My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points: * Have low expectations * Enjoy simple things * Don't care too much
Unfortunately, you can fit most of the field of philosophy inside the nuances of item 3.
Aristotle – How to live a good life
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Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#72My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points: * Have low expectations * Enjoy simple things * Don't care too much
I would add optional 4) for those who like some improvement in life (and who doesn't) - recognize those few important moments/periods when situation comes around that can change rest of your life, or walk towards it and create one yourself. Work hard with it, achieve what you desire to, and come back to more, even better chill.
It can have many forms - which job you take, where you decide to move/settle, partners, family decisions etc.
One random example - I know tons of people from ie high school that could permanently improve their lives if they properly (re)learned a given foreign language. They have plenty of time. But they are too much in their 'comfort' zone to even try, even though they are rarely actually long term happy. Sometimes the effort would be couple of months, sometimes one long afternoon.
Another personal one - moving to a better country. Few challenging months of looking for job on site (which also gave tons of personal growth and mental resilience), accommodation, understanding and adapting to different society etc. and riding the resulting improved situation for rest of my life. Nobody too chill is ever going to wade through that.
One mistake is to start effort and just keep pushing for next challenges and achievements. Eventually everybody hits the wall, physical or mental. It may look great from outside, but thats about it. And a lot of damage in life can be already done at that point.
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Dogs think. This is certainly an assertion, given it's hard, bordering on impossible to to demonstrate that other humans think.
If your definition of "think" doesn't directly describe the cognitive processes that happen when humans process and react from the inputs they get, then what does the word mean to you? If you don't agree that humans think, then I think we just need another word. But that other word, applies to both humans and dogs and many other living things.
I think you two are looking for the word consciousness. Or sense of self.
For both it's debatable if dogs have it
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#74> 2400 years ago Aristotle found out how to be happy. Citation needed > First of all, what makes a thing a good thing? A good thing fulfils its unique function. Something can be good or even the best without being unique, in fact we can only say things are good relatively to other things in a similar category, otherwise we cannot know. Good or bad only makes sense by comparison and uniqueness is rarely the factor. >…
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Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#75My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points: * Have low expectations * Enjoy simple things * Don't care too much
Forgot the most important one:
* have money
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#76Aristotle lives in the old versions of the Earth. The outdated concepts may not stand up to modern thinking, but are sufficient for dealing with a simple life. Unfortunately, most people's lives are not simple.
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Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#77The very beginning of this post contains a critical passage. What makes a good knife? Of course, a good knife is a knife that cuts well. But what does it mean to cut well? Just the sharpness of the blade? What about grip comfort? And balancing? And stickiness? And weight? And what about the thing being cut? Can a knife cut everything well? As you can see, we are already dead in our tracks, as asking what makes a knif…
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Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#78The very beginning of this post contains a critical passage. What makes a good knife? Of course, a good knife is a knife that cuts well. But what does it mean to cut well? Just the sharpness of the blade? What about grip comfort? And balancing? And stickiness? And weight? And what about the thing being cut? Can a knife cut everything well? As you can see, we are already dead in our tracks, as asking what makes a knif…
While I can largely accept this criticism, I’d also like to point out that it might be missing the spirit of a lot of ancient philosophers historical context. For starters a lot of their books and texts have been lost so we aren’t sure for several what nuance has been lost. Secondarily a lot of that nuance you describe was meant to be explored via shared dialogue (the Socratic method) between pupil and teacher, until…
While I can largely accept this criticism, the author of the blog post is not partaking in the discourse, but is instead reporting a summarized version of what Aristotle, maybe, said, presenting it as a definitive guide. This is why I originally said that more ancient authors need to be carefully studied, since they didn't have the means of explaining themselves and correcting their ideas through numerous and verbose publications.
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#79My empirical study of happy people comes down to these three points: * Have low expectations * Enjoy simple things * Don't care too much
These points suggest a mindset that values contentment over constant pursuit of more
Re: Aristotle – How to live a good life
#80The very beginning of this post contains a critical passage. What makes a good knife? Of course, a good knife is a knife that cuts well. But what does it mean to cut well? Just the sharpness of the blade? What about grip comfort? And balancing? And stickiness? And weight? And what about the thing being cut? Can a knife cut everything well? As you can see, we are already dead in our tracks, as asking what makes a knif…
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At what point does the reader's interpretation stop being something in the vicinity of what was intended by the author, and instead becomes mostly the product of our own personal creativity? Sure, you can argue about the need of analogies and multi-layered texts, but if you provide me with a guide on how to do something, and your assertions are vague and questionable, how much of the final moral of the story is of my own doing?