One

In the latest TBOY podcast, the host mentioned how “single child"s are often better at entertaining themselves, and often more independent. When they cannot figure out a problem, whether that’s study abroad, job search, a fight with a buddy, disagreements with parents etc, they cannot turn to siblings for an easy ask. Parents aren’t always available, so they figure out ways to entertain themselves. Because they can solve most problems by themselves, they turn to assume the same level of competency of others.

That’s so true. How come I never think of it that way?

I almost never feel lonely in my life. If anything I often find most people’s accompany boring. A good book, a quality film, a project of one’s own, to me are often more enjoyable than a mediocre conversation. I used to think there is something wrong with me. But now I realize perhaps that’s just part of the perks of growing up a single child.

Ofc this perks comes with problems too. We are less comfortable with asking for help, have more difficulties with interpersonal relationships, perform worse at team tasks. Nothing is black and white in this world.

Two

I’ve been listening to Jordan Peterson’s Biblical Series, and learned a lot from it. It’s super insightful to interpret the Bible from these evolutionary, literary, religious, sociological perspectives. It raises many points that are so obvious that I never really thought about.

One thing it mentioned about marriage, and the role of woman in a marriage, is to render men self-conscious. Women are much more self-conscious than men (scientifically well proven). Of course that’d make sense. If a man gets self-conscious everytime he is rejected by a romantic interest, he would get no where, and his genes would not propogate at all.

Because they are not self-conscious, they are not aware of their problems and their dark side. One thing that the institution of marriage does is to shackle the wife with the husband. In this bond, the wife can finally tell truth to the husband in his face, and the key thing is: he cannot run away. It works reversely as well, although to a lesser extent perhaps.

Many interesting ideas raised in the podcast.