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I think you're only really getting at a list of things which don't make people very happy, and you're far from the first to harp on it. Alright, getting a new car when your old car is still good / more or less as capable is probably not a great impact on your happiness. But what about buying a really nice camera, which you invest time into learning how to use and then create things that you can share with other people in a hobby that lasts for years? That's still looking for happiness, that's still new things and it's still valuable. A higher quality lens of a type you already have might be 'the next new car' equivalent of not really making you happy, but the mastery of the new skill is real happiness, is the novelty that we're chasing after.
I get the feeling when I read these things that the point is being missed. It's not that novelty doesn't bring us happiness, or that it only brings us extremely short spikes of ecstasy. It's that 'the next new car' is not novel enough. Envisioning winning the competition doesn't convey the happiness of mastering piece by piece the skill the competition was about. Buying jewelry doesn't acknowledge most of the time it's sitting in a drawer as a liability.
I don't think you can get away from the importance of newness to human happiness. Automation is automatic. As soon as we're not fully mentally occupied with something, we have time to think about how bored or unsatisfied we are. We should not try to learn how to enjoy the idleness that mastering something brings into our lives, we should look for the next thing to master. The dead horse is that there's not much to master in purchasing a tool you already have. Purchasing things that don't have purpose is probably not the best way to feel good about life.
tldr: the next new high metaphor is dumb and people need to get over it. Doing new things / getting new things is not like being a drug addict. The whole thing about drug addiction is that people get addicted to the short cut to those feelings instead of doing the real world things that give you the same emotions.
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What you're describing is the moment, and not these temporary highs that I was talking about. When the process (mastery, learning the new skill) is in the foreground, we experience flow / a sense of happiness, and that feeling is very different than just a chemical spike.
You see, your examples are focusing not on exterior motifs (validation, feeling good about having x car - or in general feeding the ego), but the enjoyment of the process.
The difference is that youre not buying that camera "to feel cool" or so that "people will like you for having that car" or even that "you can win X competition" but instead that you embrace that feeling of flow & the experience of the now that this tool can provide you. The motif is different. (I recommend reading "flow" from Mihály Csíkszentmihályi).
I've made this experience myself when I was making it into Grandmaster. The accomplishment barely matters to me at this point (the spike, the external motif) looking back at it. It's the enjoyment of the process, the countless of hours that I lost myself in love of the process, in absolute enjoyment and flow - that I miss so much about this game and that makes me feel great every time I'm thinking back to it.
Why does this work? Because in moments of flow, we lose our sense of self and experience our connectedness with reality, the world, the moment again.
Niklas
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There is some old greek guy, Zeno of Citium, who talked about eliminating external suffering, exactly that.
Although the old guy never wrote a Pulitzer or something, he left a hell of a lot of old writings, and some fellas who were his disciples.
Romans in particular were his most devoted fans, especially, some lads like Cicero and Marcus Aurelius.
His fandom endures until today, where a bunch of freaks (all males) gather together to do some nasty rituals with some compasses and a square.
Stoicism I think they call his ideas.
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Let me put aside my opinions and just ask
where does planning take place in this philosophy?
Is planning part of flow? Something you do in between flows? How far ahead can you plan? How far back can you reflect?
Why is buying a car not flow, but buying a camera is? What is ineffective for gaining happiness about buying something that will make people like you?
It's not important to read the spoiler, cause I'm actually just talking to myself here, but I do find it interesting to listen to you explaining how you have come out of a dark place to feel better about your life by changing your attitude, because I have a very similar experience of an attitude shift making me feel better about my life, just I didn't come to the same understanding about what it was precisely that seemed to work. If you're really bored it might be food for thought, but probably not.
+ Show Spoiler +And back to a barfing my opinions onto your blog: Isn't buying a car to make people like you, and it not having the impact you expected, not just a failed plan? As bad as buying a camera, and realising you have nothing you want to take pictures of?
