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Only as valued as their productivity.
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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That is a big part of it.
When the first question you are asked for decades when meeting someone is "What do you do?" it gets ingrained that your only value is what you do.
Add in the fact that men hitting that age now have basically never received any positive reaction for expressing any emotions or vulnerability and usually outright been mocked for doing so and it is no wonder they are are hard group to reach...
And they're all totally socially isolated to boot. How the hell do you make friends as an adult?
And where do you even go? Civic centers, bowling alleys etc are dead. Moderate churches are disappearing. Car centric everything means if you have a disability or not much money you're screwed.
As with most things, the hardest part is the first step: you have to find a community to join. It can be anything, but senior centers are greater resources for older people that they unfortunately don't take enough advantage of. My parents found a seniors' program at a local college and started taking classes with people their age, which created an entirely new friend group for them. You just have to find a group of people doing something you enjoy and the relationships will likely form without much effort after that, provided you don't have crippling social anxiety or something else that makes social interaction difficult. Point is, once you get the ball rolling, momentum takes over; the hardest part is getting it (i.e. yourself) moving.
Left my country and the coldness (not just the weather) was such a huge part of it.
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I've seen a few people complain about the question "what do you do?" over the years, and I think it's pretty telling that most people seem to interpret that as "what is your job?"
For me, my job is a footnote to my life, it's not something I'm overly proud of, if I woke up rich tomorrow I'd never go back to work, it's just how I fund the rest of my lifestyle.
I tend to answer that question with my hobbies, things I'm working on, trips I'm planning, etc
Sort of a double-edged sword is that I do actually work a pretty interesting job that people really want to hear about when they find out what I do, and I'd really rather talk about the other things I do. Probably the one thing I miss about when I was a random schmuck working a shitty warehouse job, I didn't have to talk about work outside of work as much
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That's been one of the culture shifts I've noticed moving to the EU. People are a lot less likely to lead with that question here than in the US.
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Somewhat related, but I learned today that Phil Shea who worked as the prop master on the office, died by suicide earlier this week, he was 62. He had a family and friends who loved him, but clearly wasn't speaking to anyone about what was really going on in his head. Older guys tend to be more closed up about speaking up
Cuz society mocks and looks down upon men who open up and talk. There's very little room for error being a man.
Every time I've opened up it's been ignored at best and ridiculed at worst. I just stopped.
Thankfully I have a spouse I can open up to 100% with and will make me feel heard and supported. When I'm at a boiling point, she's good at helping me to ease up. If it wasn't for her though, my mental health would be in the gutter.
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My dad died in his late 80s of Parkinson's. For at least a decade before his diagnosis he'd tell me that everyday when he woke up, he'd lost another piece of himself. He went from an active man in his early to mid 70s--he rode his bike 25 miles a day and weight lifted--to a shadow of himself very quickly.
It was tough to watch, and so much tougher for him facing loss after loss of his abilities. He spoke several times of "releasing" himself, but ultimately decided not to do it.
We are living longer, but that isn't always to our benefit.
Sorry for your loss. Your dad sounds like a good guy. I wish we all had a better and easier way to die with dignity and on our own terms.
Watching my Dad decline in his later years was really tough, the man I had known my entire life just fell apart month by month, week by week until he was just a shell of a person. I don't know when it happened, but the person I had known my whole life had already died before his body died later on. Seeing what I saw over the course of years as he declined, I would've completely understood if he had committed suicide well before. It would've been shocking and hard to take, but if he realized what was happening, felt himself slipping away, I wonder if he hadn't at least considered it. He retired a year before he died at 63 and never really got to enjoy his retirement.
The capitalists tortured your father out of your father month by month, week by week, until only a shell, no longer productive, was cut loose to die as it was no longer useful to them.
That is what the capitalists do to us while they live large and pat themselves on the back for it.
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Saw this happen to my both my grandfathers, one died around 60 and the other around 80. Even the 60yo one, watching the mental decline was heartbreaking. Being left with literally nothing, losing your memories while you lose control of other parts of your body, these men were long gone long before they passed. Nothing in this world scares me like aging with dimentia does. You literally lose the person, sometimes completely, before they even die and you gotta sit there and be strong for them knowing that the slow desent will come for you too, and thats only if you're lucky enough to get that old. It's just not fair for anyone and there's scarcely any dignity in death.
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I feel myself heading this way. So much of my identity is wrapped up in what I can do and service I can provide. When my body fails, and it's starting to slow down even now, what will my identity be?
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Glad to see an article about suicide focused specifically on men for a change. I wish it went into more specific detail about the societal treatment of men and how it fuels their mental health issues, but some attention is better than nothing.
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I'll probably kill myself at that age too
Shit I'm 40 and regret not having done so.
do you want to hang out and suck each other's dicks? I don't even care anymore
Lemon party detected.
Lmao. No, thank you, but I appreciate the offer.
See, you do still have the will to fight!
Damn that's some therapy check mate shit yo
I’ve thought about it plenty in the last few years. The only things really stopping me is the idea of hurting my still-living mother, and my kids.
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