28 ms·

Human Life

80 points by w_complicated 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
throw0101b 2y ago
There seem to be three inter-connected things that lead to happiness: > One could draw a snap judgment from this analysis and conclude that money, in fact, simply buys happiness. I think that would be the wrong conclusion. Clever sociologists will always find new ways of “calculating” that marriage matters most, or social fitness explains all, or income is paramount. But the subtler truth seems to be that finances, family, and social fitness are three prongs in a happiness trinity. They rise together and fall together. Low-income Americans have seen the largest declines in marriage and experience the most loneliness. High-income Americans marry more and have not only richer investment accounts but also richer social lives. In this light, the philosophical question of what contributes most to happiness is just the beginning. The deeper question is why the trinity of happiness is so stratified by income—and whether well-being in America is in danger of becoming a luxury good. * https://archive.ph/4ofJ6 https://archive.ph/4ofJ6 / https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/happiness-marriage-money-satisfaction/678185/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/happiness-...
- fellowniusmonk 2y ago
  So it's wealth, and as wealth increases so does the opportunity for self actualization internally (fitness, etc.) and externally (relationships.) Our entire society is structured around wealth/money being the single transferable / unit of exchange for time, freedom, self actualization, property, security, healthcare outcome stratification, etc. So the whole damn thing is explicitly structured as money being the proxy unit for all the things we want and like. So it's obvious that most of the signal will be there. The one thing that can never be removed from these equation is wealth. Be wealthy and surround yourself with other wealthy people for X tranche of wealth. Everything else is just obfuscation. While there may be other factors and humans are a messy biological lot so "non normative" individuals certainly exist but there is only one BIG signal that never goes away.
- linearrust 2y ago
  > But the subtler truth seems to be that finances, family, and social fitness are three prongs in a happiness trinity. They rise together and fall together. I don't think all three necessarily rise and fall together. You can be filthy rich and have a terrible family or social life. I think the 'subtler truth' is that financial stress harms family and social life and you could argue financial stress is the biggest thief when it comes to happiness. Assuming 'finances, family and social fitness' are the three prongs of happiness trinity.
  - musicale 2y ago
    It isn't just low-paying jobs that encourage you to trade your social and family life for money.
thriftwy 2y ago
> In almost all cases we found the inverted version more sound. Maybe that's why happiness is so hard. So many promising roads leading out.
popalchemist 2y ago
> In almost all cases we found the inverted version more sound. This "insight" depends entirely on the author(s) NOT UNDERSTANDING what is meant by the original quote. > If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. Taisen Deshimaru > If you are not happy here and now, you may still be happy in the future. not Taisen Deshimaru In the original quote, the Zen master is pointing at the idea that you are always in the here and now. Even if, at some other point in time in the future you arrive at happiness, like the second "inverted" quote says, you will still be in the here and now, then.
- taneq 2y ago
  I thought the whole point of these Zen sayings was that they are silly or nonsensical until you interpret them in some deeper way. Edit: As akprasad pointed out below, I was thinking of koans.
  - akprasad 2y ago
    You're thinking of koans [1], which are a specific kind of Zen speech used to shift the mind out of conceptual thinking. Outside of that context, Zen teachers often just talk in conventional language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan
- fellowniusmonk 2y ago
  The entire intro is so poor I just stopped reading. If the point of the article is valid and well researched they should just remove the entire intro it's so off putting. If they have created a bad intro just for the sake of self selecting credulous individuals (a common tactic for grifters and the incomprehensible) than they are killing it. Yeah, the inverted quotes look prima facie worse or just obviously false to me. And often yes, it is due to what you have pointed out. I mean the first inversion sounds like the most unhappy thing a person can do: >>>Their Inversion: Learn not to let go. That is the key to happiness. Learn not to let go? Ok, thanks infinite compounding intrusive rumination. Also people are loss averse by nature so very few people will have to "learn" to "not let go". Then there is this one, where the inverted statement is so awful the had to fudge and qualify the whole thing. >>> Quote: Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind. >>> Their Version: Happiness sometimes is being pained in body and troubled in mind. >>> The real Inversion: Happiness is being pained in body or troubled in mind.
jordwest 2y ago
