I came across this quote from the Indian writer/philosopher Krishnamurti, and was wondering how you felt about this definition:
when the things that prevent happiness are gone, when anxiety, frustration, the search for one’s own security have ceased, then happiness is there, you don’t have to seek it.
I think a large part of your unwillingness to accept the value of happiness is that you're using common definitions--things like "When I have a wife I'll be happy"--when I understand the word to mean something like Krishnamurti uses there. When you're no longer waiting for something to let you be happy, you can be. What happiness I seek is just the absence of that nagging feeling that things could be better, that next week it'll be easier to feel completely at ease.
I do find your/Krishnamurti's/Bob’s version of happiness much less revolting than the traditional let’s-get-a-jet-ski-for-extra-pleasant-feelings type. I don’t find your version revolting at all. It seems like a very reasonable thing to pursue.
But at the same time – personal preference – it’s not something that currently appeals to me. It doesn’t appeal to me to get rid of as many nagging feelings as possible, or to be as at ease as I can possibly be. Rather than conditioning my brain to be at ease (“Inner Peace”), I’d rather let life build an Inner Cesspool of anxieties and frustrations, and then simply notice them. Not fight them, not even accept them. Just notice them. That’s good enough for me.
There’s nothing “right” about noticing, just like there’s nothing “right” about overcoming or accepting. That’s just my preference at the moment. I could try to justify my preference with explanations like “I’m experiencing life as it was intended” or some crap, but the bottom line is that it’s just a personal preference, one that will probably change.
Sometimes I am going to want to overcome anxieties and frustrations, just like I want to lift my hand off a hot stove. But most of the time anxieties and frustrations are of the mellower type, where I don’t feel the need or compulsion to do away with them. That doesn’t mean I’m glad they’re there; it just means they are not so detrimental to my existence that I feel the need to fight them off. And given the options to (a) try really hard to get rid of them, or (b) be absorbed in my monkey brain asking why they’re there and how they affect me and what they mean, I’m going to take “(b)” 96% of the time. Maybe a better way of saying it is that I (currently) value interestingness over betterness.
I’m not on a mission to rid myself of mental toxins. Nor am I on a mission to do the right thing as often as humanly possible. I’m not on a mission. Like everyone else, I pursue different goals at different times in different contexts. If there’s one that stands out, if there’s one goal that’s the most “Me,” then I’d say it’s probably that I want to be interested—not because I’ve gone through all the possibilities and logically concluded that this one’s the best, but because that’s what I, ahem, notice myself doing, for whatever weird reasons.
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And here’s part of a comment from Bob:
When you express yourself in this blog - when it's not just sharing something someone else has said that you appreciate or that intrigues you - you are as often as not describing a phenomenon in your life that puzzles you and with which you are not entirely satisfied. You implicitly (and often very explicitly) invite input from your readers as to how they deal with, prevent, etc. such situations.
I welcome thoughts about how to deal with / prevent undesirable situations, just like I welcome thoughts about why it’s there and what it means and how other people experience it and how it affects them. I want to know these things because they interest me, not so much because I want to overcome as many undesirable situations as possible.
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Here’s David again, from the same comment:
That most people don't have any idea what they're doing with their life is such a valueless thing to say. The fact that other people are confused or deluded doesn't justify people who know there's another way's not following it. And even while much of what you say is true, I think there are some universals. The Dalai Lama says that all people everywhere want less suffering and more pleasure or happiness. I find that hard to disagree with, but I'd love to know if you do.
I agree that there are certain preferences that are pretty close to universal, such as preferring more life over less, more resources over less, more pleasure over less, more meaning over less, etc. etc. But I maintain that there is nothing “right” about those preferences, and that pretty much everyone (another universal) is pursuing different goals at different times in different contexts. That may make us “confused,” but I’d say it’s fair to be confused given this mess of a life we live.
