Choosing happiness
humbledollar.com
humbledollar.com
Just like learning to play an instrument -- it isn't just possession of a hard-earned skill that makes you happy, it is knowing that you can put that skill to use to make music that you enjoy listening to, and performing for others. That impromptu guitar or piano performance at a random cocktail party may be hedonistic, however it is only made possible by the longer term commitment to the craft.
Oh, and it doesn't really need to be hard work. A lot of musicians are in it purely for the joy of the craft. Personally, I get a lot of joy getting better at creating things, whether it is writing computer code or crafting furniture projects using my woodworking tools. And although it takes a time commitment, it is something that I just sit down and do for fun.
Case in point: I have a cheap stuffed animal in the shape of a lobster. Out of context it's a piece of junk. But when you know that I bought it to commemorate the very first ad ever placed on Adwords (I was the lead engineer on that project back in 2000) -- a company called Lively Lobsters -- it takes on deep significance.
Like in Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone, when Harry is forced to stand before the Mirror of Erised, the mirror recognises Harry's lack of greed for the stone and deposits it into his pocket.
Life is like the Mirror of Erised: if you have a lack of greed for happiness, life will bestow you with happiness - which is what makes it so hard to get!
With your outlook what does one do? Just sit there and wait for happiness to appear?
How do you know you know for sure? Are you positive you know everything that can make you happy?
It's a knowledge/discovery problem.
> With your outlook what does one do? Just sit there and wait for happiness to appear?
No, we can use your approximation indeed, but after the facts (ex-post) instead of before (ex-ante): you need take sample of the multidimensional space then try to do gradient descent.
The sampling part has to be random - so you randomly try things. Some of things will make you happier, and sometimes much more than they should, so you tweak one parameter, try again and see if you are less happy or more happy.
That's just using algorithms on actual life.
Or maybe it's uncorrelated? By default, to play it safe, keep the randomness and don't preselect for a big change!
A random change would be of any size: say, randomly try a different food today?
Then go to a aerobic class instead of a boxing class (or vice versa)
Or try swaps: if you often to go vacation on the same place you enjoy, have you tried swapping it to your main residence and work remotely?
That should be less disruptive, through all change is disruptive!
What a bleak way to view things. A very neoliberal zeitgeist indeed.
Same is true for other non-financial areas -- it takes work to make the connections and maintain friendships, and there is effort that continuously goes into the processes that give you rewards for those friendships (you can't just be one-sided, take but not give, and there is not magic formula, you just muddle through it the best you can).
Also, having 'a good job and good family' would likely also be a form of 'eudaimonic' happiness.
'Hedonic' happiness is more like being in a 'joyful state of being'.
How useful is the word "happiness" here? "Pleasure" seems a better term for the author's first sort of happiness. So, sure, pleasure is important in life but cannot be the only thing. The second sort, is that happiness at all? Striving towards a sense of accomplishment or satisfaction.
The problem in this world we've made is not that people choose to spend a fun time with friends rather than run a marathon. It's pleasures that are hardly even pleasures. It's getting angry on the internet, or gambling, or taking this or that substance because it's easier than living.
I like your point that it's pleasures are hardly pleasures. Why do you think this is?
For me the explanation is that this is not a world that I have had much input in making, nor is it unfolding naturally. Instead I think it is planned by powerful forces and steered in a way that uses our (good) nature against to achieve greater control. Eg, technology is a neutral 'tool' but it is being used to track everyone and everything. Events such as epidemics, result in greater centralised control, less individual freedom.
The direction is towards greater authoritarianism. Everyone will struggle for happiness/the best life under those conditions. (Except those running the system.)
My (and I suspect many others') personal issue is that I'm forced to spend so much of my energy working that at the end of the day/week I only have enough left to veg out with wasted time like reddit or whatever.
The things that truly make me happy take more energy, which I can't summon when forced to deal with life's necessities for >10h/day.
It's definitely possible to find purpose and meaning in good times, but without a good community? That's a work of fiction promoted by modern secular society.
You're insane to think that community is necessary to find purpose/meaning in life. Plenty of us have had to escape and avoid all communities in order to survive, and we are doing extremely well. Fuck your "fiction promoted by modern society", the life that works for you does not prove that everyone else should live the same way.
