Toward an understanding of the tenacity of the politics of others....

[Moonbeam]

A person happiness is based on two things:

- What they have RELATIVE to others
- The rate at which what they have RELATIVE to others is changing

Happiness isn't necessarily a zero sum game, but in alot of ways it plays like one. If my life improves and so does yours I will be happier and so will you. However if my life improves the same amount but yours gets worse then I will be much happier than what I would have been if both of our lives had improved. I don't like that fact about human nature any more than you do, but when it comes to happiness taking away from others is jsut as good as giving to yourself. Expecting a person to make their life less happy just to make someone happier is a nice dream, but in the real world (where all of us but Moonbeam live) it just doesn't happen very often.

But you see, if I think like you and you gain and I lose, I will become happy again when I cut out your guts and watch you die because then, although I may still have little, I will be better off than you which will make me happy, and I can take what I want of what you might have on you.

By the way, how did you come by such a pathetic understanding of life? Didn't you have a mother who loved you.

 

[werepossum]

But you see, if I think like you and you gain and I lose, I will become happy again when I cut out your guts and watch you die because then, although I may still have little, I will be better off than you which will make me happy, and I can take what I want of what you might have on you.

By the way, how did you come by such a pathetic understanding of life? Didn't you have a mother who loved you.

Dude, you really shouldn't skip your happy pills. You're a little scary when you're off your meds.

 

[nonlnear]

Dude, you really shouldn't skip your happy pills. You're a little scary when you're off your meds.

Except what Moonbeam posted was a perfect parsing of BrownTown's understanding of happiness. It sounds terrifying when read with that much honesty, but it is what it is.

 

[BrownTown]

I really don't understand how someone can argue that happiness is not based on relative worth as opposed to absolute worth. I mean even a lower middle class person in this country (USA) have more than 95% of the people in the world, and when you factor in history, they have it better than 99% of the people to have ever lived. Surely everyone on this forum should be happy since in terms of life expectancy, monetary worth, etc they are the very elite of the elites. And yet for some reason there seem to be alot of people here bitching all the time. The reason is because despite the fact that me and MoonBeam are incredibly lucky for what we have we don't look at that fact we look at what we have RELATIVE to those around us. For example my dad made a six figure salary when I was growing up, but the median income at the schools I went to was ~$250,000, so I always unhappy not to be able to have a beach house or go to Europe or the Caribbean every summer. I got an 1130 SAT in 7th grade, but my twin brother made a 1460 in 7th grade, I made a 1530 SAT in 11th grade, but he made a 1590, I got into a top 25 school, he got into a top 5 school. I was always unhappy to ONLY be able to get a 1530 SAT and a top 25 college acceptance. You really think that if I had gone to a poor school where my dads $100,000 salary was high that I wouldn't have been happier? Or that if my twin brother wasn't a genius and I was the smart one that I wouldn't have been happier?

The point is that people compare themselves to others around them. Lets say for example you get a 10% raise, would the way you view this be different if everyone else got a 5% raise versus them all getting a 15% raise? Both ways you get teh same amount, but one way you might take it as an insult and the other way you might take it as a compliment.

I'm not saying that most people get off on watching other people suffer, all I'm saying is that they measure what they have to other people around them and the better off they are comparatively the happier they usually are.

 

[dmcowen674]

Opinion is the morning frost that evaporates with the rising Sun.

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has one

 

[Moonbeam]

I really don't understand how someone can argue that happiness is not based on relative worth as opposed to absolute worth. I mean even a lower middle class person in this country (USA) have more than 95% of the people in the world, and when you factor in history, they have it better than 99% of the people to have ever lived. Surely everyone on this forum should be happy since in terms of life expectancy, monetary worth, etc they are the very elite of the elites. And yet for some reason there seem to be alot of people here bitching all the time. The reason is because despite the fact that me and MoonBeam are incredibly lucky for what we have we don't look at that fact we look at what we have RELATIVE to those around us. For example my dad made a six figure salary when I was growing up, but the median income at the schools I went to was ~$250,000, so I always unhappy not to be able to have a beach house or go to Europe or the Caribbean every summer. I got an 1130 SAT in 7th grade, but my twin brother made a 1460 in 7th grade, I made a 1530 SAT in 11th grade, but he made a 1590, I got into a top 25 school, he got into a top 5 school. I was always unhappy to ONLY be able to get a 1530 SAT and a top 25 college acceptance. You really think that if I had gone to a poor school where my dads $100,000 salary was high that I wouldn't have been happier? Or that if my twin brother wasn't a genius and I was the smart one that I wouldn't have been happier?

