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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

We seem to be ok with people dropping out and becoming monks, but somehow living a relaxed lifestyle is somehow a major problem. Is it ok for people not to be a cog in the machine that makes your lifestyle possible or not?

Sure, I might be happier if my past self saved even more money, lived a vegan lifestyle, or learned to play an instrument. But, I don't think it's a problem that I have failed to optimize for making this second of my life be the best it could be.

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Having known both drop-out monks and drop-out stoners, they're very different. Long-term meditators seemed to be very psychologically healthy, self-aware, cheerful, disciplined, etc whereas long-term stoners tended to be delusional, paranoid and irritable.

(Many people into meditation had at some point used drugs, but eventually decided they were at best a distraction and at worst actively harmful).

Did you know that many religions use drugs as part of meditation?

I think the problem is not that people shun them that those people want to live a more relaxed life, but more that some of these people haven't done the necessary steps to do it properly (bouncing from job to job because you can't function due to psychological addiction in a high-cost city is not good). As anything else, I believe that the individual should be responsible for what they do, yet proper knowledge of potential effects and how to face them is needed to avoid wasted years of their life.

> We seem to be ok with people dropping out and becoming monks, but somehow living a relaxed lifestyle is somehow a major problem.

Thank you for this reframing! I believe that it is useful and will likely use it in the future.

I totally agree with the statement itself, but my experience around many stoners is similar to IsaacL's: they're generally not happy or relaxed at all, and smoke weed because they're stuck somehow (or vice versa, perhaps).

More often than not, the 'relaxed lifestyle smokers', myself included, did so primarily to numb the stress in their head, whether caused by work stress, personal issues, social anxiety, etc.

Basically, it's often more to cope than to relax, at least in my experience and that of my surroundings.

But exceptions always exist, of course. I just think it's good to be cautious with anything that seems to offer a quick solution to a difficult problem (being at peace / relaxed).

I would rephrase be a cog in the machine to "contributing to society". If someone wants to live a hedonistic carefree life, more power to them. But this is often coupled with abusing the social safety net designed for people who are down on their luck and can't contribute enough to society due to no fault of their own.

Which is why many people support removing public safety nets (or reducing them). I feel like anyone who wants to opt out of society should be able to do so, but they also lose societal support

Pot is an expensive habit in large quantities which is not really conducive to staying on welfare. The issue is self sufficiency is not really enough without 2.2 kids thing break down long term. Further without economic growth our system is completely unsustainable.

So, if parity is not enough and everyone must be a net contributer, well that's a cog.

expensive cost for the body

very few people drop out to become monks, and to be blunt that is dangerous too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia

Kathleen Norris wrote a book titled with the same name, and one of the things you notice about monastic life is that it's very spiritually dangerous, and often leads to a lot of abuses.

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