> In almost all cases we found the inverted version more sound. Sound as in true? Or sound as in more comfortably fits one's current set of beliefs? Many of these quotes are getting at the unexamined assumption that happiness can be found anywhere but right here. The point of many of the quotes is introduce some curiosity and question the fundamental assumptions that run your life. If you are steeped in the mindset of chasing happiness, of never finding it here, and you're simply looking to confirm that, then of course inverting the quotes is going to fit better with your world view. In that case, keep chasing it and chasing it until one day you wake up and realise it never seems to arrive. Then the quotes may hit differently.
- w_complicated 2y ago
  You're right, that's roughly what we tried to capture, however I don't agree that "chasing" happiness is pointless. Being able to contemplate the "here and now" is absolutely important (and is listed later in the article), but some fortitude, understanding of my own needs and intentional action towards them did yield some results at least in my own experience. We haven't managed to find any quote which would touch on that and all were about the ability of experiencing of here and now, with maybe a slight twist of "give up fighting for your value, just enjoy what you already have".
  - jffhn 2y ago
    >I don't agree that "chasing" happiness is pointless Considering that chasing happiness is the complement to contemplation, is considering that contemplation excludes happiness. >We haven't managed to find any quote which would touch on that The complement to contemplation is not chasing happiness, it is participating in the creation of what can be contemplated, and you can find plenty of quotes about that, like: "The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul." (Dieter F. Uchtdorf), or: "Creativity is intelligence having fun." (Albert Einstein). That can be whatever kind of creation: procreation, pieces of art, etc.
neom 2y ago
I really love this doc on happiness, it makes me happy, and it's a great watch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1613092/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1613092/
every 2y ago
I will settle for being content...
jrm4 2y ago
Right, I imagine most of the writers of the quotes reading THIS article and being like "ooooh you're SO close"
probably_jesus 2y ago
[dead]
jodrellblank 2y ago
"Learn to let go. That is the key to sadness." - not Buddha. The key to curing sadness. "Very little is needed to make a sad life" - not Marcus Aurelius. Sadly truthy. "If you are not sad here and now, you never will be" - not Taisen Deshimaru. Sounds like it means the same as the original. "The greatest sadness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness." - not William Saroyan. That you could live a long life with no happiness, sounds pretty sad. "Sadness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind." - not Thomas Jefferson. Sadness is something more.
asdasdsddd 2y ago
> For us, happiness is the target state that we want to achieve, at which we would be in our ideal condition. This is a terrible redefinition and is obviously not what the quotes were talking about. You might as well just write, the ideal is the ideal.
andoando 2y ago
My feeling is there is neither true path to happiness nor a definite way to sustain it. Any positive change in time will turn to be its undoing.
- dsubburam 2y ago
  Have you chanced upon Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? He argues that true happiness comes from being-at-work in accordance with virtue. And that virtue can be cultivated through habit. So in his scheme, you can work towards sustained happiness. Three of the important virtues he devotes separate chapters to are: courage, temperance and practical judgment ('phronesis', sometimes translated as 'prudence'). Of course, everyone develops their own map on how to understand and go about their lives. Just thought I'd share a pointer to the one in this work.
  - andoando 2y ago
    No I havent read that but probably have read very similar things. Its very easy to say these things so I never put much weight to them. I am just going off my own experiences. What you might consider virtuous like helping others may lead down to lonliness and feelings of uselesness when circumstances change and theres no one around. If you work on being independent you may one day find you have a longing to connect. When being carefree seems to make you happy, one day it may lead to making terrible decisions. The human brain, and all of life seems to be built on opposites, I don't believe eternal happiness can exist, at least not for everyone.
    - jamiek88 2y ago
      Is eternal happiness even desirable?
      - andoando 2y ago
        I don't see how one would not desire it. If youre happy youre happy. If it were possible to be high on heroin my whole life I wouldnt argue against it
m0llusk 2y ago
What happiness is to different people can vary wildly and may ultimately be rather shallow. Satisfaction is often easier, more practical, more rewarding, and less fragile than happiness.
photochemsyn 2y ago
Happiness is when a web page that requires JavaScript to display its content happily redirects you to the simple text version when it detects you have JavaScript disabled. It makes one feel that the web page cares about your preferences (NoScript in Firefox as default).
- w_complicated 2y ago
