The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes It Hard to Be Happy (2010)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Don't worry though, it will all be better once you sit down with your Bay Area Mercedes Benz dealer to talk about financing options on the fantastic new S series featuring blah blah blah.
The parent is discussing the idea that "advertising creates a problem and sells you a solution", and in specific they're focusing on how advertising shapes perceptions intentionally with the intent of making the product more desirable. Just do an image search for "funny salad" to understand what is going on - you'll see there's an entire meme dedicated to the absurd advertising of salads to women, who are always caught in mid-laugh as they eat their salad. Car commercials, especially for trucks, tend to have a soundtrack similar to that of an epic movie, usually with well built men driving the trucks and doing some sort of hard labor. Commercials directed at kids are even more shameless and will often just juxtapose kids sitting around bored out of their mind without [product] (often in black and white) and then suddenly there's colour and joy in life with [product].
Advertising has a very specific purpose and a lot of the focus is about creating an idea and a brand image, the idea that "these are the type of people who have our product and this is what they do at night or on the weekend." Kodak Moments were an entire marketing campaign for cheap consumer cameras, and now the term is synonymous for any good memory and that you need to take a picture of. (Granted, this example is no longer as relevant due to digital cameras, but you get the idea)
Some subcultures have things to sell you - there are numerous kickstarters and other crowdfunded items that try to play to the sympathies and sensibilities of the loosely defined gamers, and unfortunately far too many people in this subculture are far too willing to part with their money. However, I'd argue that when it comes to philosophies or social movements, there's a message. And it's one you have more power about choosing to get into than you do with advertisement.s
The other half are downright terrifying...
This isn't frightening. It's funny (because it's true).
> I would rather have the aspartame that causes cancer than the sugar that causes diabetes.
This, on the other hand, is frightening.
It's like the Dark Side version of the "...teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea" quote.
Edit: and it really goes even deeper than that, teaching us that being constantly entertained or totally satisfied is the state of being everyone else is in (so why aren't you?) --> only buying things can get you there --> here, buy this.
First, not everyone defines success in such material terms. If you don't, you probably also aren't interested in attracting a mate who does.
Second, in a society as laden in consumer debt as the USA in the early 21st century, the nature of the correlation between financial wellbeing and ownership of nice things is far from certain. To put it in its most basic terms, the $40k someone spent on their BMW is, by definition, money they didn't stick in their 401k.
And unfortunately unless you're a doctor, lawyer, or CEO, 'having nice things' is the only socially appropriate way to signal that.
I don't like it, but it works really well and sexual selection is what sells luxury cars in general, not advertising.
Not to mention, 'compatible value systems' are not necessary to bring a girl home after a first date and have some fun...
>And unfortunately unless you're a doctor, lawyer, or CEO, 'having nice things' is the only socially appropriate way to signal that.
Meaningful conversation, a sense of humor, good looks, and an approachable demeanor are all perfectly socially appropriate, and they tend to attract people much more reliably.
There are obviously many other factors besides financial success (and more important ones!) in being attractive.
Yeah. That's why they lease those cars.
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Its rather easy today to borrow money and get things that are completely unsustainable. Nothing against people who actually like leasing cars (some people MUST have a new car every 2 years, so its cheaper to lease than to buy).
But a huge number of people who are leasing cars simply can't afford the car. So instead, they go for a "low cost monthly plan" that doesn't build any wealth at all.
It's just a heuristic, of course, but it does establish a bare minimum of financial success.
Nah, it really could just mean someone HAD managed to save up $2000 and are about to get that car repossessed in 4 months.
And based on the ridiculously dumb financial decisions of my friends and peers... that's what happens. Albeit with smaller decisions, but I've seen thousand+-dollar financial mistakes before.
Sounds more like biology to me, with the talk of sexual selection, signalling, etc.
Especially the bit where you use that jargon to dehumanize women by reducing their feelings to a set of base instincts.
You do realize that what Darwin is known for is discussing mating behaviour and natural selection, don't you? Or do you think that is not relevant because humans are not animals but special snowflakes, carried down on the wings of angels?
I'm not the OP, but I would say that kind of language is exactly what one would use in order to try to explain exactly what really motivates humans, beyond some ephemeral idea that our actions are based on "feelings", with no deeper interest in understanding of what might be the basis for those feelings.
And since you brought up dehumanizing (which I don't agree this is, BTW): If that is dehumanizing, would such a description not also dehumanize men, who are described as mindlessly dedicating a significant portion of their life to acquiring the money with which to impress? It's a pity that such behaviour would have no effect because women are humans with unfathomable and intractable feelings...
