What a beautiful writing. I can't resist the urge to typeset it: https://typst.app/project/p5Ivi8TSuNmFpkoSfoJ06r
PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV-yxI4sBS5gg4belO6hXuFvSFW...
Nine things I learned in ninety years
101–110 of 405 posts
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#102What a beautiful writing. I can't resist the urge to typeset it: https://typst.app/project/p5Ivi8TSuNmFpkoSfoJ06r PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GV-yxI4sBS5gg4belO6hXuFvSFW...
"Error: You do not have sufficient permissions to access this project."
:(
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that perhaps you have confused happiness with joy, or I have confused happiness with a lack of sadness, or perhaps with satisfaction. While I find that joy is a fickle and fleeting thing, I feel that I am happy most of the time, satisfied that things are as they must be, or at least close enough that the state of affairs does not poorly reflect on my efforts. Sadness or grief make their appearance, but…
You didn't explain how you define joy and happiness, can you elaborate how they are different
I think in short:
- big things (e.g. someone dies) you cant avoid being sad
- small everyday things (e.g. someone cuts you off at the intersection) you have a choice to smile and treat it lightly or go all passive aggressive and spiteful.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#104>Once you’ve achieved that — once you are virtuously selfconstituted — you will be self-assured and have reason to be so. You will be emotionally invulnerable to being pushed around.
I don't feel that's true? I am currently in a massive turmoil at work because my line-manager is breaking all ethics rules, with higher leadership caring little. Because I try to follow my values I've spoken up numerous times and all I got for that is a mountain of stress. Turns out I am not emotionally invulnerable.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#105> To guard against self-deception – recognize biases, avoid wishful thinking, and question entrenched beliefs
This is such an immensely important point. Seeing my current reality, bad and good, have been one of the most essential elements in taking the right decisions and steps.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#106Well.
Reminds me of "Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations" from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life", just with more quotations.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#107Well. Reminds me of " Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations " from Monty Python's " The Meaning of Life ", just with more quotations.
And along similar lines, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#108> what an outsized role is played by luck
There is no luck; there is only free will interacting with destiny in some context.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
An even more outsized role is played by a virtuous life. It may not make you a billionaire, but if you finish high school, get a full-time job once you finish school, get married before you have children, then you are quite likely to have a good life. We are doing a disservice to our fellow man by not telling them this truth.
You’re far more likely to have been born in rural China, India or Africa than in the west.
I guess every unemployed druggy is just a roll of the dice away from a successful career and happy family.
Re: Nine things I learned in ninety years
#110> "...happiness to become one’s default state of mind." I have read psychologists saying that "happiness as default state" is a social construct myth of modern times. You cannot be happy all the time, the fact of being unhappy sometimes is what drives you self-reflect and to chase meaning to your life. To feel pleasure you need to feel some pain.
That's not what they said, they said a default state. You can't always be happy, but you can default to it when you have nothing else going on.
I would call that more content than happy. Interestingly in languages like Spanish, 'contento' is almost overlapping semantically with the word happy ('feliz') in its day-to-day usage, and I find it a more adequate usage of the concept.
So content is basically the baseline when no needs are impacting your state-of-mind, and happy would be the consequence of a positive event or result.