Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live in a society that didn't change much?

[raccoon]

One where your life was pretty much like that of your grandparents, great-grands even?

For most of history most people have lived that way.

I find it hard to imagine.

[LiberalLoner]

1. Sometimes I think too about how hard it must be for parents and grandparents, trying

to raise children and grandchildren but most of the advice they give was for a different world and time. Some advice is timeless, of course, but to a large extent, at least for my generation, we often felt we were on our own, trying to figure out our own problems. We felt our parents didn't understand our world. I think for several generations now this has been the case.

I was thinking how reassuring it must have been in the old days to have elders who truly did understand your problems and could give advice that applied well to the situation.

Of course, no change also had tons of bad things about it too, but sometimes I think life has become very confusing and there is just so much information I feel I need to take it and understand each day. I feel I am a very simple, not especially bright person living in a very complex world that expects more from me than I can give.

[kestrel91316]

2. Ask the Amish. They are the kings of societal stability (but they are still

faced with change).

[LiberalLoner]

3. Many of my ancestors were Amish...I often wonder what my life would have been like if my

great-grandmother had not chosen to leave the order and become a Catholic instead and live among the English. I wonder if my life would have been better, or if it would have been worse.

[kestrel91316]

4. Your life would be your choice. One chooses whether or not to join

the Amish church formally in one's early 20's. Those who choose to be Amish are generally satisfied with their choice from what I hear.

[marybourg]

5. I wonder if their lives really were so static, or does it just appear

to us that way from our end of the telescope? Certainly wars, famines, plagues, pogroms,Viking raids, discoveries and inventions displaced people and wrought changes which cascaded around the world.

[RKP5637]

6. Yep, to me, this is probably the way it was... excellent description, "or does it just appear

to us that way from our end of the telescope?

[raccoon]

7. Certainly there were some changes, but the pace of technological and medical change was nothing like

it is now, in previous centuries, esp. if you go back before the 19th century.