Or can we just admit that some women might be impressed by material wealth, making them precisely human, because some humans may be impressed by material wealth?
Dating's a way to get a read on someone's value system and find someone who shares your values. It's a mistake to think that everyone shares mainstream American cultural values, even in America. There are plenty of people who don't buy into consumerism or advertising messages.
And why "demonstrate success" on a date? What is the other person supposed to be? Whore/Gigolo?
Why demonstrate success on a date? What do you think the purpose of a date is? It's a courtship ritual where you try to demonstrate your reproductive value to a potential mate. There are many components to this; appearance, wealth, personality, etc.
I think you have this mixed up; a prostitute is precisely the person you don't need to indicate your value to. You just pay them.
I thought it was to get to know the person, build a relationship and maybe bed them (if you're too horny).
But now I've learned its purpose is to show your bling and evolutionary advantages to send the right primitive signals to the other hardly developed monkey-human.
>I think you have this mixed up; a prostitute is precisely the person you don't need to indicate your value to. You just pay them.
The distance between a whore and a golddigger is not that wide.
Talking to them, learning their past, their character, their preferences, their favourite Tom Waits album, etc?
>You literally mention sex in the same sentence;
Which we've managed to separate from pure evolutionary urges to reproduce at least some millennia ago.
>this is the fundamental evolutionary (not teleological) purpose of courtship, regardless of how you dress it up.
You'd be surprised, billions manage to have sex with billions without having children -- in casual relationships and such. And an increasing number of people (like 20-30% in the US I've read?) even for life.
All of these things except maybe Tom Waits are indicators of reproductive fitness. Why do you think your brain is structured to prefer these characteristics in a potential mate?
> Which we've managed to separate from pure evolutionary urges to reproduce at least some millennia ago.
Hardly. We've only had effective birth control for a few decades. Society hasn't fully caught up to this yet, let alone our evolutionary programming.
> You'd be surprised, billions manage to have sex with billions without having children
What planet do you live on? In fact, billions of people have had children!
Why do you think different men/women have completely different preferences on those things? Except if "reproductive fitness" is subjective, which defeats the whole argument...
>Hardly. We've only had effective birth control for a few decades.
We've had romantic (and even platonic) love, annal sex, gay people, and tons of other things besides arranged marriages or fucking for reproduction since at least ancient Greece...
>What planet do you live on? In fact, billions of people have had children!
One or two or five. They've had sex 100s of times.
Gosh, you are quite the romantic, aren't you... ;-)
That, or a completely irresponsible attitude towards consumer debt. In most cases, the latter. So, this isn't really a very sound strategy for finding a mate who is financially sound.
Read The Millionaire Next Door. Most people who are actually wealthy drive moderate cars that are completely paid for. Since many of them own a small business that often works in a fairly blue collar industry, they're more likely to be wearing jeans and a work shirt rather than a suit.
whoever wrote that book is selling you on a worldview. your quote is often repeated, but i don't find it to be true. i think it's wishful thinking for a lot of thrifty people, so they can feel superior by judging people they don't know by what they drive around in.
in my experience being a millionaire or not has absolutely no bearing on the kind of car you drive. some people like nice cars or sports cars, other people simply don't give a shit about cars, rich or not.
and from what i've seen, even the wealthy people who don't drive nice cars have other really nice shit, like $100k in road bicycles, or gigantic house(s) or a fully equipped fishing boat sitting in the marina. but they drive a prius, so they're thrifty and virtuous.
Rather than just anecdotes, the authors of the book did actual research and found that most people who have actual net worth above a million dollars did in fact get there by carefully managing their money, and conversely, most people who had the appearance of wealth in the form of expensive cars and boats, didn't have the actual net worth that it implied.
So, if you're judging someone's net worth by the things they happen to own, the whole point is that this is not a reliable indicator of how much wealth someone actually has.
my point is that you're doing the exact same thing, except in the other direction.
The only way you're speaking the truth is if just about every human behavior qualifies as demonstrating success. In which case, you're saying nothing. It is nearly useless for making actual decisions, and thus not something you are justified in believing strongly.
But you're still demonstrating value, yes? I admit that there is no universal value function. It is subjective to a large degree. However, we can pick out large-scale trends fairly easily.
> The only way you're speaking the truth is if just about every human behavior qualifies as demonstrating success
Not sure what you mean.
Sure, you can find trends, but you're never dating trends. Real people are not averages of a population.
>Not sure what you mean.
