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Comment by nmilo | Hacker News Reader

Maybe it's just because of the connotations we have behind the words, but I don't like the idea that a dinner with friends is somehow "hedonistic," but starting a business is somehow filling your life with meaning and purpose. Can't you find meaning and purpose solely in the pursuit of having good times in a good community? Plenty of happy people are happy just because they made lots of good friends and a healthy and happy family. Why should they need to find purpose in some arbitrary goal like running a marathon?

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What you just described is actually the other type (eudaimonic) of happieness. You spent a lot of time and effort to cultivate those friendships and getting into that good community -- it isn't something that you just turn on one afternoon and it goes away the next day. Which is what makes this type of happiness so powerful -- it is like accumulating a lot of stock in a company that pays really good dividends on a regular basis. The dividends for the work (and time) cultivating those friendships and community connections are the punctuations of instances of hedonic happiness that are a direct result from it.

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.

And possessions can work this way too. Our house is chock full of stuff, but it's stuff that we have acquired during extensive travel around the world. Every tchotchke reminds us of some place we've been and the experiences we had there. The stuff is meaningless to everyone else but full of meaning for us.

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.

Eudaimonic and hedonistic happiness both seem wrong to me, as you can't desire happiness - well you can, but then you won't find it, as you can only stumble upon it.

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!

I don't really agree. I think you can know what ingredients are more likely to make you happy, and you can direct your life towards them.

With your outlook what does one do? Just sit there and wait for happiness to appear?

> I think you can know what ingredients are more likely to make you happy,

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.

Pretty disruptive to try out big changes on a whim though such as different jobs or living location, and those kinds of changes are the ones I would think are most likely to have a large effect on happiness level.

First, you are assuming the size of the change to be proprotional to the change in hapinness level - that's a questionable first assumption! Maybe it's the opposite?

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!

> Happiness from friendships and community it is like accumulating a lot of stock in a company that pays really good dividends on a regular basis.

What a bleak way to view things. A very neoliberal zeitgeist indeed.

The intention wasn't to compare wealth with happiness, but was to draw a comparison between two different domains, with one that some people can objectively understand. The idea being that in finance, you can for example buy an object (collectable, gold, virtual currency, ...) and it just sits there collecting dust. It may go up in value, but to realize that value you have to sell it, then you don't have it anymore. Whereas investing in something that generates value (dividend paying stock, education, tools for your business, ...) gives you returns without having to sell it. Although in most cases you still have to put in work (you have to work at education, and work to utilize it, and you have to apply work to your tools to generate value).

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).

I think I had the same reaction.

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.

Yes, he's using the wrong word with "happiness". "Good life", "best life" are better conceptions for what he's trying to get to.

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.)

>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.

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.

To that point, I have a life mainly oriented around the article’s investment kind of happiness, and I can’t imagine a life where I enjoy that without also having the article’s fleeting kind of happiness. And I’d even say I’ve damaged my ability to pursue or enjoy either by overly focusing on the former.

Dinners with friends, walks in nature, time spent with family, is what I live for.

some of the examples seem misplaced but the overall abstract idea sounds right. maybe think of the dinner example as a lavish party with people who want to show off more than being there with you instead of a quieter dinner with only your close friends and not many other people.

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.

I think that's fair, and the author choose a bad example (doing cocaine might have been better, or watching Netflix). But I think the difference between the other examples is they involve some sort of a mission. It's difficult (imo) for humans to find fulfillment just in "having a good time" unfortunately.

>Can't you find meaning and purpose solely in the pursuit of having good times in a good community?

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.

Many communities are toxic as fuck, and for many people every community anywhere near them is dangerous.

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.

Yet here you are. :)

Please make your points on HN without being so abusive. Thanks. Your comment breaks many of the HN guidelines, e.g.

"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."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yikes, can you please not post comments like this or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32436006? They break the site guidelines badly, and we have to ban accounts that do that.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Yes, I understand, I will be more respectful, and I apologize.

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.

Thanks for the kind reply. I know it's not much but I wish you well with that process. It is far from easy and I hope that you and your loved ones make it through ok.

Thank you, I really appreciate the support, and I will pay it forward.

i am sorry you had that experience and that you chose to be by yourself instead. i can get where you are coming from. i left my home country for similar reasons. but i never gave up on community. along the way i met wonderful people and i realized that i can find a community by contributing to one.

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.

Because it's not arbitrary, that's the point.

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'.

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