141–150 of 195 posts
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Life is suffering. Life is not happiness. Best you figure that out now. We have birthday parties and celebrations all the time. Why? Because life is miserable and we should take every opportunity to celebrate when we can.
Damn, hope you can find some happiness bud. I assure you not everyone thinks 'life is miserable'. I think life is awesome.
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How do you know they are content? They are literally not allowed to talk about own unhappiness when it happens to them. Monk rules are pretty strict, they have to deal with own crises without raising voice and are often not allowed to talk to outside world in privacy or in public.
There are many religions with monks, they do not share the same rules. To which one are you specifying?
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Wealth creates discomforts and tells you that you need wealth to alleviate them. Don't buy into it the hype too much.
What discomfort does wealth create? It enables you to make yourself uncomfortable, yes, but wealth itself will not make you uncomfortable.
“Marry, and you will regret it; don’t marry, you will also regret it; marry or don’t marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the world’s foolishness, you will regret it; weep over it, you will regret that too; laugh at the world’s foolishness or weep over it, you will regret both. Believe a woman, you will regret it; believe her not, you will also regret it… Hang yourself, you will regret it; do not hang yours…
Not advocating hanging yourself, but it is something you will never regret since if done "successfully" you will cease to exist and therefore not be able to regret anything.
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I'm extremely skeptical of the brain chemistry narrative. It doesn't explain why depression is growing rapidly in the Western world. It doesn't explain why antidepressants vary so widely in their efficacy between persons. I'm far more apt to believe that people's lives are getting worse and that they're depressed as a result. People are lonelier than ever and society's problems are bigger and more abstract than ever.…
I completely agree. As Chamath Palihapitiya (ex-Facebook) eloquently puts it, our technology culture is 'ripping apart the social fabric of how society works' [0]. We're social creatures who thrive on human interaction and sharing genuine moments - social media gives us the exact opposite [1]. The really insidious thing is that many of the big players and driving forces behind these trends saw it coming, knew that wh…
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> Yes, with hindsight it can be seen that the actions she initially took were incorrect. But they seemed perfectly rational approaches at the time. There was nothing incorrect or irrational about the actions the mother initially took. Her approach was reasonable given the limited information available to her. A slightly more rational approach would perhaps have placed greater emphasis on the value of empathy and her…
Things are irrational until we understand the dynamics behind them. Then they become rational. When she decided not to press the issue, that wasn't a rational decision made on logic, it was an emotional one where she prioritized one kind of truth, that it was her hurting her child, over another kind of truth, that it was the hand licking that was hurting her child. Only in retrospect did the actuality of the situatio…
>> At that moment, I decided this had to stop. I didn't care if he licked his hands the rest of his life. It couldn't be worse than this.
> Rational analysis failed, some other way of deciding how to handle it took hold. Notice the semantic shift here. She moved from articulating her decision-making process in a cold, logical fashion, then after the failure, she shifts to an empathic, emotional basis.
I see the same shift that you mentioned, but unlike you I see the original exclusion of empathy and emotion from the decision-making process as irrational. Up to this point she'd been reacting instinctively and emotionally to the external pressure to make her son stop licking his hands, without considering whether that was really a worthwhile goal or what it might cost in terms of their relationship. Taking her empathy and emotion into account was the rational choice, and allowed her to set aside the peer pressure and clearly see and evaluate how her actions thus far failed to satisfy her own priorities and goals. At that point she rationally chose to stop forcing the issue.
> Sometimes there are multiple truths out there that you are going to have to choose between, with nothing to help to distinguish them.
The "colloquial term at hand" is false dichotomy. You are never forced to choose one potential truth over another. "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable response. Naturally you still need to decide on a course of action despite not knowing where the truth lies, but that doesn't require committing to a particular version of the truth and rejecting all others as false.
> The over-rational mindset will concoct meaningless and even counter-productive forms of "rationality" to paper over their fundamental ignorance.
When one is actually ignorant, admitting ignorance is the rational choice; proceeding as if one were not ignorant (for example, by choosing one version of the truth over another when there is nothing to distinguish them) would be the hallmark of an irrational mindset, not an "over-rational" one.