When you say "but you're still demonstrating value", you are reducing dating analysis to a tautology. It will either be untrue or useless. Something has to fail to demonstrate value in order for you to determine not to do it. And you can't do that without knowing the person you're dating.
Which is at the heart of everyone else's point: Dating is about finding out what your date values, not 'demonstrating' what you imagine it is that they value.
> you cannot reasonably predict it.
I think I just did.
When you go on a date, whether the average person would like you means nothing. Whether the person actually sitting in front of you likes you means everything. And you can't predict that. You are talking about the middle of a bell curve, and you're failing to understand how wide that curve is and how strong the tails are. Which is why I said you're failing to understand human diversity.
I think you have a very narrow definition of "date."
Life, and love, is far more than an exercise in evolutionary psychology.
> Life, and love, is far more than an exercise in evolutionary psychology.
I agree, there is additional value in the emergent behavior of evolutionarily driven organism (us). However, this isn't contradictory to what I said.
But it is neither scientific, nor evidence-based, and many Eastern cultures do not view mating or courtship in the same way you do.
It does contain theory, but it doesn't contain psychology or anything "pop". It's anthropology and evolutionary biology. My views also aren't popular among Western people, except those who like to scientifically pick apart the origins of beloved social traditions. This makes most people uncomfortable.
> many Eastern cultures do not view mating or courtship in the same way
That's nice. Do you actually know anything about "Eastern" views on courtship rituals, or are you just saying that my views aren't mystical enough and you assume that "Eastern" people have some sort of mystical interpretation?
The fact that you're appealing to cultural folklore about dating at all should cause you to re-consider your argument.
At the very pop level. No anthropologist or biologist would make as crude presentations of the relevant arguments -- or even think their interaction with culture is some solved problem and it's 100% "evolution" at play.
>My views also aren't popular among Western people, except those who like to scientifically pick apart the origins of beloved social traditions. This makes most people uncomfortable.
No, it's mostly the crude early 20th century scientism and basic oversight of empirical data.
>The fact that you're appealing to cultural folklore about dating at all should cause you to re-consider your argument.
Well, your whole premise was that evolution trumps "cultural folklore" and customs, to which the parent's reference is completely justified as a counter-example.
It's not the same as mine.
Of course sometimes you want to impress people who don't see this anyway, most obviously the job interview or the business meeting. Well in that case: it's incredibly easy to fake these signals, especially when you see them for what they are.
But you still went to tax return/401K, so defining success as owning a lot of the medium of exchange. Not that you have exchanged it for the correct things or gotten them some other way. So you got past viewing nice clothes and cars as and end in themselves but not past viewing money as an end in itself. There is another step you can take, another narrative that has been built to motivate you to act in another group's interest you can abandon.
Being shallow is exactly that: being "evolutionarily sensible".
Unlike animals, that can be only (or mostly) "evolutionarily sensible", we have critical and self-critical faculties, and can see beyond what's "evolutionarily sensible".
And of course, billions of people don't give a rats arse about whether the person they'll fall in love with has a fast car and a fancy suit, or the body type that signals "I'll have plenty of milk for our offspring".
>Any evolutionarily rational person would place substantial value on a partner who can provide for themselves and their offspring.
If they see the world as some kind of jungle where what matters is a partner who can "provide for themselves and their offspring" then they're not just shallow, but also regressive.
> And of course, billions of people don't give a rats arse about whether the person they'll fall in love with has ... the body type that signals "I'll have plenty of milk for our offspring".
Which billions of people? Females? Yeah, they're typically not looking for milk production in a mate. On the other hand, breasts are a huge component of male attraction in most cultures.
As for fancy cars, it's not the car itself; it's what it signifies. (Although personally, I would place substantial value on a mate driving fast cars! I love driving.)
In what way is it "regressive" to seek a mate who can provide for one's children?
"I liked her because she liked me because of my car"
said no one ever?
The idea is, no matter who you are as a person, the version of you that is healthy, fit, and clearly never has to worry about money, is one of the more attractive versions of you. She's not a gold digger, she just wants to be with someone who is financially secure.
There are far more important things to think about on first date such as "Do I like this guy?", not how expensive his car is.
One relationship has more fun/fulfilling lifestyle options available and the other has fewer. This applies to anyone regardless of gender, although a lot of people have hangups about traditional roles and money.
Fitness is an indicator of physical health and ability to defend from predators and fancy cars and clothes are indicators of mental/social prowess and ability to garner resources. They're both valid, if imperfect, criteria by which to judge someone for reproductive fitness.
