[Lumpy]

I offer to you the following article, which gives the latest information on the well-known longitudinal "Nun Study".

Please note particularly the phrase "[people] with positive attitudes ... tend to live longer than their glass-half-empty peers ..."

This research has been going on since 1986, and is providing extremely valuable information regarding not only long-life, but prevention of dementia.

I am NOT advocating "head in the sand". I am advocating thinking and acting creatively in the face of reality. Knowledge, then preparation, then action -- versus "the sky is falling - and there is nothing to be done!" (Also known as a symptom of Chronic Eeyore Syndrome in my practice of psychiatry.)

Please take a look!

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hAen ... QD8TM3AMG0

[nutmeg]

What if I am optimistic about doom and look forward to it?

What if the doomer lifestyle has made me a happier and healthier person?

That gave me an idea, I wonder if it's original -- "The Doomer Cookbook." or "Nutmeg's Doomer Living."

[satjeet]

the view from Hubbert's Peak - a devastated, collapsing panorama - has freed me from some internalized, culturally based error - and yes I'm a doomer and I'm much happier!! Go figure!

[Lumpy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('satjeet', 't')he view from Hubbert's Peak - a devastated, collapsing panorama - has freed me from some internalized, culturally based error - and yes I'm a doomer and I'm much happier!! Go figure!

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') would go even further to say that I believe that the relocalization of commerce and community that will be mandated by the reality of the post-peak oil world will, in fact, be the means to the saving grace of human kind.

[Heineken]

"Living longer"---what does that mean?

All the ailments, aches, and pains of old age. Slowly watching yourself lose all the functioning and abilities you hold dear.

Old age isn't something to aim for. Because by the time you get there, you'll find it isn't very worthwhile being there.

Take a walk down the hallway of a nursing home and you'll see what I mean.

[Lumpy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', '
')I totally don't agree with this so called study, I think its propaganda as my personal experience doesn't jive with the idea that people with more optomistic attitudes live longer.

Also of the 6 people I know who have died; 5 of them were from cancer. Frankly I am tired of seeing nice people die of cancer. Why can't it take more of the assholes?

[Lumpy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '"')Living longer"---what does that mean?

All the ailments, aches, and pains of old age. Slowly watching yourself lose all the functioning and abilities you hold dear.

Old age isn't something to aim for. Because by the time you get there, you'll find it isn't very worthwhile being there.

Take a walk down the hallway of a nursing home and you'll see what I mean.

[Golgo13]

I guess it depends on what you're like if and when you get there.

I know I'd use a .357 for a PEZ dispenser before I ever got as bad as most the people in nursing homes are.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lumpy', ' ')Your second paragraph (above) gives me a clue as to why you would call this a "so called study".

However, if you have only lived long enough to know 6 people who have died, I am not surprised that you are not familiar with this study. I am guessing you might have been very young or perhaps not yet born when it was initiated.

[Ludi]

I'm a doomer, but many here on the boards have said I'm an optimist, even that I live in a happy fluffy fantasy world. So, I'm not sure where I fit in.


I don't expect to live to an advanced age, especially if somebody cuts my rope.

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lumpy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '"')Living longer"---what does that mean?

All the ailments, aches, and pains of old age. Slowly watching yourself lose all the functioning and abilities you hold dear.

Old age isn't something to aim for. Because by the time you get there, you'll find it isn't very worthwhile being there.

Take a walk down the hallway of a nursing home and you'll see what I mean.

[Lumpy]

Two people writing responses to my posts (and the article) apparently did not read the article or my posts carefully.

I could line by line go through and point out to you why I say this - but that seems like a waste of time.

I was trying to share some solid research with you, to provide some hope in the face of the losses that are coming.

Being new to posting here, I could not believe it when I got on my computer this morning and found not one positive response from someone who had read the article. (The research is solid. Anyone who knows about research would recognize that one could hardly find a more homogenous group than the nuns of the Nun Study. And it is well known, well documented and well respected.)

Anyway, while my husband sat at his computer, reading the responses, I was vocalizing my amazement that NO ONE HERE 'GOT IT' -- that is to say the essence of the research and the hope that its results brings.

Then he (having been much longer on these boards than I) pointed out the obvious: "You can't bring doomers hope, because they don't want it. Being doomers is their identity. They like it like that. Take your message elsewhere, to someone who wants hope, and will take what you have offered and put it to good use in their lives."

This was coming from a man who is far more pessimistic than I. So this is not advice from a fluff-head, pie-in-the-sky guy.

And you know, I think he's right. Some of the people on PO boards remind me of the EMO/Goth teenagers who wallow in their angst -- don't just get through it the best they can and get on with living.

You doomers are as head-in-the-sand as people who ignore peak oil. You, too, are just as locked into your way of thinking, and find comfort in your caves of doom, it would seem. You don't seem to want to open your eyes to the possibility of hope. How sad.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

[Heineken]

You haven't responded to any of the specific points I raised, Florence Nightingale. Instead, you used our disagreement with you as an opportunity to preach to us.

I did read the article. It only very briefly mentions the "optimism" variable.

The fact that the study was done in nuns does not exclude potential confounders and bias.

All those nuns were at the same institution---Notre Dame. The results have zero geographic generalizability.