The point is that people compare themselves to others around them. Lets say for example you get a 10% raise, would the way you view this be different if everyone else got a 5% raise versus them all getting a 15% raise? Both ways you get teh same amount, but one way you might take it as an insult and the other way you might take it as a compliment.

I'm not saying that most people get off on watching other people suffer, all I'm saying is that they measure what they have to other people around them and the better off they are comparatively the happier they usually are.

You compare and that is your problem. You rank things according to standards that have been instilled within you by programming as a child. You are the victim of duality, thinking about things in the abstract as if there were some real good and evil, better and worse, etc. You were taught that this and that is inferior and that you have those traits, not as good, not as smart, not as good looking etc. It is all rubbish. You can love as well as any being on the planet and if you love you will fill your world with it. When you are the sun, plants will grow at your feet. To love is to end duality because the lover disappears into the object of his love. Love God and you will be Him. That should make you happy and show your brother a thing or two. You have always been absolutely perfect as you are. The sun warms your skin just as it does anyone else's. Relax and be happy. Every animal on earth is happier than you and none of them are half as smart.

 

[nonlnear]

I really don't understand how someone can argue that happiness is not based on relative worth as opposed to absolute worth. I mean even a lower middle class person in this country (USA) have more than 95% of the people in the world, and when you factor in history, they have it better than 99% of the people to have ever lived. Surely everyone on this forum should be happy since in terms of life expectancy, monetary worth, etc they are the very elite of the elites. And yet for some reason there seem to be alot of people here bitching all the time. The reason is because despite the fact that me and MoonBeam are incredibly lucky for what we have we don't look at that fact we look at what we have RELATIVE to those around us. For example my dad made a six figure salary when I was growing up, but the median income at the schools I went to was ~$250,000, so I always unhappy not to be able to have a beach house or go to Europe or the Caribbean every summer. I got an 1130 SAT in 7th grade, but my twin brother made a 1460 in 7th grade, I made a 1530 SAT in 11th grade, but he made a 1590, I got into a top 25 school, he got into a top 5 school. I was always unhappy to ONLY be able to get a 1530 SAT and a top 25 college acceptance. You really think that if I had gone to a poor school where my dads $100,000 salary was high that I wouldn't have been happier? Or that if my twin brother wasn't a genius and I was the smart one that I wouldn't have been happier?

The point is that people compare themselves to others around them. Lets say for example you get a 10% raise, would the way you view this be different if everyone else got a 5% raise versus them all getting a 15% raise? Both ways you get teh same amount, but one way you might take it as an insult and the other way you might take it as a compliment.

I'm not saying that most people get off on watching other people suffer, all I'm saying is that they measure what they have to other people around them and the better off they are comparatively the happier they usually are.

I'm not arguing that this is not true for many people. There certainly are millions who share your philosophy of envy based happiness. I was simply pointing out that buying into that mentality is completely optional. Anyone can choose at any time to reconstruct their happiness in a way that does not depend on their surroundings.

 

[CycloWizard]

This is all well and good. But when do I get to assert my good? When someone is about to blow my face off for an adrenaline rush? When someone steals my wallet at gunpoint? How about when someone votes to have the government to steal my wallet at gunpoint? Could it be that we are all entitled to our good, as long as that good does not make any claims on others?

 

[KGB]

Moonie,

This is one of the best threads you've done here. You bring up many good points and force the kiddies to start thinking for a change.

Unfortunately, because of all this I will have to kill you.
I won't like it but I'll have to do it.

 

[MJinZ]

But you see, if I think like you and you gain and I lose, I will become happy again when I cut out your guts and watch you die because then, although I may still have little, I will be better off than you which will make me happy, and I can take what I want of what you might have on you.

By the way, how did you come by such a pathetic understanding of life? Didn't you have a mother who loved you.

Heh... that's a bit harsh but...

 

[nonlnear]

This is all well and good. But when do I get to assert my good? When someone is about to blow my face off for an adrenaline rush? When someone steals my wallet at gunpoint? How about when someone votes to have the government to steal my wallet at gunpoint? Could it be that we are all entitled to our good, as long as that good does not make any claims on others?