  Sorry about that, there is no excuse, we only need a bit more time to make it properly static. In the meantime I'm happy to PM you the text if you're interested.
  - davisr 2y ago
    It takes no extra effort to make a static webpage. Imagine if we all included a script on our pages that blocked the content and showed instead, "please disable JavaScript to read this page."
throwanem 2y ago
If whoever's idea this site was happens to be reading these comments, a word of advice. Cleverness and wisdom are orthogonal. It is extremely clever to seek to reinvent all human philosophy from first principles. It is also extremely unwise. At best, you'll waste time achieving nothing, since it is impossible in one lifetime for you to recapitulate the canon. (Also pointless, given the canon already exists.) At worst, you might achieve nothing and also drive yourself insane. That youthful energy and that drive to understand the world are both highly meritable qualities, as is the intelligence on display. Take those and do almost anything else with them but this, and looking back you'll find your time was better spent. (Also, if you're going to try to be so mysterious about who and where you are, don't immediately give away that you're Polish.)
- w_complicated 2y ago
  Thanks! I actually hear similar feedback regularly. Maybe it's about time I should take it more seriously. But I can't agree with the statement that the cannon already exists. The idea behind the site is not to reinvent all knowledge, but to assemble some of it into solving everyday problems. I can relatively easily find answers to some low-level questions which were studied by philosophers, but actually struggle to find similar quality material on higher-level questions, which are the ones I'm facing more often in day-to-day life. E.g. if you think about the recently-trendy problems of "free speech vs platform moderation", or "privacy vs security vs comfort", or "political correctness vs truth" - I struggle to find comprehensive answers, but if you could point me to such places I'd be grateful. There are of course plenty of interesting reads, Hacker News being an aggregator of lots of them, but it's difficult to find one which takes the arguments and provides some reasoning on where they stem from rather than finishing on something like "obviously privacy is important", "free speech, because of freedom", or "moderation, because hate speech is harmful". Also, we've tried to spend our youth energy on a few different things already, this is one more experiment, don't worry, we have lives. In fact, I try to follow what is preached in the article and engaging in this project falls into the category of "personal mission". (But you're right that there is some Polish element to it, mum's the word...)
  - throwanem 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
spintin 2y ago
[dead]
Mathnerd314 2y ago
I can recommend the book https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-71888-6 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-71888-6. It is the best compendium of scientific information I know of regarding happiness. Not really light reading, but if you have a question it's answered. For example all the domains mentioned in this post are covered. In reality, happiness is complex - there is well-being, pleasure, pain, satisfaction, and so on. It is not necessarily even a goal to maximize happiness, because being too happy for too long causes problems.
- jffhn 2y ago
  >It is not necessarily even a goal to maximize happiness, because being too happy for too long causes problems. Reminds me of the experiment with rodents pushing the morphine button until death, and of the recent opioid crisis.
gumby 2y ago
Not only do I not find the inverted ones more sound, some of them don’t even apply (e.g. the meaning of the word “happiness” was different in Jefferson’s day than today).
__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
Quoting Nietzche: > He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how This seems to be the opposite of what the author has to say here. When I think of the people in my life that are happiest, they are the ones that are least interested in having nice things and the ones that are most willing to endure a little pain in order to build meaning into their lives. The ones who are not willing to make that sacrifice, who chase happiness for its own sake... for them, pain causes suffering, which compounds the problem because it throws in their face that they've failed in their quest for happiness. For the others, it's just a momentary annoyance, like bad weather. I'm with Neitzche on this one.
- w_complicated 2y ago
  That's really interesting. As one of the co-authors I agree with your approach, but I also thought that so does the article. We put emphasis on following truth (as opposed to falling into nice illusions), being authentic, following your life mission (that's how I understand the "He who has a why to live for" part of your quote), and not escaping from sadness or problems. Even the heavily criticised inverted quotes mentioned "Happiness sometimes is being pained in body and troubled in mind". How come did you come to the conclusion that the article suggest avoiding pain and going for simple pleasures, easing up on the life's purpose? (Sorry for such a delayed response, a random life event cut in)
mock-possum 2y ago
The first portion of this article reads as so much nonsense that I’m shocked it’s posted here. What’s your take, OP?