Source: I do this for a living
You will be so pleased with a purchase that has no buyer's remorse, which you accept as normal, that you will go buy some more stuff from that store. Clearly it is a special rare deal you have discovered.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/high-price-materialism Tim Kasser, The High Price of Materialism
It discusses studies on how materialistic desires relate to one's emotional well-being (all correlative, as I recall), and then goes from there into a thoughtful analysis of how materialism alters a person's priorities in a variety not-so-healthy ways. I found it to be a pretty good reality check.
It sounds embarrassingly crude, but it has served as an internal equalizer when I feel like desiring or whining. I have tried to demonstrate to my kids that contentment (happiness) is really best obtained and empowering when you realize you don’t need to buy it, you can just make or generate it yourself.
If anyone needs a primer, I suggest starting with the existing literature, namely Calvin and Hobbes.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2012/05/28
https://riteshjsr.wordpress.com/2010/05/22/recurring-motifs-...
> The problem is that detachment – solitude, quietly taking responsibility for your own actions – is inimical to modern life ...
Top comment here:
> It is the fault of advertising!!
I'd say that is the polar opposite of taking responsibility for your own actions.
The passage shocked me, as it is extremely surprising, and speaks to the core of our societal growth over the past few hundreds of years not leading to maximum happiness. The passage is from this David Brooks column (which I think is definitely worth the three minutes to read): http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opinion/the-great-affluenc...
The core thought is that people trade up for comfort (including privacy), but that they lose out on the overall bonds with other people that are what really makes us happy.
One extremely clear choice: Do you work from home (more comfy) or an office (more social)?
The work from home choice seems extremely relevant to me. Is it actually bad for happiness in the long term to do something that's so much more comfortable (no commuting, no dressing up, feeling of being at home, etc)?
When I think about the best times in my own life, they were the times when I had a close group of people I lived and hung out with (college, summer camp, etc). I assume it's the same for many others reading this. So why do we not live more like that into our adult years?
Sitting at the office from 10 to 6, breathing in sterile AC, watching the world pass me by through the window was the depressing bit.
The fundamental importance of high quality bonds with other people is something I wish was emphasised more. The following TED talk describes a pretty interesting research experiment done over a long time frame which essentially comes to this conclusion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkKuTCFvzI
The TL;DR to these is that once you get enough anything more produces rapidly diminishing returns in the happiness department:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza
- http://www.pbs.org/kcts/affluenza/show/joe.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
The movie Fight Club also came out around this time with a similar message and was the "knockout punch" to my consumerism, haha. Not long after this I'd sold most of what I owned, quit my job, and took a trip around the world. Have been much happier ever since, with new expectations and goals.
Another thing I learned on that trip, I did not miss TV one minute while I was gone, and found a lot of the garbage (consumerism, superstition, Britney news, and petty politics) in my mind had cleared. The main purpose of TV news and advertising is to drive fear and desire, which I now liken to a cancer, but one that can be beat.
Yes, we have netflix and itunes because there are some great shows, right? But commercials and mainstream news sources---fuck no---life is much better without them.
Take a look at e.g. https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS#. In most places, people are working less hours, and they have significantly higher standards of living in many ways.
Especially in software development, there are enormous opportunities to work however you like for as many hours as you like. Sure, if you want a mid six-figure salary and try to keep up with the Jones' in SF you'll need to sacrifice some leisure and relationships, but that's not universally true. If your preference is to enjoy meaningful relationships and leisure time outside of work, and you have STEM skills, this is a great time to be alive.
The alternative would be to spend another day a week working for money I literally have no need for and cannot use. I don't want to trade time during my thirties for time during my sixties, either, since time in my thirties is much more useful, as I am better able to do things with it.
Having an optional 3 day weekend allows a lot of possibility for longer recreational trips, large projects, dedicating one day to errands and totally freeing the other two, etc. On the other side of the equation, having a wide open afternoon + evening every weekday is great too.
It may seem like I'm just preaching to the choir on this one, but I'm also trying to simply raise awareness of what an excellent benefit it is. Realistically, could businesses in other fields adopt this? It's a great way to keep employees happy (saving turnover expenses) and doesn't alter their paycheck.
[edit] Since you are working less in exchange for the 20% cut, I realize not every business can do this since paying more people for fewer hours has diminishing returns. Giving the option of 4 10's or 5 8's, though, is still the same hours + work done. Why do we not see this offered more?
I've been thinking about whether is reduction in the workweek is politically or culturally possible, even if it is economically motivated. I sort of came to the conclusion that people turning 5 days jobs into 4 would be necessary on the cultural front. Glad to hear of someone that actually did it!