I enjoy process, but I enjoy it because I am anticipating payoff. Without payoff, process is tedium. The payoff is seeing our process succeed and manifest itself into value. Process that doesn't manifest itself into value is unhappiness and disappointment. You work hard, you buy the car, and nobody cares. Working hard failed, even though its the process we're supposed to have enjoyed. The plan was stupid, because it took ten years to find out if it would work. Process is more enjoyable when the iterations are faster and we can be more confident predicting successful payoff. In other words, when a major goal is composed of multiple smaller goals that supply regular payoff for regular process, and help us express confidence in the long term goal. The goal of GM is longer term than the miniature goals it is composed of, mastering each element of the game. The process of clicking the mouse is not that interesting or enjoyable, it's the regular payoffs of seeing the desired effects on the screen.
Not all happiness is driven by this cycle of process and payoff, but a great deal of it is. If I'm ending up expressing the same thing you're trying to get across in different words, then I guess the problem of happiness is making sure there is more regular feedback from what you're doing, and in your words, that's being connected with reality and experiencing moments more frequently, as opposed to only looking forward to the very long term goals. If that's it, then I agree on the importance of frequent iteration in all things. The mini accomplishments and the mini spikes of happiness that come from them make up the greater portion of human experience. But I'm not sure, because I still view that as validation, as feeling good about gaining skills and gaining confidence in your ability to predict results and the windows that opens to you. And I sort of don't see how the new car is much more validation seeking, except to say that some people think of it as a milestone. But as a milestone, it is neither process nor payoff, but custom. If the big key is happiness without external validation, then I don't see how the miniature goals of improving your skill with a camera or getting a good picture on the way to a more complete portfolio fits into flow. The way that you describe flow sounds like trying to be happy without goals, because sometimes goals don't deliver on what we wanted or somethings don't work out the way we hope for, or sometimes our goal was kind of meaningless to begin with.
I'm being excessively contrarian, because though I agree on the major point that being too invested in certain goals can lead to unhappiness, and that taking the time to observe and enjoy your surroundings and physical comforts is a good way to find peace in life, the relationships with people in your life and the way your long term goals are going are impossible ignore when they start going badly. I don't really see flow making you happy if all the people at your work don't like you, or some other similarly terrible situation. And when things are going well, and the people in your life like you, its very easy to forget how valuable that is in making your feel good about yourself and giving you the peace of mind to pursue the more trivial pleasures of life.
So while I have experienced having a long term goal, accomplishing it, and then not really feeling good about it, I've also experienced having regular validation of my value, and losing that regular validation, and I know that I was way way happier when I had that regular validation, and it's pretty well impossible to be happy without replacing it with some other form of reassurance. And all that is just repeating the simple point that frequency is the important part here, because even if you feel pretty good after completing a long term goal, you can't hang onto that feeling and you only get to experience it once for that goal. The regular smaller goals are how you cheat and feel good about yourself frequently.
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@Apoteosis: Yes, stoicism is a great study! Thanks for your input
On June 21 2016 06:50 Chef wrote:Let me put aside my opinions and just ask where does planning take place in this philosophy? Is planning part of flow? Something you do in between flows? How far ahead can you plan? How far back can you reflect? Why is buying a car not flow, but buying a camera is? What is ineffective for gaining happiness about buying something that will make people like you? It's not important to read the spoiler, cause I'm actually just talking to myself here, but I do find it interesting to listen to you explaining how you have come out of a dark place to feel better about your life by changing your attitude, because I have a very similar experience of an attitude shift making me feel better about my life, just I didn't come to the same understanding about what it was precisely that seemed to work. If you're really bored it might be food for thought, but probably not. + Show Spoiler +And back to a barfing my opinions onto your blog: Isn't buying a car to make people like you, and it not having the impact you expected, not just a failed plan? As bad as buying a camera, and realising you have nothing you want to take pictures of?
I enjoy process, but I enjoy it because I am anticipating payoff. Without payoff, process is tedium. The payoff is seeing our process succeed and manifest itself into value. Process that doesn't manifest itself into value is unhappiness and disappointment. You work hard, you buy the car, and nobody cares. Working hard failed, even though its the process we're supposed to have enjoyed. The plan was stupid, because it took ten years to find out if it would work. Process is more enjoyable when the iterations are faster and we can be more confident predicting successful payoff. In other words, when a major goal is composed of multiple smaller goals that supply regular payoff for regular process, and help us express confidence in the long term goal. The goal of GM is longer term than the miniature goals it is composed of, mastering each element of the game. The process of clicking the mouse is not that interesting or enjoyable, it's the regular payoffs of seeing the desired effects on the screen.
