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Random thoughts thread

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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by Wd40 » Mon, 25 Apr 2016 9:29 pm

rajagainstthemachine wrote:All i want to do is smoke pot and lie on the beach all day watching music videos, reading books and drinking beer, what else should i accomplish in life before I need to get to this stage?
I think this is more about getting to a state of mind, apart of accumulating a certain target amount. So there is a mathematical part to it, which is more easier. But the emotional part to actually call it quits from full time job and do nothing is the difficult part.

Like JR8, mentioned, there are people who have sorted out the mathematical part, but emotionally, they cant come to terms with the fact that they can stop earning.

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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by JR8 » Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:23 pm

I don't know if you ever cross a line and pour yourself a double measure concluding you've somehow 'now arrived' at the target of life's financial journey. How ever well you prepare I think a nagging doubt remains of what if/how can I be absolutely sure?
What I was more driving towards is even if you're a good way there perhaps, you need compelling reasons to get up either at all, or preferably so the day and week has some rhythm to it. For example when I 'retired' (at least as I perceived it then) I spent the best part of a week in bed. Just because I could, and I suppose it was a novelty... that wore off extremely quickly, much faster than I might have imagined. I then went through a couple of months IIRC of keeping almost reverse hours, sleep all day, up all night. But then you're out of synch with the rest of the world, your friends, the shops even, but worst of all perhaps trying to explain to your mother that you were asleep all day just because you can :lol:

You know the expression 'idle hands do a devil's work make'? And I think there is a lot to it. It's about a reason to get up, challenges, a purpose to the day. I think men particularly need it, and I really think ego/self-worth demands it. The flipside is some people I've known enter retirement unexpectedly earlier than planned, find no self-created rhythm, and really struggle with it.

Ask one of our veritable Mods ('YouKnowWho' hehe) why he still works past retirement age. I expect he is aware of some of the things I describe too.
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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by JR8 » Mon, 25 Apr 2016 10:53 pm

Getting back off-topic. I'm supping on a particularly nice German beer from perhaps my favourite German brewery Paulaner. It's the beer they serve in their tent at Oktoberfest, new to me, and a very pleasant discovery.
Curious to learn more about it's characteristics I went to their website. So convivial is their homepage, I've yet to click beyond it :-D [The looped vid is of a typical German beer garden on a summer afternoon, as can be found in many German cities]. http://www.paulaner.com/#kubik/S_100
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Re: RE: Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by Wd40 » Tue, 26 Apr 2016 1:27 pm

JR8 wrote:Getting back off-topic. I'm supping on a particularly nice German beer from perhaps my favourite German brewery Paulaner. It's the beer they serve in their tent at Oktoberfest, new to me, and a very pleasant discovery.
Curious to learn more about it's characteristics I went to their website. So convivial is their homepage, I've yet to click beyond it :-D [The looped vid is of a typical German beer garden on a summer afternoon, as can be found in many German cities]. http://www.paulaner.com/#kubik/S_100
Lucky you, you can do this on a Monday. I need to wait until Friday. Talking about needing a reason to getup from bed, I think there are many things you can do. If you follow financial markets, then that itself can soak up all your time and more. There is so much of information to digest everyday. If you need the rhythm in the day, I don't know if they still have those trading rooms in brokerage places. Back in 2005, I used to work night shift and during the day I would visit the brokers place and do day trading with several retired people.

This was a little bit like going to the casino everyday, since all I did there was day trading. But I think there are similar things you can do without blowing up all your money.

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Re: RE: Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by JR8 » Tue, 26 Apr 2016 3:24 pm

Wd40 wrote:Talking about needing a reason to getup from bed, I think there are many things you can do. If you follow financial markets, then that itself can soak up all your time and more. There is so much of information to digest everyday.
Absolutely. It provides rhythm, and informs you as deep as you want to go into what is happening in the world right now.
Maybe you could make a case that working life and then retirement are like well, life, and The Matrix. Hehehe 8-)
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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by rajagainstthemachine » Tue, 26 Apr 2016 5:01 pm

Wd40 wrote:
rajagainstthemachine wrote:All i want to do is smoke pot and lie on the beach all day watching music videos, reading books and drinking beer, what else should i accomplish in life before I need to get to this stage?
I think this is more about getting to a state of mind, apart of accumulating a certain target amount. So there is a mathematical part to it, which is more easier. But the emotional part to actually call it quits from full time job and do nothing is the difficult part.

Like JR8, mentioned, there are people who have sorted out the mathematical part, but emotionally, they cant come to terms with the fact that they can stop earning.
For me its the opposite, i would happily quit at a moments notice, but mathematically I'm not there yet, have a sense of despair that I'll never ever be there.
Plus theres the other anxiety of never having achieved anything at all apart from mediocrity.
To get there early is on time and showing up on time is late

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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by rajagainstthemachine » Tue, 26 Apr 2016 5:50 pm

This bird is absolutely hilarious! :lol: it swears like a proper aussie bogan

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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by Highlighting » Tue, 26 Apr 2016 9:02 pm

rajagainstthemachine wrote:goodbye cruel sexist world! time go out for a run and have a beer
That doesn't sound so bad.

