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Happiness - he's found it. Sure, he's an extreme and very few want to emulate it because there's a mild element of delusion. But, he's found the thing so many

Happiness - he's found it. Sure, he's an extreme and very few want to emulate it because there's a mild element of delusion. But, he's found the thing so many of us work our entire lives for only to never find. Part of life is letting happiness find you, part of life is finding happiness, and part of life is pushing away things to find happiness in what you have. I say, well done.

DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
you did use the word "mild". but it made me wonder if not every person I've ever encountered that looked happy seemed like that a bit. The happier somebody is the more deluded they look to the rest of us. People in love are perhaps the most obvious. But it says probably more about the observer.
- Griffinsauce 5y ago
  I think this just tells you that happiness is not objective.
- Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
  The specific happiness that we're talking about here is contentment -- with your life, with who you are. I think it looks so odd to so many of us because we tend to be an ambitious bunch, and I find ambition to be pretty inversely related to contentment. The sort of acceptance that this man displays feels like giving up, in a sense. And in many ways, it is -- but that's something that Buddhists have been teaching for centuries.
  - mekkkkkk 5y ago
    "Giving up" seems to imply unfulfilled ambition, though. It only feels like giving up because we project our own ambitions onto him. If his ambition always was to lead a simple, predictable life close to nature, he's achieved flawlessly. Maybe I'm just re-stating what you said, sorry.
    - Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
      No, yeah, I agree totally with what you're saying. It feels like giving up to us but that is a whole lot of projection.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I can't find the link now but I remember reading a study that showed that mildly depressed people have the most realistic outlook on the world.
ikurei 5y ago
I feel like us (hyper connected city dwellers, constantly chasing personal growth or success or novelty) are the deluded ones. Why do you say he seems deluded to you?
- anbende 5y ago
  The farmer has a lot of ideas about what it would have been like to leave or do something different and why there was no point in doing so. Having never left, these ideas are not based in experience, and there is likely an element of self-justification. It is very very common for people to come up with reasons to justify their choices. To the extent that these reasons are unexamined and not evidence-based, they are deluded. That doesn’t make them bad or even ineffective, just not fully based in reality. It’s likely mild, and he’s likely genuinely happy with his life despite.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    Indeed, they are rationalizations. Whether out of fear of the unknown or attachment to what he has. Our cognitive bias is such that losing something feels worse than gaining. I think some are more or less novelty-seeking by nature, but the environment around you has an impact. If I think of it as a strategy it makes more sense, i.e. "doing the same thing has worked well and will probably continue to do well, so I'll continue to bet on it". That hardly demands all the extra pre-conceived notions, but people view challenges to their ideas as a threat when they've made them part of their identity.
  - nwienert 5y ago
    A bird not flying outside it’s habitat is not delusion. Likewise any animal. Just because there’s this modern idea that you need to travel and sample (trample on) everything, doesn’t make it more rational. Will going to Mars do anything for happiness? You haven’t been, you can’t know! That’s a fallacy, I’m not sure what, but it’s a fallacy because we know animals are adapted to their environment. We also are pretty good at knowing if we’re feeling alright. You’re confusing scientism with reality. You can’t begin to claim to be right about some scientific thing without having explored a lot. But happiness can be found locally, in total ignorance. Your dog knows this. Only a human could confuse something like that through the curse of knowledge and modern culture. What I will say is this man is rich. Not everyone, in fact almost no one, can afford to buy a farm in a beautiful area that’s surrounded by people and culture you like, with a temperate climate and natural beauty. He’s very lucky.
noir_lord 5y ago
Happiness is a terrible word because there are different kinds. I think contentment is closer to what he's found, his world makes sense in his context and is comfortable and familiar. Happiness is what you want when you are young, contentment is what you get if you are lucky later. I think that is how it should be, it's a good progression since too much contentment when you are young would have made me less driven and been less driven wouldn't have helped me reach a point of contentment in my late 30's. I have a partner who loves me and I her in return, a stable job I enjoy, money in the bank and time and money for my hobbies - it's not euphoric happiness but that never lasts, contentment can.
- matwood 5y ago
  Happiness::Contentment as Motivation::Discipline Searching for happiness or thinking that one needs to be happy all the time is not the path to any sort of lasting happiness. Contentment, much like discipline, is what has staying power.
psychomugs 5y ago
“ Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.” - Victor Frankl

DyslexicAtheist 5y ago

you did use the word "mild". but it made me wonder if not every person I've ever encountered that looked happy seemed like that a bit. The happier somebody is the more deluded they look to the rest of us. People in love are perhaps the most obvious. But it says probably more about the observer.