It's problematic to assert that a coherent society can be built from a doctrine of individual liberty if that liberty is derived from material right. (i.e. I am able to do something therefore I ought to be entitled to do it.)After all, material rights are in a fundamental sense no different from the "wish" rights of socialists. I believe that I am able to do such and such, therefore I must have the "right" to. Unfortunately, this is the foundation that many libertarian conversationalists choose as a foundation for their notion of property rights, and other derivative rights as well.

However if the supremacy of conscience is construed as the fount of rights (and in fact the only right that has true intrinsic worth), then settling the gray areas where material rights overlap is much more clear cut. You just have to avoid the oversights that made Rand's political philosophy incomplete...

 

[MJinZ]

I really don't understand how someone can argue that happiness is not based on relative worth as opposed to absolute worth. I mean even a lower middle class person in this country (USA) have more than 95% of the people in the world, and when you factor in history, they have it better than 99% of the people to have ever lived. Surely everyone on this forum should be happy since in terms of life expectancy, monetary worth, etc they are the very elite of the elites. And yet for some reason there seem to be alot of people here bitching all the time. The reason is because despite the fact that me and MoonBeam are incredibly lucky for what we have we don't look at that fact we look at what we have RELATIVE to those around us. For example my dad made a six figure salary when I was growing up, but the median income at the schools I went to was ~$250,000, so I always unhappy not to be able to have a beach house or go to Europe or the Caribbean every summer. I got an 1130 SAT in 7th grade, but my twin brother made a 1460 in 7th grade, I made a 1530 SAT in 11th grade, but he made a 1590, I got into a top 25 school, he got into a top 5 school. I was always unhappy to ONLY be able to get a 1530 SAT and a top 25 college acceptance. You really think that if I had gone to a poor school where my dads $100,000 salary was high that I wouldn't have been happier? Or that if my twin brother wasn't a genius and I was the smart one that I wouldn't have been happier?

The point is that people compare themselves to others around them. Lets say for example you get a 10% raise, would the way you view this be different if everyone else got a 5% raise versus them all getting a 15% raise? Both ways you get teh same amount, but one way you might take it as an insult and the other way you might take it as a compliment.

I'm not saying that most people get off on watching other people suffer, all I'm saying is that they measure what they have to other people around them and the better off they are comparatively the happier they usually are.

Wow, having a twin brother must be cool but keep in mind your unique situation has certainly clouded your understanding of what "happiness" is, which is also a very relative term that people define differently.

Arguing against happiness for relative vs absolute worth is fairly pointless, of course if you assume that happiness depends on worth itself, then relative it is.

However, to most people, happiness does not. If you were in love, you may not care if you have anything at all in your life, you could still be happy. You could be a miserable old billionaire wretch and still be a scrooge. It depends on what you value in life.

 

[Moonbeam]

I'm not arguing that this is not true for many people. There certainly are millions who share your philosophy of envy based happiness. I was simply pointing out that buying into that mentality is completely optional. Anyone can choose at any time to reconstruct their happiness in a way that does not depend on their surroundings.

This is interesting indeed. This certainly sounds like good news. It reminds me a bit of a Zen Koan that saved my life, the one about the man who plucked a strawberry that tasted so good, as he clung to a cliff on a root, his strength waning, a tiger above and a tiger below him, waiting.

So what is your message here, that happiness is a switch you can flip and that's what Brown need to hear or is it that he has options you have not yet explained?

It seems to me that another road to happiness lies in surrender to the Will of God. He who has total faith that everything that happens to one's self is the will of a loving God transcends concern for himself and enters life's flow. It's just as easy as having that faith. Some say you just become reborn by saying some words, I believe, or whatever they are. Now there are it seems to me millions who have done that, but for me that road was completely empty.

So some have a switch of faith but I can't find it. I plant the magic beans but nothing happens. Too bad for me.

So tell me what is this choice to be happy. Is there more to say than that it's just choice? How do you choose when you can see?

 

[CycloWizard]

It's problematic to assert that a coherent society can be built from a doctrine of individual liberty if that liberty is derived from material right. (i.e. I am able to do something therefore I ought to be entitled to do it.)After all, material rights are in a fundamental sense no different from the "wish" rights of socialists. I believe that I am able to do such and such, therefore I must have the "right" to. Unfortunately, this is the foundation that many libertarian conversationalists choose as a foundation for their notion of property rights, and other derivative rights as well.

