31–40 of 175 posts
The author also did an episode of Indie Hackers [0] which is in my opinion the best episode of that podcast. I wish her and Courtland would do a regular podcast together. [0] https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/086-lynne-tye-of-key-va...
I think as we focus on mastery or craftsmanship, happiness finds us.
Not everyone, but I'd say modern society is hedonistic—we seek happiness instead of achievement and get neither.
Here's something I sometimes tell people: Contentment comes when "the way you want it" and "the way it is" overlap enough -- but sometimes in life, you can really only change one of those.
When I step back and look at my life, I have to say it is pretty good. I get agitated when I lose perspective and magnify some particular bad thing. Also, as a Christian, this gives me the ultimate relief, because I can step back and say whatever unimaginably horrible thing is happening God is ultimately in control orchestrating things for maximal good, of which maximal good is also at some fundamental level in line…
That's funny, because as an atheist, I can step back and say that for whatever unimaginably horrible thing that's happening, it's all just a random walk. So I find satisfaction in that nothing matters anyways, and the best we can do is try to live a good life while we're here, and not take any of it too seriously. Because it's all random and largely out of my control, there's no rational basis for worry. It's nice to…
Can you, really? Say your kid disappeared a week ago after soccer practice, and the police has no leads about their whereabouts. Could you really distance yourself and "not worry because everything is just a random walk"? Or would you spend all night restless, like a normal human being?
When I step back and look at my life, I have to say it is pretty good. I get agitated when I lose perspective and magnify some particular bad thing. Also, as a Christian, this gives me the ultimate relief, because I can step back and say whatever unimaginably horrible thing is happening God is ultimately in control orchestrating things for maximal good, of which maximal good is also at some fundamental level in line…
> And if God doesn't exist, then nothing matters anyways, so why worry? I'm not trying to start a pointless debate, your comment really made me curious. Let's imagine the Christian god doesnt't exist. How does that logically lead to nothing mattering? As a lifelong atheist there are plenty of things that matter to me: the well-being of people (particularly those around me), peace, justice, climate change, etc. Are th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> And if God doesn't exist, then nothing matters anyways, so why worry? I'm not trying to start a pointless debate, your comment really made me curious. Let's imagine the Christian god doesnt't exist. How does that logically lead to nothing mattering? As a lifelong atheist there are plenty of things that matter to me: the well-being of people (particularly those around me), peace, justice, climate change, etc. Are th…
An atheist myself, but I imagine this has to do with the lack of eternal life after death in that case. Religious people find the idea of life after death comforting, and it's easy to understand why: most people fear death and can't comprehend their consciousness ending at some point, for the same reasons why we can't comprehend things like the big bang or infinity. There is, by definition, no example that we could p…
I was raised by my grandparents. They were born in the 1910s, and grew up in the midwest during the dust bowl and great depression. My grandfather lost most of his buddies in Guadalcanal and Burma during World War II, and, in his own words, fully expected to become worm food himself. He said little, but one phrase he did repeat more than any other was simple: "Any day you're breathing is a good day." To him, every da…
Indeed. To select one data point: had you been born in Russia in 1923 you had only a 32% chance of making it to 1946. infant mortality, famine and then WW2 meant that 68% of the 1923 cohort died before they were 23.
When I step back and look at my life, I have to say it is pretty good. I get agitated when I lose perspective and magnify some particular bad thing. Also, as a Christian, this gives me the ultimate relief, because I can step back and say whatever unimaginably horrible thing is happening God is ultimately in control orchestrating things for maximal good, of which maximal good is also at some fundamental level in line…
That's funny, because as an atheist, I can step back and say that for whatever unimaginably horrible thing that's happening, it's all just a random walk. So I find satisfaction in that nothing matters anyways, and the best we can do is try to live a good life while we're here, and not take any of it too seriously. Because it's all random and largely out of my control, there's no rational basis for worry. It's nice to…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's funny, because as an atheist, I can step back and say that for whatever unimaginably horrible thing that's happening, it's all just a random walk. So I find satisfaction in that nothing matters anyways, and the best we can do is try to live a good life while we're here, and not take any of it too seriously. Because it's all random and largely out of my control, there's no rational basis for worry. It's nice to…
> I can step back and say that for whatever unimaginably horrible thing that's happening, it's all just a random walk Can you, really? Say your kid disappeared a week ago after soccer practice, and the police has no leads about their whereabouts. Could you really distance yourself and "not worry because everything is just a random walk"? Or would you spend all night restless, like a normal human being?
And if the parent became manic and left no stone unturned in their search for their child, like Taken, we'd be understanding.
Yet, our world is not the world of Taken, and we are not ex-CIA agents capable of destroying anyone in our path. There are truly evil people in this world capable of harming us, whom we have no power to thwart. Think of people living in the land of a drug lord, who can swoop in and take their children if he feels like it. Or the Uighurs and Falun Gong of China, who are regularly captured and organ harvested, and there's nothing they can do about it. There is great evil in our world, and little we can do about it but do our best to fight it and never give up, and even then there is no hope of truly eradicating evil from our world. What is the appropriate response?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's funny, because as an atheist, I can step back and say that for whatever unimaginably horrible thing that's happening, it's all just a random walk. So I find satisfaction in that nothing matters anyways, and the best we can do is try to live a good life while we're here, and not take any of it too seriously. Because it's all random and largely out of my control, there's no rational basis for worry. It's nice to…
> I can step back and say that for whatever unimaginably horrible thing that's happening, it's all just a random walk Can you, really? Say your kid disappeared a week ago after soccer practice, and the police has no leads about their whereabouts. Could you really distance yourself and "not worry because everything is just a random walk"? Or would you spend all night restless, like a normal human being?