80 points by w_complicated 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

There seem to be three inter-connected things that lead to happiness: > One could draw a snap judgment from this analysis and conclude that money, in fact, simply buys happiness. I think that would be the wrong conclusion. Clever sociologists will always find new ways of “calculating” that marriage matters most, or social fitness explains all, or income is paramount. But the subtler truth seems to be that finances, family, and social fitness are three prongs in a happiness trinity. They rise together and fall together. Low-income Americans have seen the largest declines in marriage and experience the most loneliness. High-income Americans marry more and have not only richer investment accounts but also richer social lives. In this light, the philosophical question of what contributes most to happiness is just the beginning. The deeper question is why the trinity of happiness is so stratified by income—and whether well-being in America is in danger of becoming a luxury good. * https://archive.ph/4ofJ6 https://archive.ph/4ofJ6 / https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/happiness-marriage-money-satisfaction/678185/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/happiness-...

fellowniusmonk 2y ago
So it's wealth, and as wealth increases so does the opportunity for self actualization internally (fitness, etc.) and externally (relationships.) Our entire society is structured around wealth/money being the single transferable / unit of exchange for time, freedom, self actualization, property, security, healthcare outcome stratification, etc. So the whole damn thing is explicitly structured as money being the proxy unit for all the things we want and like. So it's obvious that most of the signal will be there. The one thing that can never be removed from these equation is wealth. Be wealthy and surround yourself with other wealthy people for X tranche of wealth. Everything else is just obfuscation. While there may be other factors and humans are a messy biological lot so "non normative" individuals certainly exist but there is only one BIG signal that never goes away.
linearrust 2y ago
> But the subtler truth seems to be that finances, family, and social fitness are three prongs in a happiness trinity. They rise together and fall together. I don't think all three necessarily rise and fall together. You can be filthy rich and have a terrible family or social life. I think the 'subtler truth' is that financial stress harms family and social life and you could argue financial stress is the biggest thief when it comes to happiness. Assuming 'finances, family and social fitness' are the three prongs of happiness trinity.
- musicale 2y ago
  It isn't just low-paying jobs that encourage you to trade your social and family life for money.

thriftwy 2y ago

> In almost all cases we found the inverted version more sound. Maybe that's why happiness is so hard. So many promising roads leading out.

popalchemist 2y ago

> In almost all cases we found the inverted version more sound. This "insight" depends entirely on the author(s) NOT UNDERSTANDING what is meant by the original quote. > If you are not happy here and now, you never will be. Taisen Deshimaru > If you are not happy here and now, you may still be happy in the future. not Taisen Deshimaru In the original quote, the Zen master is pointing at the idea that you are always in the here and now. Even if, at some other point in time in the future you arrive at happiness, like the second "inverted" quote says, you will still be in the here and now, then.

taneq 2y ago
I thought the whole point of these Zen sayings was that they are silly or nonsensical until you interpret them in some deeper way. Edit: As akprasad pointed out below, I was thinking of koans.
- akprasad 2y ago
  You're thinking of koans [1], which are a specific kind of Zen speech used to shift the mind out of conceptual thinking. Outside of that context, Zen teachers often just talk in conventional language. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan
fellowniusmonk 2y ago
The entire intro is so poor I just stopped reading. If the point of the article is valid and well researched they should just remove the entire intro it's so off putting. If they have created a bad intro just for the sake of self selecting credulous individuals (a common tactic for grifters and the incomprehensible) than they are killing it. Yeah, the inverted quotes look prima facie worse or just obviously false to me. And often yes, it is due to what you have pointed out. I mean the first inversion sounds like the most unhappy thing a person can do: >>>Their Inversion: Learn not to let go. That is the key to happiness. Learn not to let go? Ok, thanks infinite compounding intrusive rumination. Also people are loss averse by nature so very few people will have to "learn" to "not let go". Then there is this one, where the inverted statement is so awful the had to fudge and qualify the whole thing. >>> Quote: Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind. >>> Their Version: Happiness sometimes is being pained in body and troubled in mind. >>> The real Inversion: Happiness is being pained in body or troubled in mind.

