside-in. Big mistake...

Spot-on, Fred!

In the most simplified terms, happiness can be defined mathematically (yes, I know, a blasphemy ;)) = obtained divided by desired. Obviously, two ways to increase the quotient: by obtaining more (goods, success, sex, etc. - western philosophy and/or younger age)  or desiring less (eastern philosophy and/or older age).

In relation to the age and happiness debate, I guess as we grow older we tend to desire less, and are more content/resigned with what we have, which, in turn, makes as happier. What is going on here is that, as we grow older, we are redefining the term.

Hence, Rob, you are both right and wrong at the same time ;) If you use the youthful definition of happiness, you can not possibly be happier as you get older. But all it takes to feel happier is to redefine the expectations. As certified curmudgeons, you and I can call it "lowering the bar" just as well.

RSL

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #81 on: December 28, 2010, 03:34:01 pm »

Since I'll turn 81 in March, I suspect I can look back farther than most if not all of the folks who've posted on this thread. I like Slobodan's approach to the question, but I can tell you that what happiness really is is being able to look back and say, "That was a hell of a good run."
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bill t.

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #82 on: December 28, 2010, 04:33:57 pm »

...to look back and say, "That was a hell of a good run."

Well the good old days are nothing more than the Hollywood remake of what actually happened.

And as for "happiness" I have enjoyed the many times the run was at some really twisting part more than the times when it was straight and gentle.  Which is why I continue to needlessly beat my head against the wall making giant inkjet canvases for sale.  Arthritic fingers will not tempt me into pseudo-happy indolence!

And their seem to be flavors of happiness.  Eschewing classic blissful happiness makes me real-world happy, rather than merely Hollywood happily-ever-after happy.

Or as somebody famous once say, "happiness is being in the loop, doing something interesting, and getting paid for it."

Have a nice day, but don't let it get boring.
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Rob C

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #83 on: December 29, 2010, 05:08:28 am »

Since I'll turn 81 in March, I suspect I can look back farther than most if not all of the folks who've posted on this thread. I like Slobodan's approach to the question, but I can tell you that what happiness really is is being able to look back and say, "That was a hell of a good run."



Interesting; I do that every night and I can assure you that I am far from happy now. All that doing that proves to me is that the G.O.Ds were really, really far better!

'Or as somebody famous once say, "happiness is being in the loop, doing something interesting, and getting paid for it." '

That's also true, at the shallow end of its face, but utterly fails to take into account the difficulties and worries associated with ´staying in the commercial loop' even when you're in it, which is anything but smooth and hugely smile-inducing. Unless you are terribly famous, I suppose, whereupon others assume that responsibility on your behalf and create their own worries ad infinitum.

But look at it this way: 2011 is certainly another, fresh year in which to bloom, or just another nail in the numerical coffin. I think you are supposed to take your pick...

;-(

or, possibly, :-)

Rob C

RSL

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #84 on: December 29, 2010, 08:16:08 am »

Looking back and saying it was a hell of a good run doesn't imply looking back and wishing for the good old days. During my run I wrote poetry and saw a lot of it published; I flew the airplanes I wanted to fly; I went to war three times and made it home three times; I enjoyed commanding the air force units I commanded; I had a lot of profitable fun doing software engineering and teaching programming languages; and I captured the essence of it all through photography and, Christmas eve, opened issue #81 of B&W magazine and saw some of my favorite pictures of Korea. That's what I mean by looking back and being able to say, "That was a hell of a good run." Maybe best of all, I'm still running. I wouldn't go back to any of those eras and call it the good old days. Been there; done that. It's always time to move on.
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Rob C

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #85 on: December 29, 2010, 10:18:47 am »

Fred, as I've said before, I wish we were all fluent in French because your mind is very interesting desìte the fact that you are expressing it in a difficult, foreign tongue.

Russ, the trick you have discovered is how to install Duracell batteries where it matters; I still seek the place(s)!