"Be kind. Don't be snarky. ...Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. ...When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
I'm an incorrigible angry mess right now because I'm dealing with close impending death (edit: not my own, but very close) in RL and it's bleeding over into every sphere and making me behave terribly, but it's not a valid reason to be a dick. I'll dial it back heavily and do my best to either act like a normal person or be quiet.
community is not a fiction promoted by modern society. quite the contrary. community was always quite important throughout history. in fact the idea that we don't need community is a modern fiction. sure, some individuals may feel comfortable to live as hermits, and maybe you are one of them, but then you'd certainly be a rare exception, because most people can't go through life without having friends and a welcoming community around them.
and i agree with you, building community to me is one of the highest goals for long-term happiness. ultimately for me the purpose of life is to contribute to our ever-advancing civilization, and happiness comes from doing that together with others and enjoying the friendships that result from that work.
Talk to people on their deathbeds and you'll notice that they talk more about relationships than activities.
The older I get, the more I understand what they were saying.
30 years ago, I would have been quite puzzled by your explanation. Today, it seems so natural.
However, one time it occured to me that maybe a dying person's regrets are not the way you should live your life. They didn't get infinite wisdom just because they're dying, and also the point of life is not that to be happy about your life and choices in your last couple of hours/days.
I'm not saying you should dismiss everything they say, but to take it for what it is: the thoughts of a mind heavily influenced by dying.
Its not about being satisfied or not with your choices on your deathbed, so much as realizing on your deathbed that you've been miserable due to how you've lived, and have been too preoccupied or angry or fearful to pay any heed and make changes while you still had the chance.
The first bout one has with this is when someone you know well dies, and you find yourself thinking about what could have been said or done but cannot now. That's probably also why the realization generally doesn't happen until later in life...
"The peak–end rule is a psychological heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (i.e., its most intense point) and at its end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience."
Adding gamification adds a short-lived hedonic happiness hit that doesn't last very long. Sometimes we'll see articles about "making apps delightful" by adding a shiny button to an app that looks great when you hit "task complete". By the 100th time you click that button, that hit will have worn off.
Gamification works as a crutch at best. Instead, designers should really aim for the "eudaimonic" side of the task. E.g. your room is now clean. Or a workout app could help users better keep track of their strength / ability to lift heavier / better form over time, and reflect on their improvements. These will make users feel a lot more gratification.
Metrics are generally overrated in my view. The ones that matter really matter but the rest are just noise that slows and obfuscates.
give value as soon as possible.
I have spent my entire life to date trying to be useful to people, to society, and it definitely doesn’t result in happiness - rather, an ever-growing resentment at the fact that I am a disposable tool that others are happy to extract value from, but will immediately discard the moment that the tool needs maintenance. At this point, I am rusted and broken and am no damned use to anyone - and oh boy do people make sure to let me know that I am useless garbage.
Happiness is a marketing tool, nothing more - a dragon to chase to sell you products and services, and in this case, to sell yourself into bonded servitude.
Our society is sick. Productivity is not the sole value axis of a human being, but we almost unanimously act as though it is.
I've been following your posts for a while (could make for an interesting blog BTW) - aren't you now in Portugal and out of the job/work world?
I did still do some consulting on the side, until last week, when I politely requested that my few clients pay me a fair market rate, as I had been operating on five year old rates that were cheap even at the time — unsurprisingly, they are no longer my clients. I had worked with them out of a sense of loyalty due to the longevity of the relationships - which evidently was not mutual.
Right this moment, I am away from home on vacation for the first time since the pandemic struck, and rather than being able to relax, I am spending several hours a day dealing with/fending off requests for free technical support from said ex-clients, friends, and family.
It does not give me a warm, glowing feeling to be able to solve the problems of others, ad infinitum, and any seemingly meaningful engagement with society inevitably turns into exploitation. There’s never any gratitude - and to be clear, I don’t expect grovelling worshipfulness, just a “thank you for taking the time” - just ratcheting expectations.
I had dreams of being able to take the time to write - and write I do, but I find no meaning in it, as nothing I write has an audience beyond myself.
The only place I find meaning is in sitting quietly in the forest, and just being a human animal amidst non-human animals. I wouldn’t call it happiness, rather… contentment? Groundedness? An absence, or at least diminshment, of despair and fury?
Honestly, I wouldn’t follow me - I am a bitter weirdo who has recused himself from the world, for good reason. I am never quite sure if it is the human world that is broken, or me - or both.
Sometimes we just have to "reinvent" ourselves. Do some introspection, drop those things that are clearly not working, search for other paths. I think we are all broken and trying to find our way in this world.