In most countries outside of the West jobs pay much less and you'll be forced to work much more to merely survive. Want to trade with them?
> Folks, this is not some unintended side effect of capitalism- this is the way the system is supposed to work. You're not supposed to be happy.
So an economic system where private enterprises produce goods and services based on what they believe will make profit (and not through coercion) and where you, the consumer, as a result have more options to choose from is somehow designed to make you unhappy?
What would make you happy? "Democratic Socialism"? Would you prefer to work in forced labour camp? Because that's how Socialism inevitably ends every single time. Even in case of the poster child of Socialism, Venezuela, which recently passed a forced labour law.
Free trade is an advantage to these who have the capital to move around, and to the idea of consumerism because unnecessary goods can be cheaper.
The evolution from capitalism isn't to communism, it would be something new, something different. What we should want is a better system that is more fair to everyone and doesn't by its very purpose destroy the world.
State ownership of capital is the definition of socialism. In as much as anyone uses your term 'state capitalist', they use it to refer to the heavy-handed control of markets by government in places like China.
As to the departure from capitalism: when you depart from free markets without some seriously strong restraints to prevent further movement, you're always moving toward the same endpoint of non-choice and stagnation, but there are plenty of trajectories to get there. In the US, we enact well-meaning policy to protect our hallowed institutions or to protect the disadvantaged. The resulting distortions in knowledge conveyed by prices create arbitrage opportunities. Organizations/companies that can find and exploit those opportunities can grow powerful, and then they can sink in their talons to further distort and fossilize the market to their advantage. In the middle term, we have a different small group of people who get rich at others' expense, but it's a race to the bottom just like any other. Our confidence in preventing that decline is a finesse, just like in bridge: we're handing over control in the hope that we can both effect an intended change and regain control. That's a good trick for as long as you can keep it up.
Having said that, I think it's bizarre to say that any system's purpose is to destroy the world, even if that is the probable end state.
"social ownership" refers to the various forms of ownership for the means of production in socialist economic systems; encompassing public ownership, employee ownership, cooperative ownership, citizen ownership of equity[1] and common ownership.[2]
As far as the meaning of socialism, I'd see an evolution of capitalism leading to the employee/cooperative ownership with less government interference. It makes sense that the people doing the work have a say in the company they are a part of. There could be problems, there are always problem with any system. But a fairer situation for all workers seems overall more beneficial to society as a whole.
The issues you are describing in the US don't seem to be socialist, they are consequences of capitalism. As a process capitalism focuses on concentration of power, rent-seeking, limitation of competition (through corporate lobby). Basically what we have now is capitalism, there is no perfect ideal capitalism that we would be better with, and should move towards, we've already gone down that path and these are the consequences. This to me is the reason why we should be honestly talking about trying something else, something better.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ownership
In Capitalism you actually have the freedom to share the means of production. Go out there and convince a few people to form a company that is collectively owned. It can be done.
So why don't we then see formation of companies with employee ownership or cooperative ownership? Because it is a model that is far less effective in producing goods and services, thus in almost every case someone tried it it failed. (and many did try)
The only way this can work is by outlawing private enterprises as we know them today, because if private enterprises were allowed to exist besides these models then they would be guaranteed to crush these alternative organisation forms.
We have seen this happen every single time Socialism was implemented. Capitalists economies consistently crushed Socialist economies.
Therefore everyone that insists on implementing Socialism has to accept that it will mean that innovation and efficiency will significantly go down as a result, which also means that everyone will get poorer. (if you produce less or at higher costs per unit then this is bound to happen)
It also means that other societies that do not implement Socialism will have an advantage and over time we'll fall back in development significantly.
And then of course you somehow have to sell your population to accept that the government will take away their private property and redistribute it, if it is any kind of business.
So it's kind of a tough sell to anyone that thinks the whole thing through.
It is also immoral by the way. You have to steal private property from others and limit their freedoms just so your little collective has a shot at surviving in the market.
If it weren't so then you'd have already created the collective, because you could. No one is preventing you from doing it in a Capitalist economy.
Unless I'm misunderstanding what "this" and "it" refer to, it's not exactly a new topic. Identity, ego, happiness, capitalism, consumerism, work, family, and their various relationships and conflicts have been discussed in ways nearly indistinguishable from how they are today since the dawn of the modern global economy (the 50s), and similar issues have been covered by Western writers since at least the 19th century (much farther back, depending on how much you want to stretch "similar").
This article hints at both - and they were my biggest eye-openers on the question of how* to live.