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If your mortgage is $600k, you should work towards paying that off more quickly, depending on the interest rate, so that you can be free from that burden. Once your house is paid for, then your daily work can decrease if you want, or have extra savings available for earlier retirement or maybe doing more fun things. I won't be "happy" until I'm debt free with $10mil in savings/investments, but I am definitely happy r…
paying off a debt under 4% faster at the expense of putting that money into a portfolio that is expected to earn 6%+ is making your overall assets less diversified. You're trading down on both variance and return expectation.
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This reminds me of a quote from Stewart Brand during an interview with Tim Ferris. ".... and being proud is the most reliable source of happiness that I know."[ https://tim.blog/2018/02/03/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts... ] Teach yourself how to cook, get in shape, draw a picture, write a story, help someone less fortunate, teach someone something you know, learn how to juggle... In the end it doesn't really matte…
Speaking strictly for myself, I have not found this to be true. I do enjoy collecting skills, and learning is fun. But no matter what the skill, eventually you hit the wall of diminishing returns, and I find that pride in that last 1-2% of performance is not worth the cost in time; I would rather improve a weaker skill another 10-20% with the same amount of training. And fundamentally, I find pride a bit too solipsis…
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What discomfort does wealth create? It enables you to make yourself uncomfortable, yes, but wealth itself will not make you uncomfortable.
wealth creates a system in which you need to have money to survive.
When I was a kid we had no access to a car, quality food or enough money for over the counter medication (acne, mild infections, etc.). Luckily we live in Canada where we can get prescribed medication for free, so none of us died of dangerous infections or anything like that.
We only managed to grow healthy and avoid criminality because our mother is a saint of a woman who sacrificed her adult life to give us a chance for something better.
I really doubt the lack of wealth gave us any comfort and that gaining wealth created any discomfort.
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How do you know they are content? They are literally not allowed to talk about own unhappiness when it happens to them. Monk rules are pretty strict, they have to deal with own crises without raising voice and are often not allowed to talk to outside world in privacy or in public.
Where are you getting this data? I've known many monks (and nuns too for that matter) and you are encouraged to discuss when you are unhappy. No abbot wants a miserable monk, so they work with you to be sure you are happy and adjusting well to the life. If not, then you mutually come to a decision about what to do next, even if that means leaving the monastery. Implying that they are some sort of prisoner is inaccura…
Catholics nuns and monks are supposed to live cloistered and contemplative life, a lot (sometimes completely) isolated inside a monastery. Per definition. Note that sisters and brothers are something a bit different, they work in outside world and make different vows. The formation takes years, but once it is over, they take solemn vows and that is supposed to be for life. That is what you promises. The solemn vows make you nun or monk and you are not supposed to change opinion after. Obviously it is possible to leave, it is not even legal to keep you by force. But if you do that after vows religious consequences do follow.
Whether road outside is easy or difficult for those still in formation depends on monastery in question while it being easier now. I read both types of accounts. But all in all, it is supposed to be hard and my understanding was that every nun and monk goes through hard times (that is partly why they really did not liked defections in past and punished them - defection makes it harder on others in formation).
How hard final rules are depend on monastery. But most strict one limit your ability to talk to up to two hours a day. It is called recreation - you however do work at that time that requires talking and silent work otherwise. Friendships are regulated, you are not supposed to have special relationship with someone else, all should be treated the same including emotionally. In another monastery I read about man did lonely work whole day not talking and had one hour a day where they walked with partner and walked - you was told who it will be and you switched so that they spent same amount of time with everybody.
The way monks and nuns talk, without emotions is also because regulations, rules and vow of obeisance make them so. Talking with anger is wrong for them, content is how you are supposed to look like.
The vow of silence (useless and idle words are forbidden) and obeisance are quite important when speaking of potential happiness, you are really not supposed to say no to superior even if superior changed and is someone different you may not personally fit. If you are unhappy after such change, tough luck. Note the impact of vow of silence on your ability to discuss and compare experiences with fellow monks.
Another interesting bit is that a lot of formation is literally about making you as obeisant as possible, assigning you tasks that are useless while you are supposed to gently smile, answer "yes brother" and fill the hole you just dug. That is expected, just like in army training they have as purpose to fill you into certain mold.