Not all happiness is driven by this cycle of process and payoff, but a great deal of it is. If I'm ending up expressing the same thing you're trying to get across in different words, then I guess the problem of happiness is making sure there is more regular feedback from what you're doing, and in your words, that's being connected with reality and experiencing moments more frequently, as opposed to only looking forward to the very long term goals. If that's it, then I agree on the importance of frequent iteration in all things. The mini accomplishments and the mini spikes of happiness that come from them make up the greater portion of human experience. But I'm not sure, because I still view that as validation, as feeling good about gaining skills and gaining confidence in your ability to predict results and the windows that opens to you. And I sort of don't see how the new car is much more validation seeking, except to say that some people think of it as a milestone. But as a milestone, it is neither process nor payoff, but custom. If the big key is happiness without external validation, then I don't see how the miniature goals of improving your skill with a camera or getting a good picture on the way to a more complete portfolio fits into flow. The way that you describe flow sounds like trying to be happy without goals, because sometimes goals don't deliver on what we wanted or somethings don't work out the way we hope for, or sometimes our goal was kind of meaningless to begin with.
I'm being excessively contrarian, because though I agree on the major point that being too invested in certain goals can lead to unhappiness, and that taking the time to observe and enjoy your surroundings and physical comforts is a good way to find peace in life, the relationships with people in your life and the way your long term goals are going are impossible ignore when they start going badly. I don't really see flow making you happy if all the people at your work don't like you, or some other similarly terrible situation. And when things are going well, and the people in your life like you, its very easy to forget how valuable that is in making your feel good about yourself and giving you the peace of mind to pursue the more trivial pleasures of life.
So while I have experienced having a long term goal, accomplishing it, and then not really feeling good about it, I've also experienced having regular validation of my value, and losing that regular validation, and I know that I was way way happier when I had that regular validation, and it's pretty well impossible to be happy without replacing it with some other form of reassurance. And all that is just repeating the simple point that frequency is the important part here, because even if you feel pretty good after completing a long term goal, you can't hang onto that feeling and you only get to experience it once for that goal. The regular smaller goals are how you cheat and feel good about yourself frequently.
I think what is important to distinguish is (and I've had a very similar discussion in the comments section on youtube) is the pursuit of happiness with and without the ego (at least in theory).
The ego (in short) is your identity or self. It's all ideas that clinch onto your persona. It's all of the values you represent, and thus the idea of "good" and "bad", or even "success" and "failure" stems from ego. (These are basically nothing but external components in relationship to your values)
With this in mind, what's important to understand is that without an ego, there technically is nothing to plan for. There is no reason to thrive for something greather than yourself or even to grow. By diminishing your ego, you are diminishing exactly that (mostly neurotic) voice in your head that needs validation, success, greatness within you. Once you lose your identity, with it you will lose all of the pain and suffering of life. This is essentially the notion of enlightenment, and what buddhism is all about.
Now understand that losing your identification/ego in order to fully embrace and find your connection to reality
may not be for everyone, and most certainly it is not for me. I enjoy many of the external pleasures, and I am
not willing to give them up. But I do still think that it is important to know where your suffering stems from.
On top of that, my life-philosophy is basically this: Merging the best of both worlds. I don't thrive to become a fully spiritual being, but I want to learn about it and take some of the advantages with me. This is essentially why I'm meditating, why I'm doing mindfulness-excercises and so on. To connect myself back with the world, to find "truth" again, but only to the extend to which I will still experience my identity and ego, even if it causes me suffering, I simply love and life for the pleasures that are winning a competition or something similar.
So to sum this up, I don't want to let go of who I am just to experience absolute contentment and connectedness with the world, but I want to diminish my neuroticism & the influence my ego has on my life further. In the end, working on mindfulness has brought me from an anxiety-disorder/perfectionism /obsessive compulsive disorder and even slight bipolar disorder to a much more fulfilling and happy life. By working on your ego, you weaken it's powers, and with that all of the suffering. For me this was life-changing.
Basically, what I'm talking about here is a merging-process of becoming a spiritual being and someone that is indeed thriving for what is considered successful in our culture. And by the very nature of this merging process, things like "planning ahead", or "buying stuff" will always be an important part of your happiness. Your happiness will both be fed by validation, by temporary highs, by experiencing flow - but ideally, the baseline level should always be that there is already an existing "groundedness", or "contentment", so that you are not dependent on these factors.