Possibly most are like that, but there are definitely people who care about the interaction with you in itself, and not in what they can gain. They're rare, because they have to essentially elevate themselves above the default programming of being a predominantly a selfish animal who's about maximizing resources and chances at survival/comfort. Essentially, a good approach for this problem is - look for people who exhibit good/virtuous character traits, and run from everyone else.
What continues to obligate you to interact at all? I've dropped off the map to one friend and one family member before (after years of effort to prove to myself that I'm a good person) and seriously dialed back my stress level. It wasn't easy, and one was sick and in need but ultimately un-help-able.
When that job and mutual benefit is gone then we have very little incentive to keep being friends. My family occasionally asks me for tech support and I've talked to a friend once in a while about a website they are setting up but as soon as it feel like we are moving from me helping them with a quick fix into me doing work for them then I tell them they should find someone who can actually do this work for them because I cant.
tldr: business relationships !== friends
This seems like an oversimplification
> Their research found that people who were less financially advantaged (partially measured by income, occupation and education) reported just as much, if not more, happiness from spending on material objects over experiences.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/24/spending-money-on-objects-ma...
These all have very real effects on your stress, well-being and happiness in the short and long term.
In fact, people grossly underestimate the stuff (or waste) required for what they liken to experiences. You usually can't divorce one from the other, unless your experience costs nothing (i.e. go outside and walk).
It's a question of temporal range--do you reward your near-future self at the cost of a far futue-self (e.g. by drinking) or do you reward your far-future self at the cost of your near-future self (e.g. by studying or working).
It's not always (or even often) a zero-sum trade, but there's still a balance that needs to be struck.
It does not mean that money makes you sad, or that the rich aren't better off.
"It’s amazing how much contentment and sheer satisfaction is found in finding something you are interested in learning and seeing yourself grow as your mind and skills expand while progressing through ever more complex levels. It’s like a video game, but better! Actively learning something stops time, or at least you won’t notice the passage of time because you’re so gratifyingly engaged in something. This is the state of “flow,” or the feeling of energized focus and enjoyment while engaged in an activity that is discussed in the 2011 documentary, Happy."
From: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/going-through-an-existentia...
experience things, and take joy in simple experiences, and do acts which add value, and avoid harms to others.
I can have hedonic happiness eating well cooked rice, and eudaimonic sharing it with friends. MFK Fisher writes how in old age, a simple dish of green peas can be more satisfying than a rich Escoffier sauced dish. thats zen class hedonic.
fundamentally, I think this is a false dichotomy. I don't think the author proposed a strawman to knock down, but I do think its an instance of a faulty model: the implicit either/or in "two kinds of.." don't apply.
Look, “Happy events” like buying some cool new thing, or going to a fancy party, or the birth of a child are of course temporary feelings of happiness. Yes that should be obvious, the point is to keep steady streams of these sort of happy events in your life.
“Happiness” is a state, not tied to a particular event, it is a feeling. You get there by finally building structure into your life that easily allows for the creation of “happy events” with little effort.
It is analogous to eating a good meal and being well fed. No one expects a few good meals to suddenly make them well fed, you must constantly eat meals to reach a state where you can be considered well fed and you must keep eating beyond that to maintain the status of being well fed. Happiness is something like that.
A state of happiness without the occurrence of new happy events eventually deteriorates, unless you can lower the bar for happy events so low that merely being alive makes you happy. But it is very difficult and I don’t recommend it, because overstimulation of happiness makes it difficult to determine if you are actually happy. You must occasionally be unhappy to know this. Some people that are happy just because they are alive might not really be happy at all. A dystopian thought.
Schopenhauer had a lot to say on this subject. His conclusion was that you could escape these hedonic forces/desires by engaging in art, philosophy, etc. Similar to what TFA is suggesting.
It is like hunger. You feel the emotion of unhappiness or a more specific emotion, and then take action to try and remedy the feeling (or ignore the emotion).
So I doubt anyone knows how many kinds of happiness there are. It's unlikely that there are two.
It’s not sustainable over many hours because it is hard, and you have to come up for air. But you feel whole, well, satisfied, in doing it.
First the definition of hard is already difficult to define across people and activities. From a happiness standpoint, I don't see why a simple or easy focus couldn't also induce a state of flow if they were in the moment and enjoyed it.
In a way, being entranced in a TV show is a state of flow. Society just has shame built into the idea of wasting time due to the scarcity of our environment.
Watching TV is unlikely to reach a flow state for you because I doubt you personally find watching TV challenging. Of course, if you did find it challenging, you could perhaps reach that state.
I don’t think it matters personally. However, you reach a series of “happy” days that work for you is all that matters.