Just because my long-range beliefs are those of a doomer doesn't mean I don't have plenty of positive attitudes in my daily life.

Similarly, there are people with cornucopian beliefs who lead gloomy personal lives.

It just doesn't wash, Lumpy.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') don't expect to live to an advanced age, especially if somebody cuts my rope.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

YOu know what? I think like everything its a matter of perspective. You may see me as a doomer but I don't view myself that way at all.

So what if society crashes and we all wind up living like hobbits in earth houses, foraging all day for our food. I think I like that more than having to put up with this construct. I won't even start going on about my personal oppinions of what this life is doing to us, but I can't see that once the adjustment is made that living a much reduced life would be that much worse for us.

[Lumpy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('uNkNowN ElEmEnt', 'L')umpy, I think you are as guilty of not listening to us as we might be of you. The one kind of person you will find most often on this board are those who think using discernment is a gift and a priority. (Hey, I am trying to be nice cause you are new and take things personally... I am trying)

Just becuase someone says "this" is the best research out there doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other papers taht don't say the exact opposite. We aren't attacking you or your goal of bringing light to our dismal lives, we just don't agree with it... or parts of it.

Regardless, if you want to discuss it, then do so, but don't expect us to take it as gospel just becuase it was done by nuns (who wouldn't have any other agenda right?)

If we are such a waste of time to converse with then you are likely in the wrong place. Either way, welcome, good luck and I appoligize beforehand, but this isn't a play pen... it can get tough in here. But it is worth it, imo.

[uNkNowN ElEmEnt]

YOu can cite all the studies you want to... I don't believe them. I don't believe that there are that many optomistic people... out there. I think they chose passively pessimistic people for their test subjects, whose brains and bodies are going to shrivel up becuase of those reasons not because they might be pessimistic.

I think they may have a different definition of pessimism, becuase I don't think there are that many truly and noticeable optomistic people out there.

In my life I have only ever met 3 or 4 people I could truly call optomists (and I have met thousands of people). And though I liked them as people... frankly they drove me nuts!

Yes, they were lovely, and they loved bugging me about being such a skeptic and pessimist, and often tell me that I'd be happier as an optomist... but my life is not set up for that... maybe that's it... Maybe its that I live in a different socio-economic level than you do, cause I don't see many optomists down here.

I truly believe there are only maybe 1 optomist in 10,000 people. Maybe not as bad as that, but close, damned close. I think its more of this psychology (shrinkology) that tell us we are supposed to be happy and if we aren't then we need to see a shrink and fix it.

I think the rest of it is propaganda to try and convince us that that is how we are supposed to be. They appeal to our longing to live a long life and strive for a glimpse of immortality by telling us this is how we are supposed to be, and that if we are good little people we too can have this bliss.

Maybe I come from a long line of depressive pessimists but my grandpa just turned 93, and he's as ornery a SOB as you can get... My other grandpa finally died at 91 and he was the most abusive, biggest racist, mean, old bastard I'd ever met... bar none. And believe me I've met some real pricks.

Take my landlord for instance, or how about the senior prison guard who liked to make rookie women cry, or the murderer who once told a phone caller he wished he'd raped and killed the victim that got away so she'd shut up and stop marching for an endo to violence against women.

These are all really old bastards, if they aren't supposed to live as long, why are they still poisoning the world with their existence? I just don't see any evidence that what these studies profess is anywhere close to the reality around me.

Does this make any sense? am I getting across to anyone?

Schopenhaurer's studies in pessimism.
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopen ... pter1.html

[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Good day from Pheba, from the farm:
I tend to look at this subject from a different viewpoint. I am a people watcher. I often wish I had a degree in sociology. But then I would be dumbed down and would not be a people watcher.
My theory for what it is worth: I believe that people who do not accept the doomer mindset really do know how bad things are. I believe the frenetic shopping and mad consumption are all symptoms of a deep underlying, gut wrenching fear. I believe that people already know that we are on a runaway train. A person would have to be totally brain dead not to subconsciously absorb the signs that are all around us.
I am much happier knowing what is going on. I would rather face a bleak future head on than go around living with some nameless nagging fear that I just could not put my finger on.
Concerning the other subject being discussed on this site. I often hope that I still have enough brain cells floating around to find a way to end it if I get in really bad shape.
I would much rather die than end up with somebody changing my diapers while I prattle on endlessly about events that happened decades ago.
My Mother died of cancer. She passed away in my home. I was her caregiver for 17 months. I plan on taking myself out rather than suffering in such a manner. Good people, bad people. Cancer cells are like corporations. They don't give a rats ass about anything or anybody. they both exist for one purpose: growth.
There was a made for TV miniseries called: "Angels in America". I really liked it. I am a huge Al Pacino fan. In the film Pacino plays a real jerk. He is a powerful attorney who is gay and ends up with AIDS. There is another sweet young man named Pryor. Pryor also ends up with AIDS. Good person, bad person. Pathology does not care.
Bored and snowed in; again.
Pheba.

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', '"')Living longer"---what does that mean?

All the ailments, aches, and pains of old age. Slowly watching yourself lose all the functioning and abilities you hold dear.

Old age isn't something to aim for. Because by the time you get there, you'll find it isn't very worthwhile being there.

Take a walk down the hallway of a nursing home and you'll see what I mean.