Do Civics get anything good in the cycle?

[pbrower2a]

(05-30-2019, 10:16 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(05-30-2019, 10:07 PM)taramarie Wrote:

(05-30-2019, 10:01 PM)AspieMillennial Wrote:

(05-30-2019, 05:12 PM)taramarie Wrote: Like others have said we struggle earlier in life, and find balance in our elder years till of course the next prophets come along to topple our sand castle for whatever reason they see fits at the time. I rather this as id rather learn early and carry those lessons with me as I age rather than be sheltered and suffer the consequences much later in life. I have learned a lot from just watching my mother do this who yes, is a boomer. She is a total idiot with money and basics of being an adult.

How did you get through the 4T without developing a nihilistic attitude? What I learned is to have fun when you can even if it's unwise because another crash can always wipe everything away. Hold on to moments because they can always be gone in a second. Be adaptable to the situation; never count on anything ever being the same. Things change like lightening. Use strategies to get what you want and be resourceful. Base your life strategy in both the now and the projected future. Never have the same life strategy applied to all situations.

Because to my core I do not believe in what nihilism represents which is, "a person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles." Meaning it just has no place in my life as I do not see life as meaningless and I have my own beliefs and morals. A 4T cannot shake that from me because I am a stronger person than that and who I am to the core is stronger than what a 4T can throw at me.

I have some moral principles but a lot of what I believe is based on what's practical and pragmatic. I do see a lot of the world as random and arbitrary. For example, I see myself as born randomly and random existing in this time and place. I see things as just happening to me with me reacting to them. I also see contradictions everywhere and think words and actions don't always correlate. Actions speak far louder to me.

Howe and Strauss in general suggest that some historical patterns are anything but random, connecting economics, mass culture, politics, wars (including their severity), and mass choices in careers. Some generations are stronger at certain things than at others; for example, a Reactive generation is more likely to consider starting a small business and sticking to it for the potential of faring better than in underpaid work (white or blue collar) in contrast to Adaptive types, who if they are to start a business it is typically a professional practice with little potential of career growth.

Heck, I think I can draw some conclusions that Howe and Strauss did not make, or did not publish. I see the latter part of a 3T as in general a time of weak government that facilitates every whim of Big Business and even sees destructive hustles for their potential for profit and not for the ruin that ensues. I see the pattern of economics reflecting the consequences of businesses having grown (or not) from businesses started (or not started!) about forty years earlier. Economic opportunity for most people taking jobs is strongest thirty to forty years after large numbers of small businesses being formed, some of the businesses growing into mass employers as the founders approach retirement age. The personal payoff for owning and operating a small business is slight for about twenty years, which makes starting a business unattractive to Adaptive types who might become accountants or veterinarians -- but more attractive to Reactive types who see investing in a small business either more attractive than ill-paid casual labor or domestic service when professional education prices out youth. The absence of small businesses formed forty years earlier practically ensures the concentration of industry into cartels and monopolies that overcharge customers, inflate costs, and create fewer work opportunities than competitive business would. Furthermore, monopolies and cartels often have the means (cash paid to politicians as campaign funds and to lobbyists to pull the strings on elected officials) to make the system work for those already entrenched to make life difficult for competitors -- and to cut taxes for the economic elites and establish tariffs to facilitate the trusts. In a late 3T (and our politicians are extending the 3T economy long into the 4T) the country may prosper, but workers simply get underpaid, overworked, and bled by profiteers.