I say, if you want to think of a value for your life. Add up the sum of how you liked your days.
However you get there, It doesn’t matter.
Any activity you do regularly and consistently will bring about different emotions and states of mind on different days. Some days you can’t wait to get started and some times you go weeks of having no motivation towards it.
I’m on a journey right now of hiking 50 miles a week. On most days, being able to get in nature for an hour or more is such a serene and grounding experience that brings me a lot of joy. But there are weeks where I don’t want to get out there, and even when I get started I don’t want to be there. But looking back, I see those days as part of the whole experience. I have retroactive enjoyment and pride in having pushed myself (type 2 fun) and I know that the subsequent 50 mile weeks are easier and more enjoyable because I kept the consistency up.
Yes, it is good to take breaks from things when you’re not enjoying them anymore. This allows you to reevaluate and get back your motivating “why”. But it can also be extremely hard to get back into a routine after a relatively short break. Anyone who has not exercised for a few weeks will know that feeling of weakness when they get started again.
From the standpoint of immediacy, it absolutely can be.
From a medium to long term standpoint, the path this presents may or may not be a happy one (I posit that happiness is a process and not a resting state), which is highly dependent upon your circumstances.
If you're fabulously wealthy, smoking crack all day for the rest of your life might be a very happy path.
If you're not, there are likely some bumps along that path which could negatively impact one's happiness.
Your "argument" attempts to conflate the travails of a tiny minority (those whose lives are negatively impacted by substance use issues) of us as a major component of the process called "happiness."
Which is unfortunate, as there's (as has been mentioned elsewhere here) that hedonistic activities (like smoking crack) are certainly on the same spectrum as eudaimonic activities (like working at a job you find fulfilling) and are, in their effects, quite similar.
Yes, I do realize your "argument" is a straw man specifically designed with all sorts of baggage to placate folks into not looking too closely at that "argument."
I'm sorry I'm unable to be placated thusly.
I'm like, if it's your money you begged for it spend it on whatever you really want, whatever you really really want. There was a serious presidential candidate here saying, Jadué[1]. So what you do with the addicts is you dispense them a reasonable amount, of whatever. Anything.
And really? They're not addicted by accident. There's a reason there wasn't a crack epidemic in the 60's, it wasn't because people couldn't figure out the trivial recipe with fucking baking soda and cocaine like in any kitchen? The CIA did not invent crack because nobody can invent crack because it's not patentable, it's obvious. In fact the crack epidemic is a response to the 60's, crack cures the system of the counter-culture.
[1] I like his party I like that he's Marxist, I feel red too, and American Republican, just like the color red, let me declare it here. Color-based political affiliation in Chile and in America, just red in both. Republican red, Marxist red. That's legal, you can be a Republican and a card-carrying Communist if you're open about it. I'll see where I can get an actual card I can carry. I just like the color red.
EDIT: this came out with a lot of explosion, good thing it's nested deep in the comments, let it be known I had to leave a lot out. That was some really unwise stuff to write...even drafting it, like any javascript keylogger...oh well I'll compile it, it'll be in a book perhaps. Well I guess anything that goes through a computer is public from day one. Anyway, a book about what's up, why you can't just reach out for happiness like you mock real people for doing. It's actually not that complicated. It's upcoming. Maybe. I actually am figuring out my business and my idealism simultaneously, and you can read about it all on http://www.fgemm.com .
Totally true
> Let them be happy for a bit, hell.
Also true: we shouldn't cast judgement on their favorite type of happiness, lest they cast their judgement on ours.
> I'm like, if it's your money you begged for it spend it on whatever you really want, whatever you really really want.
And you respect freedom?
Overall, words of true wisdom. Amen to that.
> EDIT: this came out with a lot of explosion, good thing it's nested deep in the comments, let it be known I had to leave a lot out.
Don't self censor please. Actually good and unique content is a rare find.
He was discussing “eudaimonic” happiness, and basically was pushing folks towards that.
It’s a web ‘zine for folks near retirement, so it’s basically, saying “play golf,” or “putter about in the workshop,” to stretch some stereotypes.
Me, I’m definitely a “putter about in the workshop” kind of guy. Seems to do the trick for me.
[EDIT] Added “about” to “putter in the workshop.”
THEN I realized you were not talking about a putter.
You can tell I don’t play golf.
I tweaked it.
Different times? I don't really agree. Sharing an event of any kind has always been much more fun (and rewarding) for me; there's just no comparison.
In fact, from my experience, you can always have both "type of happiness," and I wouldn't have it any other way.