jordwest 2y ago

> In almost all cases we found the inverted version more sound. Sound as in true? Or sound as in more comfortably fits one's current set of beliefs? Many of these quotes are getting at the unexamined assumption that happiness can be found anywhere but right here. The point of many of the quotes is introduce some curiosity and question the fundamental assumptions that run your life. If you are steeped in the mindset of chasing happiness, of never finding it here, and you're simply looking to confirm that, then of course inverting the quotes is going to fit better with your world view. In that case, keep chasing it and chasing it until one day you wake up and realise it never seems to arrive. Then the quotes may hit differently.

w_complicated 2y ago
You're right, that's roughly what we tried to capture, however I don't agree that "chasing" happiness is pointless. Being able to contemplate the "here and now" is absolutely important (and is listed later in the article), but some fortitude, understanding of my own needs and intentional action towards them did yield some results at least in my own experience. We haven't managed to find any quote which would touch on that and all were about the ability of experiencing of here and now, with maybe a slight twist of "give up fighting for your value, just enjoy what you already have".
- jffhn 2y ago
  >I don't agree that "chasing" happiness is pointless Considering that chasing happiness is the complement to contemplation, is considering that contemplation excludes happiness. >We haven't managed to find any quote which would touch on that The complement to contemplation is not chasing happiness, it is participating in the creation of what can be contemplated, and you can find plenty of quotes about that, like: "The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul." (Dieter F. Uchtdorf), or: "Creativity is intelligence having fun." (Albert Einstein). That can be whatever kind of creation: procreation, pieces of art, etc.

neom 2y ago

I really love this doc on happiness, it makes me happy, and it's a great watch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1613092/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1613092/

every 2y ago

I will settle for being content...

jrm4 2y ago

Right, I imagine most of the writers of the quotes reading THIS article and being like "ooooh you're SO close"

probably_jesus 2y ago

[dead]

jodrellblank 2y ago

"Learn to let go. That is the key to sadness." - not Buddha. The key to curing sadness. "Very little is needed to make a sad life" - not Marcus Aurelius. Sadly truthy. "If you are not sad here and now, you never will be" - not Taisen Deshimaru. Sounds like it means the same as the original. "The greatest sadness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness." - not William Saroyan. That you could live a long life with no happiness, sounds pretty sad. "Sadness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind." - not Thomas Jefferson. Sadness is something more.

asdasdsddd 2y ago

> For us, happiness is the target state that we want to achieve, at which we would be in our ideal condition. This is a terrible redefinition and is obviously not what the quotes were talking about. You might as well just write, the ideal is the ideal.

andoando 2y ago

My feeling is there is neither true path to happiness nor a definite way to sustain it. Any positive change in time will turn to be its undoing.

dsubburam 2y ago
Have you chanced upon Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics? He argues that true happiness comes from being-at-work in accordance with virtue. And that virtue can be cultivated through habit. So in his scheme, you can work towards sustained happiness. Three of the important virtues he devotes separate chapters to are: courage, temperance and practical judgment ('phronesis', sometimes translated as 'prudence'). Of course, everyone develops their own map on how to understand and go about their lives. Just thought I'd share a pointer to the one in this work.
- andoando 2y ago
  No I havent read that but probably have read very similar things. Its very easy to say these things so I never put much weight to them. I am just going off my own experiences. What you might consider virtuous like helping others may lead down to lonliness and feelings of uselesness when circumstances change and theres no one around. If you work on being independent you may one day find you have a longing to connect. When being carefree seems to make you happy, one day it may lead to making terrible decisions. The human brain, and all of life seems to be built on opposites, I don't believe eternal happiness can exist, at least not for everyone.
  - jamiek88 2y ago
    Is eternal happiness even desirable?
    - andoando 2y ago
      I don't see how one would not desire it. If youre happy youre happy. If it were possible to be high on heroin my whole life I wouldnt argue against it

m0llusk 2y ago

What happiness is to different people can vary wildly and may ultimately be rather shallow. Satisfaction is often easier, more practical, more rewarding, and less fragile than happiness.

photochemsyn 2y ago

Happiness is when a web page that requires JavaScript to display its content happily redirects you to the simple text version when it detects you have JavaScript disabled. It makes one feel that the web page cares about your preferences (NoScript in Firefox as default).

