If You Could Choose Your Year of Birth

Started by Florestan, December 25, 2021, 01:20:50 PM

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MusicTurner

#20
Quote from: (: premont :) on December 26, 2021, 04:08:50 AM
Sure, but if we were born in the medieval age, this problem wouldn't exist.

Back then, being an open-minded, successful, wandering Troubadour, like Bernard de Ventadorn, or a ditto traveller like Oswald von Wolkenstein, Villard d'Honnecourt, Petrarca or Marco Polo, would have been interesting. But average life expectancy was apparently just 35-40 years or so (it only began to really increase from the mid-19th century in Europe). And cultural and cognitive conventions/prejudices would still limit your options considerably in those days.

vers la flamme

I'm a '95 baby. 1895 wouldn't be so great, I'd probably die in the Great War. (In fact, I think I may have in a past life.) 1795, I'd probably die of typhoid or something. Maybe 1695—see the high baroque flourish. (Hopefully I'd be rich.)

Brian

Quote from: MusicTurner on December 26, 2021, 02:10:19 AM
I remember reading though, that in Ancient Rome, even low-class, self-employed handicraft people had comparatively few working hours and tons of spare time, since you'd have an OK income, and slaves and lower classes doing all the inconvenient stuff in society.
Just by coincidence I was reading this paragraph from "The Fate of Rome" (Kyle Harper) only 1 hour ago:
"In the fourth century, priests, doctors, painters, prostitutes, petty military officers, actors, inn keepers, and fig sellers are found owning slaves. Many slaves owned slaves. Even assistant professors in Antioch had a few slaves."

Jo498

There is a famous, maybe apokryphal quotation from Agatha Christie who apparently said (probably in the 1950s) that as a young woman (probably just before WW 1) she could not have imagined to be too poor to have domestic help/servants but sufficiently rich to own a car.
Tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos, dans une chambre.
- Blaise Pascal

vandermolen

Quote from: Florestan on December 25, 2021, 01:20:50 PM
You may keep the last two digits and you are allowed to change the first two.

For instance, I was born in 1972 and I would choose 1772 hands down.

How about you?
I'd be happy to choose 1972 - year of the VW Centenary  ;D
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

foxandpeng

Quote from: (: premont :) on December 26, 2021, 03:11:01 AM
I'm completely satisfied by being born the year I was. Growing up after WW II in the middle class in a free country, being able to get the education I wanted and also to live with my family and my interests in a time with an economical and technical (r)evolution never seen before. Honestly I feel that I have been priviliged.

+1

Quality healthcare, antibiotics, no slavery or obvious servitude, no global warfare, central heating, relative economic stability, running water, huge consumer choice for food, essential and luxury goods, easily accessible live and recorded music/drama, air travel, 40 hour working week with 6 weeks holiday annually, information technology, etc etc etc. Of course, this is a Northern European, developed world, white collar perspective.

I have no romantic notions about the past.
"A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people ... then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbour — such is my idea of happiness"

Tolstoy

Maestro267

Each year I'll keep moving it forward so that I remain 12-13 years old.

Lisztianwagner

#27
It's a difficult choice between 1889 and 1789......
If I chose 1889, I would have the chance to see the premieres of works by Mahler, Rachmaninov, Richard Strauss, Ravel, Debussy, Holst, Nielsen, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Respighi and Shostakovich. Besides, I would also be able to see Karajan conducting live. Alas I couldn't meet Wagner and see the premieres of his musikdramas, but I could still attend the Bayreuth Festival with its original wagnerian sets.
But if I had been born in 1789, I would have been able to watch the premiers of all Wagner's operas and Beethoven's 9th Symphony and Liszt's concerts.  ???

"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." - Gustav Mahler

LKB

Mit Flügeln, die ich mir errungen...

San Antone

Quote from: Brian on December 25, 2021, 07:36:19 PM
I actually think about this quite a lot, wondering what the "ideal" lifespan would be. I think it would be something like 1929-2015.

I'm in the same mindset.  I would want to be in my twenties, In New York during the late '40s through the '50s for the Jazz and Abstract Expressionist painting; the Beats ...

Wanderer

Quote from: Daverz on December 25, 2021, 06:19:54 PM
Sorry, Mandryka, barbarians get sent as slaves to the salt mines. ;)

And as Athens is mentioned, probably to the silver mines of Laurion.  $:)