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Well, it's hard to be happy when it requires you to actually be able to do what you want to do. Social hierarchy, resources and even brain chemistry are not in

by jotm 5y ago

Well, it's hard to be happy when it requires you to actually be able to do what you want to do. Social hierarchy, resources and even brain chemistry are not in everyone's favour. Contentness can be learned, though. Or just use that brainpower and create medication that tricks the primitive parts of the brain into being happy. Profit!

antisthenes 5y ago
> Or just use that brainpower and create medication that tricks the primitive parts of the brain into being happy. Profit! Thankfully, nature already did that for us. It's THC and Alcohol.
NoGravitas 5y ago
“There seems to be an inborn drive in all human beings not to live in a steady emotional state, which would suggest that such a state is not tolerable to most people. Why else would someone succumb to the attractions of romantic love more than once? Didn’t they learn their lesson the first time or the tenth time or the twentieth time? And it’s the same old lesson: everything in this life—I repeat, everything—is more trouble than it’s worth. And simply being alive is the basic trouble. This is something that is more recognized in Eastern societies than in the West. There’s a minor tradition in Greek philosophy that instructs us to seek a state of equanimity rather than one of ecstasy, but it never really caught on for obvious reasons. Buddhism advises its practitioners not to seek highs or lows but to follow a middle path to personal salvation from the painful cravings of the average sensual life, which is why it was pretty much reviled by the masses and mutated into forms more suited to human drives and desires. It seems evident that very few people can simply sit still. Children spin in circles until they collapse with dizziness.” ― Thomas Ligotti
pmoriarty 5y ago
Happiness is not getting what you want, it's wanting what you get.

by jotm 5y ago

antisthenes 5y ago

> Or just use that brainpower and create medication that tricks the primitive parts of the brain into being happy. Profit! Thankfully, nature already did that for us. It's THC and Alcohol.

NoGravitas 5y ago

“There seems to be an inborn drive in all human beings not to live in a steady emotional state, which would suggest that such a state is not tolerable to most people. Why else would someone succumb to the attractions of romantic love more than once? Didn’t they learn their lesson the first time or the tenth time or the twentieth time? And it’s the same old lesson: everything in this life—I repeat, everything—is more trouble than it’s worth. And simply being alive is the basic trouble. This is something that is more recognized in Eastern societies than in the West. There’s a minor tradition in Greek philosophy that instructs us to seek a state of equanimity rather than one of ecstasy, but it never really caught on for obvious reasons. Buddhism advises its practitioners not to seek highs or lows but to follow a middle path to personal salvation from the painful cravings of the average sensual life, which is why it was pretty much reviled by the masses and mutated into forms more suited to human drives and desires. It seems evident that very few people can simply sit still. Children spin in circles until they collapse with dizziness.” ― Thomas Ligotti

pmoriarty 5y ago

Happiness is not getting what you want, it's wanting what you get.