In theory, I am convinced that this will not make you/me as happy as becoming a fully spiritual being, because if there is an ego involved, there will to a certain extend always be something nagging away at you. But from where I'm sitting, it's the best of both worlds.
I hope you understand where I'm going with this? What I wanted to teach in this video is that real, authentic happiness stems from our connectedness to reality - once our EGO, this seperate layer on top of everything completely fades away. This would mean, we would not need ANYTHING but the experience of reality / the moment. No future, no past needed. No validation needed, no success needed. BUT because (as you described so well) most of us are not spiritual beings and not thriving to be, we will always deal with the future, the past, materialism/validation/... and their effect on us (both positive and negative). The goal here is to understand where the suffering stems from, to find your own path and ideally to understand what minimizing your ego will result in. And again, my path is minimizing the ego, by still maximizing external pleasure - finding inner and outer contentment, the best of both worlds (with a little compromise on the suffering part).
This should answer what you've written in the spoiler (concerning things like "not all happiness is coming from the process" or "I enjoy process, but I enjoy it because I am anticipating payoff") - again, in your example there is the existence of an ego.
Concerning these points:
"The way that you describe flow sounds like trying to be happy without goals, because sometimes goals don't deliver on what we wanted or somethings don't work out the way we hope for, or sometimes our goal was kind of meaningless to begin with"
"I don't really see flow making you happy if all the people at your work don't like you, or some other similarly terrible situation"
The happiness described from flow is the happiness/contentment you experience in the moment that you are experiencing flow in. This in turn will very likely make your life better / more wothwhile,
but does not guarantee that other factors influence your happiness (again, your ego, see the example of "all the people at your work don't like you").
Think about flow as of this: When in flow, you lose your sense of self. And your ego is exactly this, your sense of self. Because this temporarily fades away in the experience of flow, you experience this contentment, because with it
all of the worries and suffering fade away too. That being said, flow is a great way to increase the amount of "happiness experiences" in our life, but it does nowhere near mean that someone that experiences flow a lot will be a happy person.
Thanks for the interesting exchange chef! Appreciate you putting in the time and effort! Please tell me if my answer helped you further understand what I was trying to communicate.
Niklas
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Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I've learned a lot of about Buddhist philosophy and my addiction to Japanese literature has exposed me to a lot of perspectives on it. I also have thought a lot about how attachment (the canonical way of describing what you're calling ego here) affects our lives. And indeed the ideal in many sects of Buddhism is to renounce attachment to the world, including to your family and work. But as the literature makes clear (even in older works) it's quite hard even for the most famous practitioners to really adhere to. In the romantic literature, it's often used as a device after someone has had a tragic love affair, they renounce the world and take the tonsure. Which I find more expressive of the desire and wish to not be so affected by a world that after all is 'suffering,' but a desire which is not actually possible to fulfill except in the mythology of mountain hermits who can fly. Where a real person like Choumei does not actually sound that happy in his houjouki, and cannot stop himself from missing his family and friends despite his devotion.
At the same time, there are good lessons to it, and being less attached to things that are out of your control, or to opportunities that have passed you by is an effective way to save yourself a lot of grief. But that's less about happiness and more about the absence of suffering. Nirvana is nothingness, after all, if that's what we're getting at. The more succinct phrase for someone dealing with an attachment to something that has not worked out, but is not interested in total abandonment of the world, is 'let it go.' Which is good advice most of the time.
I think there's a worthy conversation to be had about being happy when things are going well (a surprisingly difficult thing for our generation of first world problems), and being happy in times that are horrendous (from which the ideas of Buddhism have grown). I want to say that your video is trying more to get at how to be happy when things are more or less going good and you're still not feeling right. Which is a pretty interesting topic.
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Thanks Chef! I can see what you're getting at, and I agree with what you're saying. I tend to talk in this video more about "not suffering" rather than "embracing happiness", because the absence of suffering is the requirement for happiness, however does not guarantee happiness.
If you don't mind, I'd love to hear more from you on increasing happiness. Any practices you do? Any philosophies/books that you found especially important?
Niklas
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EPT