Rob C

ronkruger

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #86 on: December 29, 2010, 10:29:11 am »

It took me a long time, and a lot of pain and frustration, to realize that the only real control is self-control. Anything else, as I think Fred pointed out, is varying degrees of bondage, with the blame always falling on something or someone else.
The most immature thing a person can say is: "I can't help how I feel."
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degrub

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #87 on: December 29, 2010, 11:11:17 am »

To me, life is what is now.  Thoughts and feelings go by as leaves on a river. They are just that - fleeting and insubstantial. They are not reality unless i try to make them become so. i can plan and scheme and worry, but none of that is reality. Sometimes i succeed, sometimes not. The past is history and i leave the future to take care of itself.

 ;)
Frank
 
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Rob C

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #88 on: December 29, 2010, 01:41:32 pm »

This has certainly turned into an interesting thread, if a little fatalistic...

I think that a lot of what's being written is possibly semantic gamesmanship, but at the same time, it may well be the genuine thinking of some. I long thought that I was somewhat unique in that I believed, looking backwards, that more good things happen to me than do good things that I have sought; but I can't say that that implies I should be passive because, if I were, I'm sure that nothing would have happened at all.

To seek or to find? How can you find without first seeking? You may not find what you were seeking, but at least you were trying to induce momentum; inertia breeds more of the same. Ask those trees and rocks if I'm wrong! I do believe there is a kind of truth in the Scottish saying that what's for you won't go by you, but as with the lottery, you have to be in it to win it. I suspect that too much attention paid to 'oriental' religious or philosophical thinking leads to not a lot more than a personal overhanging equatorial region where your waist used to be.

It's very easy for the super-successful to coin sayings of their own: their fame and money lends their thoughts a gravitas that may be entirely spurious  - their success may be as fortuitous as another's lack of same. Look at popular music, at modern art, and can you believe otherwise?


Maybe the best you can do is keep trying - you may strike lucky, or you may die in the attempt. In a hundred years, as Michael will soon learn to say, es igual.

Rob C

degrub

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #89 on: December 29, 2010, 02:12:54 pm »

fatalistic - not in the least.

you are right - words are nothing. doing is everything  :)

No navel gazing here... The more i look, the more i find the "oriental" ideas and "western" ideas are saying the same thing. So nothing foreign about it. Just different language - which presents problems of it's own.. :o

"It's very easy for the super-successful to coin sayings of their own"

i wouldn't count myself  ... money only makes some parts of physical life easier.

"Maybe the best you can do is keep trying "

Trying is all one can do. Every day  :)
regards,

Frank

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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #90 on: December 29, 2010, 02:17:11 pm »

… Maybe the best you can do is keep trying - you may strike lucky, or you may die in the attempt…

Rob, this reminds of the following saying: "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows that she has to outrun the fastest lion in order to survive… every morning a lion wakes up and knows he has to outrun the fastest gazelle in order to survive… so, whether you are a lion or gazelle, you better start your day running"

Rob C

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #91 on: December 29, 2010, 03:42:30 pm »

Rob, this reminds of the following saying: "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows that she has to outrun the fastest lion in order to survive… every morning a lion wakes up and knows he has to outrun the fastest gazelle in order to survive… so, whether you are a lion or gazelle, you better start your day running"



Slobodan, that's exactly the sort of myth that confuses the western mind.

Lions are certainly up early, but they do take their time before breaking into any sort of a run! In fact, they tend to leave that sort of thing to the women...

I've just been working on an old shot of a Cadillac insignia and part of the hood - a tightish closeup, but still makes me feel that those G.O.Ds (mine) were around in the 70s at least, when the shot was taken, so the car being already a faded blonde, it was itself a memorial to better days. Peeling onions comes to mind, and the tears could be just as easily induced, but not tonight: I feel quite spry, for some unknown reason! Must be careful about things like that.

But I'm about to revive a 50s love affair: Mogambo is on Spanish tve2 at ten tonight - twenty five minutes or so to go - and I shall watch it for the umpteenth time - I use to be in love with Ava Gardner before Brigitte swept me away. Plenty of lions there, tonight!