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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by Brah » Wed, 27 Apr 2016 9:32 am

nakatago wrote:
sundaymorningstaple wrote:'streuth? I worked in Aus for around 6 months and the way I understand it (or told to me by my agent down (up?) in Darwin), it is a truncated 'it's the truth?'.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/strewth
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=strewth
I remember when the US had its Aussie 15 minutes when Crocodile Dundee came out and we first heard these words, spawning those novelty books of the ""Learn Aussie-speak" variety, around the same time the US had its Japan 15 minutes when Black Rain came out, which spawned those other-worldly perspectives on the place.

There's a better way to state that but I can't think of it ATM.
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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by rajagainstthemachine » Wed, 27 Apr 2016 10:33 am

JR8 wrote:Getting back off-topic. I'm supping on a particularly nice German beer from perhaps my favourite German brewery Paulaner. It's the beer they serve in their tent at Oktoberfest, new to me, and a very pleasant discovery.
Curious to learn more about it's characteristics I went to their website. So convivial is their homepage, I've yet to click beyond it :-D [The looped vid is of a typical German beer garden on a summer afternoon, as can be found in many German cities]. http://www.paulaner.com/#kubik/S_100
paulaner is a great beer, theres a place that sells it for 18$ for two HH prices. has a nice lovely feeling as it washes down your throat. :mrgreen:
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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by rajagainstthemachine » Wed, 27 Apr 2016 10:40 am

JR8 wrote: What I was more driving towards is even if you're a good way there perhaps, you need compelling reasons to get up either at all.

But then you're out of synch with the rest of the world.

You know the expression 'idle hands do a devil's work make'? And I think there is a lot to it. It's about a reason to get up, challenges, a purpose to the day. I think men particularly need it.
I'd take a few points of what you just said and apply it to my father, retired government employee, had a scientific mind while at work, after retirement he turned into exactly what you described, he sleeps all day and has no motivation and is totally disconnected from society, this was a man who used to bring home scientific American magazines, had a keen interest in Botany and chemistry.
I believe he's just lost all purpose and the need for a challenge.
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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by JR8 » Wed, 27 Apr 2016 4:16 pm

Sorry to hear that. The father of a friend is similar, up much of the night (in his case drinking, I believe) and doesn't make an appearance during day-time until mid afternoon. He's self-made and now retired.
I think the first time I came upon this kind of issue was probably when I went through 'outplacement' after being made redundant the last time. That included several courses, and classes and one I clearly recall was about the psychological impacts of losing your career and how you can go about counter-acting it.
This is where the points I made earlier likely derive. Self-image/ego/self-worth all hang on 'who you are'. And the first gauge of the latter, this social triangulation, is often what you do. In it's bluntest form, who you work for + what's your job-title. In some respects if you haven't a clearly expressible job-title then you're at risk of being considered a nothing. This is why one of the first questions someone you just met asks is 'And what do you do?'; it's social triangulation... [Thinking: What is his status, his social position, in what way must I pitch my interaction with him?].
I remember deciding years back, when just freshly cut loose on the seas of nothing-ness that when the next person asked me 'What do you do?' that I'd simply reply 'Nothing'. In the event I couldn't bring myself to do it, as nobody does nothing, do they? And it would have been an impolite way to thus kill a conversation stone-dead.
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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by Wd40 » Wed, 27 Apr 2016 5:48 pm

If you link your identity with your job, then it is bound to be devastating when you out of job, especially if it is not by your choice. But if you have consciously worked towards financial independence and pride yourself from not having to depend on a job to make ends meets then I think it is not so devastating, when you are out of job. On the contrary, it could be vindictive of the fact that you saved all that money for this day. But then the next question of "now what" comes. This needs to handled but this is different from a person who has done just 1 thing all his life and that is his identity and on retirement he doesn't know what to do.

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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by JR8 » Wed, 27 Apr 2016 6:18 pm

Wd40 wrote:If you link your identity with your job, then it is bound to be devastating when you out of job, especially if it is not by your choice. But if you have consciously worked towards financial independence and pride yourself from not having to depend on a job to make ends meets then I think it is not so devastating, when you are out of job. On the contrary, it could be vindictive of the fact that you saved all that money for this day. But then the next question of "now what" comes. This needs to handled but this is different from a person who has done just 1 thing all his life and that is his identity and on retirement he doesn't know what to do.
Yep, and that is precisely why it is (devastating) for so many people. Not least because whilst you are pre-occupied with creating and sustaining a career who have little if any time to consider life without such a complete sew-on identity that it gives. And to many it comes as a rude, or blunt, shock and adjustment.
Social interactions are interesting, being pigeon-holeable seems to be important, at least when you are 'in the thick of it', amongst careerists.
Maybe it's different in somewhere like the US with The American Dream? In the UK success or 'arrival' is verging on taboo. Do it really big time and you might be ok, do it vs [ha *vs*] your neighbour and it might be some form of trouble lol.
I don't think present status/ego derives from discussing tomorrow's plans. It's more about what you are right now. Or perhaps what you are now gives credibility to where you are headed...?

Funny though how so much comes down to what you are, vs, whether you're simply a generally likeable person.
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Re: Random thoughts thread

Post by Brah » Wed, 27 Apr 2016 8:31 pm

Not to derail this thread as I think it should keep moving as it is, like another thread from six or nine months ago, I find it a quite good, communal discussion, what forums can be when they are healthy and not dysfunctional.
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