w_complicated 2y ago
Sorry about that, there is no excuse, we only need a bit more time to make it properly static. In the meantime I'm happy to PM you the text if you're interested.
- davisr 2y ago
  It takes no extra effort to make a static webpage. Imagine if we all included a script on our pages that blocked the content and showed instead, "please disable JavaScript to read this page."

throwanem 2y ago

If whoever's idea this site was happens to be reading these comments, a word of advice. Cleverness and wisdom are orthogonal. It is extremely clever to seek to reinvent all human philosophy from first principles. It is also extremely unwise. At best, you'll waste time achieving nothing, since it is impossible in one lifetime for you to recapitulate the canon. (Also pointless, given the canon already exists.) At worst, you might achieve nothing and also drive yourself insane. That youthful energy and that drive to understand the world are both highly meritable qualities, as is the intelligence on display. Take those and do almost anything else with them but this, and looking back you'll find your time was better spent. (Also, if you're going to try to be so mysterious about who and where you are, don't immediately give away that you're Polish.)

w_complicated 2y ago
Thanks! I actually hear similar feedback regularly. Maybe it's about time I should take it more seriously. But I can't agree with the statement that the cannon already exists. The idea behind the site is not to reinvent all knowledge, but to assemble some of it into solving everyday problems. I can relatively easily find answers to some low-level questions which were studied by philosophers, but actually struggle to find similar quality material on higher-level questions, which are the ones I'm facing more often in day-to-day life. E.g. if you think about the recently-trendy problems of "free speech vs platform moderation", or "privacy vs security vs comfort", or "political correctness vs truth" - I struggle to find comprehensive answers, but if you could point me to such places I'd be grateful. There are of course plenty of interesting reads, Hacker News being an aggregator of lots of them, but it's difficult to find one which takes the arguments and provides some reasoning on where they stem from rather than finishing on something like "obviously privacy is important", "free speech, because of freedom", or "moderation, because hate speech is harmful". Also, we've tried to spend our youth energy on a few different things already, this is one more experiment, don't worry, we have lives. In fact, I try to follow what is preached in the article and engaging in this project falls into the category of "personal mission". (But you're right that there is some Polish element to it, mum's the word...)
- throwanem 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

spintin 2y ago

[dead]

Mathnerd314 2y ago

I can recommend the book https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-71888-6 https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-71888-6. It is the best compendium of scientific information I know of regarding happiness. Not really light reading, but if you have a question it's answered. For example all the domains mentioned in this post are covered. In reality, happiness is complex - there is well-being, pleasure, pain, satisfaction, and so on. It is not necessarily even a goal to maximize happiness, because being too happy for too long causes problems.

jffhn 2y ago
>It is not necessarily even a goal to maximize happiness, because being too happy for too long causes problems. Reminds me of the experiment with rodents pushing the morphine button until death, and of the recent opioid crisis.

gumby 2y ago

Not only do I not find the inverted ones more sound, some of them don’t even apply (e.g. the meaning of the word “happiness” was different in Jefferson’s day than today).

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago

Quoting Nietzche: > He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how This seems to be the opposite of what the author has to say here. When I think of the people in my life that are happiest, they are the ones that are least interested in having nice things and the ones that are most willing to endure a little pain in order to build meaning into their lives. The ones who are not willing to make that sacrifice, who chase happiness for its own sake... for them, pain causes suffering, which compounds the problem because it throws in their face that they've failed in their quest for happiness. For the others, it's just a momentary annoyance, like bad weather. I'm with Neitzche on this one.

w_complicated 2y ago
That's really interesting. As one of the co-authors I agree with your approach, but I also thought that so does the article. We put emphasis on following truth (as opposed to falling into nice illusions), being authentic, following your life mission (that's how I understand the "He who has a why to live for" part of your quote), and not escaping from sadness or problems. Even the heavily criticised inverted quotes mentioned "Happiness sometimes is being pained in body and troubled in mind". How come did you come to the conclusion that the article suggest avoiding pain and going for simple pleasures, easing up on the life's purpose? (Sorry for such a delayed response, a random life event cut in)

mock-possum 2y ago

The first portion of this article reads as so much nonsense that I’m shocked it’s posted here. What’s your take, OP?