But there is a difference between liberty derived from material right and liberty to material right. Perhaps that is what you were driving at:

However if the supremacy of conscience is construed as the fount of rights (and in fact the only right that has true intrinsic worth), then settling the gray areas where material rights overlap is much more clear cut. You just have to avoid the oversights that made Rand's political philosophy incomplete...

The "supremacy of conscience" admits many different interpretations, including relativism. How would you define it?

 

[nonlnear]

This is interesting indeed. This certainly sounds like good news. It reminds me a bit of a Zen Koan that saved my life, the one about the man who plucked a strawberry that tasted so good, as he clung to a cliff on a root, his strength waning, a tiger above and a tiger below him, waiting.

So what is your message here, that happiness is a switch you can flip and that's what Brown need to hear or is it that he has options you have not yet explained?

I can't imagine that reconstructing one's happiness is as simple as flipping a switch. It is a very long process that gets framed in many different ways by many different people...

So some have a switch of faith but I can't find it. I plant the magic beans but nothing happens. Too bad for me.

So tell me what is this choice to be happy. Is there more to say than that it's just choice? How do you choose when you can see?

I can't tell you what will make you happy. You have to discover that for yourself. All I can tell someone like BrownTown is that his construct of happiness inevitably leads to despair. That much is obvious, so reject that construct and find a new one.

 

[Moonbeam]

This is all well and good. But when do I get to assert my good? When someone is about to blow my face off for an adrenaline rush? When someone steals my wallet at gunpoint? How about when someone votes to have the government to steal my wallet at gunpoint? Could it be that we are all entitled to our good, as long as that good does not make any claims on others?

You get to assert it the minute you feel it, no? And you lose it the minute you don't. Just imagine for a moment that everything that happens to you happens by the Will of God. Address to Him your complaints of the injustices of others. Tell Him what a big Asshole He is that He inflicts such terrible injustices on you.

 

[CycloWizard]

You get to assert it the minute you feel it, no? And you lose it the minute you don't. Just imagine for a moment that everything that happens to you happens by the Will of God. Address to Him your complaints of the injustices of others. Tell Him what a big Asshole He is that He inflicts such terrible injustices on you.

Not everything that happens is the Will of God. The Devil is free will.

 

[nonlnear]

The "supremacy of conscience" admits many different interpretations, including relativism. How would you define it?

It certainly does. "Relativism" is only a problem in some forms. To a person who contends that absolutely nothing(! ) can be meaningfully determined, stated, or quantifed there is nothing to say. They have declared their brain to be dead. They might as well be shot, except they aren't worth the powder. However to a person who observes that perspective is an important consideration in evaluating the validity of every assertion (except possibly mathematics), there is a lot of room for productive dialog. Then the admission or rejection of "objectivity" as a significant piece of jargon isn't even a deal breaker.

I exist, as evidenced by the fact that I apprehend this notion. (I have no interest in descending down the rabbit hole of the nature of conscience because nobody who has ever claimed to have a prescient thought on the matter has ever done so convincingly...) Whatever faculty of mine that allows me to perceive some consequence of existence is that which defines me. That is the conscience that I assert must be held as one's only self-justifying right. (There is still wiggle room for those who wish to color the details with more relativistic language than Rand would have tolerated.) If I knowingly and willfully deceive myself about my own existence or about the nature of my perceptions, then I am negating my very essence.

A lot more can be seen to follow from there, but this is only one post. Like Rand, I hold honesty and unquestioned self-worth* to be (almost) axiomatic. I think Rand was unnecessarily heavy-handed though. It leads to problems further down the line for her philosophy...

* Not vanity or any social construct of worth that is predicated on others, but an unshakable assertion that I am of value. I don't much care if you want to predicate that on itself (a la atheistic objectivism) or on some divine nature.

 

[Moonbeam]

I can't imagine that reconstructing one's happiness is as simple as flipping a switch. It is a very long process that gets framed in many different ways by many different people...

I can't tell you what will make you happy. You have to discover that for yourself. All I can tell someone like BrownTown is that his construct of happiness inevitably leads to despair. That much is obvious, so reject that construct and find a new one.

