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Comment by jknoepfler | Hacker News Reader

Try getting good at something you're bad at, like, for example, appreciating your life and the lives of those around you. "Yawning void of nothing" is a pretty hilariously inaccurate description of a family and all the life experiences you describe.

I would experiment with the hypothesis that perceiving value and experiencing it as such are skills you lack but others possess, that may be improved through deliberate practice.

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I would experiment with the hypothesis that perceiving value and experiencing it as such are skills you lack but others possess

No experimentation necessary, it's blatantly clear that's the case.

that may be improved through deliberate practice

Perhaps. Or maybe it's just trying to distract yourself from reality through what are commonly accepted "values." Hard to know. I read all those studies about "happiness" coming from great relationships, and family etc...

None of them question why happiness is a virtue - it's as though it's implied that hedonism qua epicureanism is preferential. That's what I can't get past.

Andrew, you're fine. I'm going to guess that you're American as America is the most happy-obsessed culture in the world in my experience.

Happiness as virtue is not universal, maybe you need some more time abroad. I know you said you visited 100 countries but visiting 100 countries and living in another country for many years is quite a different thing. Or maybe you just need different friends or perhaps a meditation practice, I don't know.

I'll leave you with this 2 minute video from Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, "Why Be Happy When You Could Be Interesting?": https://youtu.be/U88jj6PSD7w

Chesterton wrote about the folly of globe-trotting:

"The globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant. He is always breathing, an air of locality. London is a place, to be compared to Chicago; Chicago is a place, to be compared to Timbuctoo. But Timbuctoo is not a place, since there, at least, live men who regard it as the universe, and breathe, not an air of locality, but the winds of the world. The man in the saloon steamer has seen all the races of men, and he is thinking of the things that divide men — diet, dress, decorum, rings in the nose as in Africa, or in the ears as in Europe, blue paint among the ancients, or red paint among the modern Britons. The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all; but he is thinking of the things that unite men — hunger and babies, and the beauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky."

- http://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/heretics.iii.html

> as America is the most happy-obsessed culture in the world in my experience.

Yup. I blame their constitution.

That's the Declaration of Independence you're thinking of, I believe.

Right, my bad.

> as America is the most happy-obsessed culture in the world in my experience.

You haven't met a lot of French people :-)

One could look at it as a loss or lack of a sense - would incredibly tasty food seem all that worthwhile to someone with no taste buds? Does the fact that people can taste good food mean they will automatically become obese?

If you're talking about studies in psychology and why they perceive happiness as such, it's because they're not philosophers. They're merely trying to learn things about something that is actually important, even if not the full picture of what is important. Because that's what their method allows them to do effectively.

Could you please expand on the last paragraph? I think about happiness a lot lately, and it seems like you have some intetesting thoughts.

There is an unending amount that has been written about measuring happens and finding happiness etc... All of it seems to boil down to what I would consider "hedonism with a mortgage." The focus is on "lasting happiness" with relationships and experiences being there paramount, and de-emphasizes material accumulation and intoxication.

Nothing ever asks the question "why be happy anyway?"

Seems like it's as bad of a goal as any, but it's how our biological systems create action.

I always defined "being happy" as being satisfied. And being satisfied can be defined as "being the way you want to be". So in that sense I think happiness IS a kind of ultimate goal. I may have stretched the definition of happiness a little, though.

Teenagers ask banal but seemingly profound questions like this all the time. The answer is "because it feels better than not being happy."

You can really overthink this stuff pretty easily

That answer isn't compete though and assumes too much.

It's a cynical answer under a cloak of "experience." Might as well just say, because god wants us to be happy.

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