It's best to take Irvine's book as a guide to his own modern philosophy heavily based off Stoicism. Take that as you will, but I would recommend Stoicism and the Art of Happiness and some of the original Stoic classics; Enchiridion by Epictetus (it's short and very direct) and Seneca the Youngers Letters.
"You might be surprised," he said, and was himself surprised when people took it as a joke.
> The very same quality that make us these majestic creatures that soar above the heavens and transcend their boundaries has made us perpetually dissatisfied, neurotic beings living in urban centers drowning in consumption in an over-capitalist bloated system that can no longer satiate us always wanting something else until we're overwhelmed and overweight and immobilized by how spoiled we've become and yet we enjoy very little of it.
On a separate note, we are seeing a gradual disappearance of the middle class resulting in desperate attempts to rise in status whether superficially or explicitly. In either case, we are losing some self-worth and putting our happiness in the hands of society and rules we don't control.
An associated phenomenon is Laconophilia, the admiration of Spartan values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconophilia
In the Enlightenment era, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a famous advocate of Spartan values over the "Athenian" cultured urbanism that is essentially the foundation of modern Western life.
Status is always there, and it never went away, and I'd posit that it is is something capable of making a person feel miserable even if everything else in their life is great.
If your happiness is strongly tied to status, that is problematic, since status is almost necessarily zero-sum. For it to be significant that one is a Marine, Marines must be rare, and the comparison point would need to be some non-Marine. And, in the past, communities were smaller, you weren't comparing yourself to billions of people. If status is zero-sum or near-zero-sum, and when you can no longer stand out just by contributing to your community as the guy who makes tables or something, because there are quite a few people making better tables than you, so what happens to your status?
5 points to whoever can guess what this quote is from
Summary: http://becomingeden.com/summary-of-a-guide-to-the-good-life/
"Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him."
Guess what? It didn't make me feel better. I just felt sad.
Listening to music or reading less depressing books lifted my gloom. YMMV.
Someone gave you a random number. Say, 23. You have a biological device programmed to set this random number as your "default". It has no frame of reference. It's not objective. All it does is tell you things are bad when you feel lower than that number, and good when you feel higher than that number.
Then you found someone else and their number is a lot lower. Like, 6. You have now decided that your number is pretty awesome because it's so much higher than theirs! Later, you see someone with a 50. And you're jealous because they're a lot higher than you. Except you have never seen the full graph. You don't even have any way to really evaluate "so much higher" except that same biological device that you so hastily discredited. Maybe the max number is 30. Or 50. Or a 100. Or a million. And the most important thing - your number is still 23.
You didn't put your problems in perspective. To have perspective, you need to know how wide the possibility set is, and you don't know that. All you did is calibrated down, and reduced your expectations. But that doesn't change reality. Your minor problem may as well be bigger than you imagine it, you have no frame of reference, how can you possibly tell?
An old yet succinct term would be, "count your blessings." You should find things to be thankful for every day. Your health, your family, the fact that you aren't starving. The fact that you have access to clean water. And for Christ's sake, stop consuming news for a while.
If you have to worry, pick the top 3 things to worry about and ditch the rest.
I think knowing about other, bad lives can remind people of all the things they have and take for granted. We tend to focus on the things we don't have, but if you can appreciate the things you do have, you'll be much happier.
And those typically don't cost much money LOL
For those who haven't seen it, this article also argues the former: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/opinion/the-fragmented-soc...
This led to the realization that you can change what makes you happy. Though it's very difficult to do that work in today's climate, and impossible over short time scales. A practice like transcendental meditation or yoga is essential in my opinion.
Disappointing that well-tested multigenerational wisdom like this is often downvoted on HN =/
disclaimer: currently reading Autobiography of a Yogi.
Exception: Sikhs. They do religious living on hard mode.
If anything, your statement would imply that happiness is absolutely not a choice and something most people will never achieve, just like people can't simply "choose" to become an Olympic athlete or the President. The definition has been pulled too far from its original purpose.
While you can't choose to be able to do any particular posture or position, you _can_ choose to be happier than you are now...
Being president requires membership of one of the two strong parties, having name recognition enough to be nominated, have vast resources either at your disposal or willing to be invested in by others, all that again for the actual election, and being able to win over one of the most fickle voting populations on the planet.
Being happy...is just a change in how you think. It really is that simple, it requires commitment and self-policing to a great degree but in the end anyone can do it. I wouldn't say it's anything like those other two things.
> It really is that simple, it requires commitment and self-policing to a great degree but in the end anyone can do it.