Thank you for this clarification. What is obvious to you isn't so obvious to Brown it would seem. That is why I tired to tell him what his construct is based on, thinking which is comparison, the analysis of good and evil, the assumption that these things are real, who a person learns via childhood trauma to assume that this illusion called evil is him. When you buy that lie you are lost. If we are going to search for the grain of truth in a sea of chaff and throw out each one by one, we may take a rather long time finding our prize. That is why I tired to say that it is comparison that is the devil. If I compare how I am with another I will surely want, but if I love others my love will be the only love that there is. People think in terms of what they get instead of what they can give. When we give we are infinitely vast, we open the cornucopia of happiness, eh?

 

[woolfe9999]

Moonbeam, everything you are saying sounds perfectly reasonable to me, to a point. However, I will say the following:

Animals are only "happy" - and I place that in quotes because it is a very qualified definition of happiness - because they do not have the capacity for moral reasoning and moral judgment, meaning they are a-moral. Humans beings are often tortured (by themselves more than by anyone else) precisely because of their capacity for morality. Yet abdicating moral judgment is giving up what fundamentally makes us human.

Tolerance of opposing viewpoints is a good and constructive thing. Of that there is no doubt. Refraining from demonizing others so that we can understand and learn from them is a good and constructive thing. However, placing no limits on our tolerance is a recipe for nihilism, and more than that, it is a false and inauthentic display of faux "humility" put on for all the world to see. It is its own form of conceit. It is as if to say, look at me, I am not slave to the morality to which I have been indoctrinated by those who raised me; I am not slave to my own ego. I can admit that I am wrong and that others are right, and I will publically self-flagilate, again and again, to prove the point. And the point, put simply, is: I am superior to the rest of you. Taken to its extreme, it is just a different way of asserting one's own ego.

Here is a partial and, I'm sure, inadequate, answer to what may promote "happiness" for a sentient being: honesty. And by that, I mean honesty with yourself, honestly about who and what you are. Reflecting on who and what you really are may cause you to make some changes, but also it may mean, to a very large extent, accepting yourself. And that includes the moral codes indoctrinated into us by "those who raised us." What is doesn't mean is pretending to have somehow transcended it all. That is not real. That is an abstract ideal of how we might want to see ourselves.

When I encounter an opposing viewpoint, how I react to it depends. If I agree with someone on the ends, but disagree on the means, I have no inclination to demonize that person. A libertarian and I might both desire the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people but disagree on how to achieve it. OTOH, if we disagree on the ends, I may or may not have a desire to demonize that person. I may or may not have a desire to simply ignore that person.

I will not refrain from condemning Hitler, Stalin, Ted Bundy, Baruch Goldstein, or Osama bin Laden because I need to prove to myself and others that I am the enlightened Budha. Nor do I need to condemn them in order to feel superior to them. Rather, I may desire to condemn because "the only thing that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." And also, because that is who I am and it isn't going to make me any happier to pretend otherwise. So Hitler thought what he was doing was "good." Of that I have no doubt. I also don't give a shit, and I'm not going to pretend I do. I may want to understand why people thought it was right because it may help me prevent genocide from happening again, but that is the end of my tolerance.

Here's another thought about humility: I will exercise humility when humility is warranted. I will acknowledge that I am unable to challenge a scientist on global warming because...I am actually unable to do so. Yet I will not pretend humility where it is not warranted in order to prove to myself or others than I am the sort of person who can recognize his own inadequacies. I am super-adequate, adequate, and inadequate, depending on context. Knowing yourself, loving yourself, means recognizing and accepting all of it.

- wolf

 

[werepossum]

BrownTown's point is absolutely correct in that human happiness is relative - not necessarily due to relative human misery, but due to one's perception of how well he or she is doing. An Untouchable in rural India would feel like a king at the standard of living our (honest) welfare recipients enjoy. That doesn't mean that he would wish anyone misery or enjoy it if it befell others, merely that "success" is defined by one's peers. Let us also remember that this relativity is a great driving force in the progress of society - enlightened self interest, how I can make life better for myself and my family, has driven more progress than any number of research grants.

Nonlnear also makes a very good point, though - that above a certain point, we define our own parameters of success and happiness. My own house is very modest and several of my own employees wouldn't be caught dead living in it - but at the same time it's paid for, which allows me to skip a few paychecks and avoid laying off anyone when we don't have enough work to maintain our payroll. That's a powerful source of happiness - the resources to NOT inflict unhappiness on another.

