Will PM you.

Be glad that you have a decent brain between your ears. It's time to put it to more use. You strike me as an intelligent fellow who has not "engaged with life" yet. This is a common enough problem--you are not alone here--but YOU need to "get engaged with life". You need to get your ass on the bicycle and start peddling toward something specific. — Bitter Crank

Amen.

I've not suggested living with mom isn't a short term solution, but it's not a lifetime plan. It's no plan. It's easy and lazy. Quitting is shameful. Deal with it. — Hanover

Jeez, what a dick. But clearly it simply reflects your own cultural upbringing. You do as was done to you. And so repeateth the cycle of dickery.

Yes, you're right. He should earn minimum wage and let mommy care for him forever.

It is the fact that you construct your reality in terms of these binaries which gives the game away. You are having to now justify your Tiger parenting extremism in terms of its equally bad "other" - the anti-Hanover who would be passive mummy to the mummy's boy.

So I get it. I just don't buy it. Good parenting would be something else beyond your dire alternatives.

Coddling them would be a recipe for disaster. — Hanover

Yeah, it all in your head.

I don't understand why you think Hanover was being a dick. His advice, "...you should get a real job so that you can support yourself and not live with your mother" is eminently sensible. Why is it eminently sensible? Because life is hard, and people who do not take responsibility for their own well-being and self-support are likely to find themselves in various unenviable positions later on in life when mother is no longer alive, and when one is getting a bit old to do entry level work.

Question isn't, after all, a mentally deficient ward of the state. He wants to earn a PhD in philosophy. If anybody should be able to handle eminently sensible, even hard-headed and cold-hearted advice, it's a prospective philosopher.

Is Thorongil being a dick for outlining the unpleasant realities of pursuing a PhD? What he had to say is also eminently sensible. The glory days of academic employment in the liberal arts are now the stuff of vintage memory, a time back in the Mid-Century Modern era when one could get funding for advanced degrees and go on to get decent jobs teaching the burgeoning classes of baby boomers in a booming economy.

Yes, you're right. He should earn minimum wage and let mommy care for him forever. — Hanover

You've got the wrong idea here Mister.

I helped pay the mortgage when I still had my money for college, payed for a new car for my mother (nothing fancy, but a good car nonetheless), bought some appliances, helped with some state programs offering discounts and help with weatherization, etc.

We both live hand to mouth; but, to save you my sob story, I have a very happy life despite the rather spartan conditions. You telling me that my life is pathetic is pathetic. You've done your worst, and despite having a hard day at work, which is rewarding despite you telling me otherwise (oh the hypocrisy!).

Well, if you haven't said that then that is/was the nail that changed my mind. I find my apathy and "lack of motivation" a more healthy a realistic outlook that the 'arbeit macht frei' one professed here and whereabouts.

Anyway, listen to Hanover or Charles Murray — Emptyheady

Heh, emptyheady, what a nick...

I'd rather try and think for myself, through this rather messy dialectical method despite exposing myself so blandly.

Well, if you haven't said that then that is/was the nail that changed my mind. I find my apathy and "lack of motivation" a more healthy a realistic outlook that the 'arbeit macht frei' one professed here and whereabouts. — Question

I think I catch the drift of your reply, but just to confirm, what have you changed your mind about?

I should mention, as 'self-esteem' has popped up around a couple of times here and there.

I find self-esteem as a concept projected from society onto the individual. And I don't need to go into detail about my thoughts about what 'society' thinks is best, least we mention that society doesn't exist! Only families do, and self-serving pricks!

I helped pay the mortgage when I still had my money for college, payed for a new car for my mother (nothing fancy, but a good car nonetheless), bought some appliances, helped with some state programs offering discounts and help with weatherization, etc.

We both live hand to mouth — Question

Good on you for all that. The thing is, living hand to mouth does not seem to be your goal. It's a strategy to maintain the life you have, like and enjoy. And there is nothing wrong with that, in the short run. In the longer run, though, maintaining a simple life takes more and more input. Costs rise, needs become greater, small emergencies require ready cash or things get worse quickly, and so on.

What Hanover (and I) are telling you is to undertake more effort. More effort, more income will be needed in the future to maintain the freedom to live the way you want to.

Ice sculpture. That would be a cool job.

My thoughts? Well, education is becoming a luxury in the US. If I really wanted it, I'd move to Europe where I have citizenship and study at some 'Free college of Germany' or whereabouts. But, that boat has sailed and I don't feel like swimming after it.

But it's not 'it's fine to stay home' v 'you gotta get in gear' - its ' here are some real tips to help you' v 'let me play my no-nonsense realist role at your expense'

I wasn't expecting Margaret Thatcher's "There is no such thing as society" to raise it's hideous head.

I see. It's probably for the best, then. And the "free college" in Germany or thereabouts wouldn't cover the extremely high cost of living. Bernie always neglected to mention that when praising said model to the heavens.

The thing is, living hand to mouth does not seem to be your goal. It's a strategy to maintain the life you have, like and enjoy. And there is nothing wrong with that, in the short run. — Bitter Crank

I'll cross that bridge when the time comes.

I'll cross that bridge when the time comes. — Question

You are on that bridge right now.

Oh please. Save the psychoanalysis. I have two well adjusted kids, both succesful. I'm very hands off on the minutia, the opposite of the tiger parent. The path to independence is not paved with constant hand holding. You have no comprehension of the infinite compassion a parent has for their child and the simultaneous suffering that occurs with their every struggle all with the understanding that the baby bird must flap his own wings in order to fly.

All this is to say you may tell me the best way to parent when you have some inkling what it entails. Before that, it's just silly speculation.

Then, I'll move to some flatter land where there ain't no bridges to cross.

Then, I'll move to some flatter land where there ain't no bridges to cross. — Question

Oh gawd, Kansas. Oklahoma. Western Nebraska. North Dakota. The American Outback.

Then, I'll move to some flatter land where there ain't no bridges to cross. — Question

Only to get swept away in a tornado.

Maybe Arizona, who knows.

Arizona — Question

Arizona isn't flat. Nice place, but lots of bridges there.

Hmm, maybe Mars is where it's all at...

Hmm, maybe Mars is where it's all at... — Question

It's not flat (Olympus Mons is 29.9 km high) and bus service to get there is really poor.

I read "self-esteem" to be less about image and more about personal confidence and motivation here, a sort of doing, living or habit.

It's seems more like knowing what you want and acting towards it with dedication, as opposed to an expectation someone else puts on you. Though, that's perhaps hard to see when surrounded by frothing accusations about the need to become independent.

Australia sounds like a nice place. Preferably with less assholes, too!