Which is worse? A poll for the masses

[Bandwagonesque]

This thread is a head explosion waiting to happen. I'm more than happy with coasting through life, as long as I'm enjoying what I'm doing. Love what you do and do what you love. Unfortunately, my greatest fear is that what I love doing either cannot be attained, or will not be "financially rewarding" enough. With the financially rewarding part, it's not that I'm seeking the luxurious lifestyle lived by the top 10%. What I mean is the difference between eating cold beans from a can every night because your electricity is cut off vs. family vacations every 3 years. I'm not trying to swing for the fences.... probably just bunting with hopes I make it to first. Ah, the mind of a soon-to-be-graduate.

I also kinda like shovelling snow, mowing the lawn, fixing the fence... whatever. It's just hard on my back sometimes.

 

[LA Guy]

Originally Posted by skalogre

I'll paraphrase what my sempai ...

I didn't read any further. Isn't Dwight from "The Office" the Sempai of his dojo?

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by LA Guy

I didn't read any further. Isn't Dwight from "The Office" the Sempai of his dojo?

Damn, I dunno man, I have only watched The Office twice

 

[LabelKing]

Did you realize a moment of Augustinian profundity, thus the questions?

 

[Nantucket Red]

It's time for you to take up surfing.

 

[Rome]

Maybe this thread is beyond the point of a thought out reply, but its more fun that ways. I chose B, not be contrarily but because I think it is the life path that will most likely lead to real happiness. The suppression of the ego you touched on earlier is not to be happy or not happy but to achieve equanimity. Happy is just a high point on one side of the pendulum swing. It requires a point of reference, if we take for example the insane person being discussed in you Twain quote, we find that through logical deduction in his own mind the state of elation the crazy man experiences is merely average, for in his mind that is the only perspective. He is only truly happy to those who see him from the outside. Likewise his madness. Happy is fleeting in life's vicissitudes, no different than anything else.

Originally Posted by Brian SD

So is insecurity necessary to believe you've accomplished anything significant? That's my main question. Do you need to be insecure to be content?... I think I am going crazy.
Maybe a bit more introspection and you'll get it. Listen to NR, surfings' good for that.

 

[Brian SD]

Originally Posted by Rome

Maybe this thread is beyond the point of a thought out reply, but its more fun that ways. I chose B, not be contrarily but because I think it is the life path that will most likely lead to real happiness. The suppression of the ego you touched on earlier is not to be happy or not happy but to achieve equanimity. Happy is just a high point on one side of the pendulum swing. It requires a point of reference, if we take for example the insane person being discussed in you Twain quote, we find that through logical deduction in his own mind the state of elation the crazy man experiences is merely average, for in his mind that is the only perspective. He is only truly happy to those who see him from the outside. Likewise his madness. Happy is fleeting in life's vicissitudes, no different than anything else.



Maybe a bit more introspection and you'll get it. Listen to NR, surfings' good for that.

Well put. I will be thinking about it more as it's really been on my mind lately. It was a thought that came up while thinking about graduation. I feel like I know nothing about design. My boss told me that's actually a good sign, "When you feel like you've learned nothing at all, it means you've learned a lot."

So you would rather be a pretty steady stream of not really happy nor sad? I have fears that the monotany would eventually cause you to have negative feelings and thus become on average unhappy. Though I would rather be a pendulum that swings very closely to the center than far one way or the other. I have kind of always been that way, never truly ecstatic except when I'm incredibly relieved about something.

Most people, to the best of my knowledge, create a reference point at some time in their life. College is pretty common I think. Whether or not this reference point existed in all the glory one imagines it, the fact that he's created it allows him to comparitively view his day to day life in a negative light. Happiness may then be impossible to achieve, because the standard is set too high on the reference point.

You also brought up a good point about the Twain character. Maybe I misunderstood itr. His character sees things as average (in this case, he believes he's the king of France and talks to people as his subjects) but to the viewers he looks happy. I assumed that he was happy because he was the king of France, but being that he's insane he has no knowledge of his prior life as not-the-king (Satan changed him magically to be insane, in the story).

If someone asked me, "Are you content or not? Happy in general?" I'm the type to admit that it's an equilibrium and that I'm rarely incredibly happy or incredibly sad.

I disagree with "suppression of the ego." Couldn't you have a revelation where you realized the ego is based upon false praise for only mediocre accomplishments, then accept that your place in the world is one animal among a couple billion others which are more similar than different, and even if you were successful in your profession, invented a new religion, boned 583,110,353.40 hot 25-year-old women, the entire base for satisfaction in any of these accomplishments is entirely fabricated and essentially worth nothing? Thus the ego has no reason to exist because accomplishments mean pretty much nothing, and so you just shovel snow.

I guess it's getting back around to existentialism in the end.

Pardon my ridiculous posting. Like I said. I feel like I'm going crazy!