BTW, great post as almost always, Wolf. I agree totally.

 

[Moonbeam]

woolfe: Moonbeam, everything you are saying sounds perfectly reasonable to me, to a point. However, I will say the following:

Animals are only "happy" - and I place that in quotes because it is a very qualified definition of happiness - because they do not have the capacity for moral reasoning and moral judgment, meaning they are a-moral. Humans beings are often tortured (by themselves more than by anyone else) precisely because of their capacity for morality. Yet abdicating moral judgment is giving up what fundamentally makes us human.

M: Yes, that is my point. Zen says that before the journey begins mountains are mountains, but afterward they become something else, but on arrival they are just mountains again. I take this to mean that you were born an animal, with a singular whole conscious state. Your awareness was perfect and your were everything that you were. With the acquisition of language we learn to associate words with pain, with good and evil, and to feel and forget, repress, that we were made to feel terrible, that we are evil. But to crush duality again, via meditation, psychotherapy, faith, etc. is to come home again, to remove the wall between ourselves and the unconscious, to cease to think, to cease to compare, to cease to be motivated by unconscious feelings, to become whole again with all the infinite potential we were born with back in place. Can this happen or can it not? Can the ego come to an end?

w: Tolerance of opposing viewpoints is a good and constructive thing. Of that there is no doubt. Refraining from demonizing others so that we can understand and learn from them is a good and constructive thing. However, placing no limits on our tolerance is a recipe for nihilism, and more than that, it is a false and inauthentic display of faux "humility" put on for all the world to see. It is its own form of conceit. It is as if to say, look at me, I am not slave to the morality to which I have been indoctrinated by those who raised me; I am not slave to my own ego. I can admit that I am wrong and that others are right, and I will public ally self-flagilate, again and again, to prove the point. And the point, put simply, is: I am superior to the rest of you. Taken to its extreme, it is just a different way of asserting one's own ego.

M: One thing is sure. The ego can't kill itself. It only pretends that it can. The eye can't see itself and a fragment of self is not the self. In religion there is something called Grace where a person awakens despite the ego. One can't make Grace happen. One can only go where Grace CAN happen. That would be where one might strive for humility. But an ego need to be humble, of course, isn't humility. This is, I guess, a matter for really serious people who watch what the ego does and maybe give up any hope the self, ego self, can save the self.

w: Here is a partial and, I'm sure, inadequate, answer to what may promote "happiness" for a sentient being: honesty. And by that, I mean honesty with yourself, honestly about who and what you are. Reflecting on who and what you really are may cause you to make some changes, but also it may mean, to a very large extent, accepting yourself. And that includes the moral codes indoctrinated into us by "those who raised us." What is doesn't mean is pretending to have somehow transcended it all. That is not real. That is an abstract ideal of how we might want to see ourselves.

M: Well I go for this because in my own case it seems that it was honesty that took me on my journey and honesty that killed everything I ever held sacred and left me, literally, at my wits end. I fell into the nothing, and what a surprise.

w: When I encounter an opposing viewpoint, how I react to it depends. If I agree with someone on the ends, but disagree on the means, I have no inclination to demonize that person. A libertarian and I might both desire the greatest prosperity for the greatest number of people but disagree on how to achieve it. OTOH, if we disagree on the ends, I may or may not have a desire to demonize that person. I may or may not have a desire to simply ignore that person.

M: We are all the same, separated from God and looking for him.

w: I will not refrain from condemning Hitler, Stalin, Ted Bundy, Baruch Goldstein, or Osama bin Laden because I need to prove to myself and others that I am the enlightened Budha. Nor do I need to condemn them in order to feel superior to them. Rather, I may desire to condemn because "the only thing that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." And also, because that is who I am and it isn't going to make me any happier to pretend otherwise. So Hitler thought what he was doing was "good." Of that I have no doubt. I also don't give a shit, and I'm not going to pretend I do. I may want to understand why people thought it was right because it may help me prevent genocide from happening again, but that is the end of my tolerance.

Have you ever seen the movie, Red Beard? If not I think you'd like it.

w: Here's another thought about humility: I will exercise humility when humility is warranted. I will acknowledge that I am unable to challenge a scientist on global warming because...I am actually unable to do so. Yet I will not pretend humility where it is not warranted in order to prove to myself or others than I am the sort of person who can recognize his own inadequacies. I am super-adequate, adequate, and inadequate, depending on context. Knowing yourself, loving yourself, means recognizing and accepting all of it.