Griffinsauce 5y ago
I think this just tells you that happiness is not objective.
Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
The specific happiness that we're talking about here is contentment -- with your life, with who you are. I think it looks so odd to so many of us because we tend to be an ambitious bunch, and I find ambition to be pretty inversely related to contentment. The sort of acceptance that this man displays feels like giving up, in a sense. And in many ways, it is -- but that's something that Buddhists have been teaching for centuries.
- mekkkkkk 5y ago
  "Giving up" seems to imply unfulfilled ambition, though. It only feels like giving up because we project our own ambitions onto him. If his ambition always was to lead a simple, predictable life close to nature, he's achieved flawlessly. Maybe I'm just re-stating what you said, sorry.
  - Gene_Parmesan 5y ago
    No, yeah, I agree totally with what you're saying. It feels like giving up to us but that is a whole lot of projection.
tonyedgecombe 5y ago
I can't find the link now but I remember reading a study that showed that mildly depressed people have the most realistic outlook on the world.

ikurei 5y ago

I feel like us (hyper connected city dwellers, constantly chasing personal growth or success or novelty) are the deluded ones. Why do you say he seems deluded to you?

anbende 5y ago
The farmer has a lot of ideas about what it would have been like to leave or do something different and why there was no point in doing so. Having never left, these ideas are not based in experience, and there is likely an element of self-justification. It is very very common for people to come up with reasons to justify their choices. To the extent that these reasons are unexamined and not evidence-based, they are deluded. That doesn’t make them bad or even ineffective, just not fully based in reality. It’s likely mild, and he’s likely genuinely happy with his life despite.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  Indeed, they are rationalizations. Whether out of fear of the unknown or attachment to what he has. Our cognitive bias is such that losing something feels worse than gaining. I think some are more or less novelty-seeking by nature, but the environment around you has an impact. If I think of it as a strategy it makes more sense, i.e. "doing the same thing has worked well and will probably continue to do well, so I'll continue to bet on it". That hardly demands all the extra pre-conceived notions, but people view challenges to their ideas as a threat when they've made them part of their identity.
- nwienert 5y ago
  A bird not flying outside it’s habitat is not delusion. Likewise any animal. Just because there’s this modern idea that you need to travel and sample (trample on) everything, doesn’t make it more rational. Will going to Mars do anything for happiness? You haven’t been, you can’t know! That’s a fallacy, I’m not sure what, but it’s a fallacy because we know animals are adapted to their environment. We also are pretty good at knowing if we’re feeling alright. You’re confusing scientism with reality. You can’t begin to claim to be right about some scientific thing without having explored a lot. But happiness can be found locally, in total ignorance. Your dog knows this. Only a human could confuse something like that through the curse of knowledge and modern culture. What I will say is this man is rich. Not everyone, in fact almost no one, can afford to buy a farm in a beautiful area that’s surrounded by people and culture you like, with a temperate climate and natural beauty. He’s very lucky.

noir_lord 5y ago

Happiness is a terrible word because there are different kinds. I think contentment is closer to what he's found, his world makes sense in his context and is comfortable and familiar. Happiness is what you want when you are young, contentment is what you get if you are lucky later. I think that is how it should be, it's a good progression since too much contentment when you are young would have made me less driven and been less driven wouldn't have helped me reach a point of contentment in my late 30's. I have a partner who loves me and I her in return, a stable job I enjoy, money in the bank and time and money for my hobbies - it's not euphoric happiness but that never lasts, contentment can.

matwood 5y ago
Happiness::Contentment as Motivation::Discipline Searching for happiness or thinking that one needs to be happy all the time is not the path to any sort of lasting happiness. Contentment, much like discipline, is what has staying power.

psychomugs 5y ago

“ Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.” - Victor Frankl