Rob C

Alan Klein

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #92 on: December 29, 2010, 04:38:12 pm »

Of course even the "poor" today at least in many first and second world and even third world countries have much better health care, shelter, food, recreational time and devices, you name it than people before.  Yet they and even the rich can also be unhappy because things are not spiritually satisfying.  They only make you feel good temporarily and then you need more or something different.  Hmmm.  Just like cameras.  More pixels, more fps, more DR, higher ISO, more zoom, etc.  And we argue endlessly about it.  "hey you can see the grain, you can see the noise,  the....".  Well step back a little and enjoy the photo.  Don't stand so close.  Does the shot work better now?  

Life's like that.  Stand back a little.
« Last Edit: December 29, 2010, 04:41:41 pm by Alan Klein »
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Patricia Sheley

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #93 on: December 29, 2010, 06:28:35 pm »

...would that flames of hidden and lost in this nocturnal gaining
 ignite clarity in caverns carved of life spent full...
portals open to receive...
« Last Edit: December 29, 2010, 08:30:19 pm by Patricia Sheley »
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Robert Roaldi

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #94 on: December 29, 2010, 07:02:07 pm »

It seems to me that the lion only need outrun the slowest gazelle.
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degrub

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #95 on: December 29, 2010, 07:12:36 pm »

seance anyone ?
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ronkruger

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #96 on: December 29, 2010, 08:15:50 pm »

This thread has been the most interesting I've read on any photography forum.
Maybe we don't all become happier as we become older, but it appears we all become philosophers.
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feppe

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #97 on: December 30, 2010, 04:13:16 am »

Of course even the "poor" today at least in many first and second world and even third world countries have much better health care, shelter, food, recreational time and devices, you name it than people before.  Yet they and even the rich can also be unhappy because things are not spiritually satisfying.  They only make you feel good temporarily and then you need more or something different.  Hmmm.  Just like cameras.  More pixels, more fps, more DR, higher ISO, more zoom, etc.  And we argue endlessly about it.  "hey you can see the grain, you can see the noise,  the....".  Well step back a little and enjoy the photo.  Don't stand so close.  Does the shot work better now?  

Life's like that.  Stand back a little.

The balance (or lack thereof) between progress and being satisfied with what we already have is something I've struggled with over the years. Contentment is the death of progress, as dissatisfaction with what we have is one of the strongest drivers of change. But it's also unhealthy and counterproductive to not recognize progress that has been already made, and lament current state of affairs just for the sake of lamenting. This goes for camera technology as well as life in general.

Rob C

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #98 on: December 30, 2010, 10:59:29 am »

And time for change is even quicker than the keyboard: as I wrote so happily that I would, I settled down last night to watch Mogambo for the umpteenth time, and all because of a young love affair I had (in my mind only, needless to say) with Ava Gardner. I watched twenty minutes and couldn't take a second more: it stank. She was as beautiful as I had remembered, but the acting, the locations, the whole scene degenerated from the beginning, and when Gace Kelly appeared that was terminal. On the plus side, Central Casting had done a great job for I also realised that Clark Gable was indeed a good choice for elephant movies.

ronkruger - yes, it is interesting, in my opinion and yours, at least, because it has very little do do with electronics and technology and a hell of a lot to do with people. People are far more interesting than equipment or grading it according to price, taste, size or brand!

;-)

Rob C

bill t.

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Re: How good exactly were the good old days?
« Reply #99 on: December 30, 2010, 11:53:21 am »

And time for change is even quicker than the keyboard: as I wrote so happily that I would, I settled down last night to watch Mogambo for the umpteenth time, and all because of a young love affair I had (in my mind only, needless to say) with Ava Gardner. I watched twenty minutes and couldn't take a second more: it stank...

That is called Redemption.  As we grow heavy in wisdom we have the chance to redeem ourselves for the foolish acts of our youth, and that is just one example.

edit...but who can blame you!

« Last Edit: December 30, 2010, 12:04:05 pm by bill t. »
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