M: Us sick and lost ones here on planet normal all have a breathing tube to something good that keeps us alive.

- wolf[/QUOTE]

 

[Soltis]

Looking at only what is relative to your surroundings is what is bringing you down. Looking at the people in your life as "competition" is what is bringing you down. Looking at yourself as "inferior" is what is bringing you down. If you want to find real happiness, not only do you have to look at the truth, but you have to look at the "bright" side of truth and move towards it.

When I say bright side, it ultimately comes down to the "half empty, half full" analysis. You can have a glass in front of you with half of it taken up by water. Some may say the glass is half empty, some say its half full. Both will be correct. This is important because as I believe Brown had said earlier his brother got higher scores and did better than him in some things, and this had lead him to think he is inferior, which in reality can be partially true from a certain view but is ultimately false. It is false because your scores are what they are and they would have been as thus even if your brother had scored even better or worse than he did. So since your scores are what they are, what does that make of his and other people's scores? Well, you can choose to view them as signs of your false inferiority, or you can choose to view them as proof that it is possible to improve yourself and score higher, and view them as motivation for a new goal. If you do the latter, striving for said goal and seeing yourself improve will create happiness.

For one reason or another, we sometimes tend to view life as a race, and begin to view others as "competition" or "enemies", even though very rarely do others declare us opponents. If you choose to view people as opponents, you have limited your status to a player in a game. If you choose to view everything as a sign post of where you want to go physically/mentally/financially, you have risen your status to that of a captain, in that everything in life is helping you decide where you want to go. From then on, every step you take towards your destination will create happiness.

In short, everyone and everything in life can be on your side(in that they inevitably aid you), if you choose to view it that way, and it will be true.

 

[Moonbeam]

Soltis, I seem to remember finding some things in your posts that indicated to me a good soul there somewhere.

As regards this one, I very much agree, but I have trouble with the notion of choosing something like one's attitude. I often have a bad attitude, like it's ingrained in me and when I choose to change it, it doesn't change at all. I find it's right back like Abu Kasem's slippers.

I think it's the case of a bad horse connected to a broken down cart with an idiot for a driver and no passenger anywhere in sight.

But anyway, I have to say that BrownTown has done one thing very right here in my opinion. He has been honest in describing how he feels. He is aware that he feel inferior in some ways. I know that we all hate ourselves as if we were each the worst in the world.

So what you suggest here, I think, is the survivor ego struggling to make the most sense of life that it can, to choose to be positive rather than negative. The problem, though, in my opinion, is that the tap root of inferiority is very deep and not easy to remove. You work at it and that is better than not, but Brown is aware that the root is there. Each is important, in my opinion.

 

[Soltis]

Soltis, I seem to remember finding some things in your posts that indicated to me a good soul there somewhere.

As regards this one, I very much agree, but I have trouble with the notion of choosing something like one's attitude. I often have a bad attitude, like it's ingrained in me and when I choose to change it, it doesn't change at all. I find it's right back like Abu Kasem's slippers.

I think it's the case of a bad horse connected to a broken down cart with an idiot for a driver and no passenger anywhere in sight.

But anyway, I have to say that BrownTown has done one thing very right here in my opinion. He has been honest in describing how he feels. He is aware that he feel inferior in some ways. I know that we all hate ourselves as if we were each the worst in the world.

So what you suggest here, I think, is the survivor ego struggling to make the most sense of life that it can, to choose to be positive rather than negative. The problem, though, in my opinion, is that the tap root of inferiority is very deep and not easy to remove. You work at it and that is better than not, but Brown is aware that the root is there. Each is important, in my opinion.

Your words are appreciated Moonbeam.

Hmmm, I suppose I can't know the truth for everyone's situation, but in regards to bad attitude persisting, it could be out of habit, in which case it may become less and less prominent over time if you continue to work on it. It could also be something that may always instinctively come first, but if you continually correct it before it reaches yours words/actions then you can at least stop it from affecting your physical/outer experience.

I honestly don't believe any of us will ever completely destroy that feeling of inferiority in this lifetime, but although none of us are completely sure what will come in the next life, or if there is even any such thing, I still believe our progress in eliminating that root in this life has value.