I don't think I can make sense of this statement... if something has many requirements, and something to a great degree, how can you say that it is merely a choice, and that anyone can do it? Again, a choice is a decision, not a goal. There's no difference between "I'll try really hard to be happy" or "I'll try really hard to be an Olympian", they're both goals with no guarantees that you can fail at. What is great? The average person, by definition, is not great. So why are you saying anyone can do it, in the end, that anyone can be great? Simplicity is not relevant here. Winning a race is simple - just run faster than everyone else.
This seems to be along the lines of losing weight. It's simple, but so many people fail at it. If people, in large numbers, greater than average, fail at doing something universality perceived as good, I posit that that means it's not available to most people for whatever reason, because nobody in their right mind would choose a bad outcome for themselves.
If your interest is in making a large proportion of people happy, rather than making a few chosen individuals happy, it's a more interesting question as to why so many people "choose" to not be happy or some other universally positive thing. I'd say the word "choice" is being horribly misused. People struggle and fail, that's what's happening.
What made you decide that changing how you think is simple, easy, and readily available?
I would say difficult, but not extremely difficult. Your examples require a lot of external resources and material goods to achieve, and the services of others. What we're talking about is possibly altering your food intake, maybe a supplement or two, and other than that it's just your own self discipline.
> I don't think I can make sense of this statement... if something has many requirements, and something to a great degree, how can you say that it is merely a choice, and that anyone can do it?
Because everyone has a brain and a will and those are in the vast majority of cases all you need to do it.
> The average person, by definition, is not great. So why are you saying anyone can do it, in the end, that anyone can be great? Simplicity is not relevant here. Winning a race is simple - just run faster than everyone else.
I would say the gateway to happiness is realizing that you are in fact not great, that you are not destined to be famous or wealthy, and to embrace just being the best you that you can be. Embrace average, buy better beer, enjoy the luxuries you can afford instead of pining for the ones you can't.
> What made you decide that changing how you think is simple, easy, and readily available?
Well again I said no such thing, I said in comparison to becoming an Olympian or being elected President that this was easy. There are a lot of other things that are easier than those two things. Altering the way you think just requires self discipline, self policing, and commitment. There's no magic solution or program or book, it's not self help tapes or a twelve step program. It's something you decide to do for you with the resources you were born with.
I've made radical changes to how I think in the last few years and in so doing have greatly improved the quality of my life, and the first step on that journey was realizing that I was just a regular guy, I would never be a celebrity, never be very wealthy, never be famous and never be some massive achiever, and that there was nothing wrong with that. It hurts at first because our society tells us to a large degree that that is how you succeed in life, but after awhile, you learn to appreciate average. Since then I've never been happier.
I find it interesting that you think this about becoming an Olympian, but not about being mentally stable and happy. Are you sure you are not simply labeling the thing you are unable to do as something requiring a lot of external resources, and then labeling the thing you are able to do as something not requiring such?
Because I would certainly argue that becoming purposefully happy seems sufficiently out of reach for most people that it probably requires some external resources. Like a good social influence, for starters. Someone at least needs to be there to even tell you about such things.
> What we're talking about is possibly altering your food intake, maybe a supplement or two, and other than that it's just your own self discipline.
That's quite a caveat. Self-discipline is a fairly nebulous thing, how are you going to evaluate it? What is it chemically? Why do some seem to have less and some more? At what point would you stop saying: "Just get more self-discipline" towards a problem?
Why is self-discipline not recommended for people with depression, anxiety, etc., if what you're saying is true?
> Because everyone has a brain and a will and those are in the vast majority of cases all you need to do it.
This looks like a claim, but I'm not sure what you're supporting it with. Some people have very poor brains, where does that fit in in your hypothesis? Should this have been prefixed with "healthy, standard brain"? Because that cuts out a pretty big chunk of people.
> I've made radical changes to how I think in the last few years and in so doing have greatly improved the quality of my life, and the first step on that journey was realizing that I was just a regular guy, I would never be a celebrity, never be very wealthy, never be famous and never be some massive achiever, and that there was nothing wrong with that.
I think the main problem with this thinking is that it's very unlikely that you're an average guy, and I'm curious as to when was the last time you've seen a truly average person. Or how about below average person. Chances are, that by all standard metrics - intelligence, social skills, income, health, etc., you're not average. You're not a celebrity, either, but I don't know why you're so concerned with the top 1% when there's 49% in between you could be in.
The core question here is this: if it is all so available, and so straightforward, and open to everyone, and requires one to simply be human with a brain and nothing else, why is it, then, that nobody does it? Why do people choose to be unhappy, why do they choose to be fat?
