Sure but also, is this what we "want"? (for wildly varying definitions of the word want.)
Takeaway available with the press of a button is certainly not what my soul wants.
Takeaway available with the press of a button is certainly not what my soul wants.
One time I bought a bag of beans it occurred to me that requiring coffee beans from a specific farm in Rhuanda sounds like something a king might do.
Even my bog standard middle class luxury feels wildly excessive sometimes.
How prodigious is it that so many of us know so many intricacies and details about so much stuff, from the aesthetic to the mechanic. We don't know if our point in the universe is to spread life or morality or simply to make it pretty, it's probably pointless to wonder beyond our very own life, but there's no denying that we are growing. We are becoming. Only by getting there can we know what it is. But it sure is one-of-a-kind.
All the cynicism and pessimism in the world falls short in the face of our past achievements, let alone the future potential of this Earth (I like to consider all life here to be part of the journey, we didn't exactly "win" in isolation, and "we" is more like the system to me, however large that is).
I have been having a bit of a rough month, one of those obdectively good on the outside view but subjectively on the inside full of self-doubt and existential angst.
This just yanked me out of that headspace, for a few moments at least.
Thank you :)
No wonder we have trouble falling asleep.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_the_Cloth_of_Gold
If anything it's surprising we're not even fatter and even less well-rested. We live in a friggin' world-class carnival. Describe some medieval monarch living in some kind of environment like that and we'd simply assume they'd be a wrecked, fat drunkard with perpetual bags under their eyes in short order, even if they had the best of intentions and pretty decent character. But we wonder why we're fat and tired and write and read books about it and try not to see the obvious cause, and the cost of fixing the problem.
kitchens are expensive. the historical urban poor often lived in a corner of a room and bought their food from someone who had a kitchen. it makes eating home cooked meals feel absolutely decadent!
(one thing i haven't yet understood: food was cheaper than a penny, but there were no farthings or ha'pnies till much later. indeed, a penny bought about $20 worth. so did they buy meals a week at a time, and get a pastie a day or something?)
For instance, going to the circus was fun, but quickly forgotten. A local stunt pilot flying overhead only gets a quick glance.
A few minutes of a YouTube compilation gives more amazing entertainment moments than my entire childhood.
Is one a better philosopher when they are starving? I don't know. I would rather be a well fed philosopher than a starving one.
I wanna ask this person on a date. What's the worst thing that could possibly happen? They say no and I feel embarrassed. It's a lot easier to do scary things if you actually think about the consequences of failure, rather than letting animal fear control you.
This, I learned from the Stoics.
Breathing looks hierarchically more important than self-actualization but it's just that a material portion of your entire ensemble of needs is just breathing - completely not optional.
Given that, you can futz w/ stuff and see if the levy-stable structure of this sort of thing will allow you to fold over different stuff
Your writing alternates between being overly complicated and being so casual that it's vague. Can you rephrase in plain language?
Always be prepared. Have your own backup set of silverware anytime you eat.
We've weaponised the apparatus of retail and communication against our own limbic systems.