Now hold on, you never said anything about mental state, we're talking about a healthy person choosing to be happy here (or at least I was). If you have depression or stress disorders or anything of that nature then yes, obviously more is required. The flip side of that: Someone who is otherwise in a fit mental state can choose to be happy in the way we've discussed.
> That's quite a caveat. Self-discipline is a fairly nebulous thing, how are you going to evaluate it? What is it chemically?
Why do we need to evaluate it?
> Why do some seem to have less and some more? At what point would you stop saying: "Just get more self-discipline" towards a problem?
I think a lot of it has to do with how you're raised and the values you're given in your developmental years, but like anything else it's something that's practiced and honed. I'm not perfect by any stretch, I have down days like anyone else.
As to when you stop, I feel like that's connected to this:
> This looks like a claim, but I'm not sure what you're supporting it with. Some people have very poor brains, where does that fit in in your hypothesis? Should this have been prefixed with "healthy, standard brain"? Because that cuts out a pretty big chunk of people.
And:
> Why is self-discipline not recommended for people with depression, anxiety, etc., if what you're saying is true?
Which yes, I am talking about otherwise mentally healthy people but I'd disagree with you that such a statement excludes a lot of people. I think a lot more people are what we would say are "normal" than not.
> The core question here is this: if it is all so available, and so straightforward, and open to everyone, and requires one to simply be human with a brain and nothing else, why is it, then, that nobody does it? Why do people choose to be unhappy, why do they choose to be fat?
Well speaking as someone who's also working on being way too fat for my own good, it's because that's what we're programmed to be. Growing up poor food is the only luxury you really have so every celebration, the good times, are built around big meals and as such I have an issue with comfort eating. It's getting better but just like cultivating happiness it's something that takes constant self policing. The nice thing is, the happiness went first, and that makes comfort eating less necessary by itself.
As has been said elsewhere in the thread, advertising, a huge part of all our lives is built on the idea of convincing people who otherwise wouldn't be aware of a product that they need that product to be happy. Is it such a logical leap that this constant barrage of messages would make people unhappy if they weren't consciously aware of the message and why it's being used that way?
The book is another matter but that will need to be analyzed separately.
D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch hät àlles, wàs er will ! Un wàs er hät, dess will er nit, Un wàs er will, dess hät er nit. D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch hät àlles, wàs er will !
D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch sajt àlles, wàs er will ! Wàs er sajt, dess dankt er nit, Un wàs er dankt, dess sajt er nit, D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch sajt àlles, wàs er will !
D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch màcht àlles, wàs er will ! Wàs er màcht, dess soll er nit, Un wàs er soll, dess màcht er nit. D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch màcht àlles, wàs er will !
D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch geht ànne, wo er will ! Wo er isch, dò bliebt er nit, Un wo er bliebt, dò gfàllts im nit. D’r Hans im Schnòckeloch geht ànne, wo er will !
Jetzt het d’r Hans sò sàtt Un isch vom Eland màtt. Lawe, majnt er, kànn er nit, Un sterwe, sajt er, will er nit. Er springt züem Fenschter nüss, Un kommt ins Nàrrehüss.
Preach to me of Stoicism when you've housed all the homeless and fed all the hungry!
Ignoring what you said about Stoicism (which,quite frankly, is wrong; it's a very humanistic and community oriented philosophy and almost all virtue-based philosophies are action oriented) the idea of detachment is common to many philosophies and religions including Buddhism, Absurdism, Nihilism (IMHO), various monastic and mystic groups (i.e. The Church Fathers and Sufism), and good old fashioned Platonism. Stocism was probably just mentioned since it A) does incorporate detachment to some degree and B) is one of if not the most well known of the Greco-Roman philosophical schools.
A minimum of comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue. -- Patrice Lumumba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
but you'll probably dismiss it as new-agey handwavey woo woo crap about self-actualization.
all this existential stuff is kind of ridiculous, just like life, so you kind of just have to take it at face value.
I would argue that it's not really a pyramid hierarchy, but more of a pool from which happiness and satisfaction is drawn, where some segments can compensate for others. The only indispensable one is the physiological one.
Even Maslow himself states:
>Maslow states that while he originally thought the needs of humans had strict guidelines, the "hierarchies are interrelated rather than sharply separated".[5] This means that esteem and the subsequent levels are not strictly separated; instead, the levels are closely related.
Like all psychology of the mid 20th century (its essential infancy), it was merely an attempt to categorize some societal patterns without any actual data or studies, but from empirical observations of an extremely narrow view of a westernized society.