in other words, you are too focused on the means and not the end. survival and contentment are the ends, the purposes for everything we do. if we can achieve both without struggle, without improvement or sacrifice, so much the better.
I disagree, and I disagree very very strongly with the last part. What you don't work hard for, you don't value as much.
for most people, working hard just for the sake of working hard is meaningless.
there are of course, people who cannot enjoy things unless they have "worked hard" for such things. maybe you are one of those people. but it makes no sense to me. if i buy a chocolate bar for $1 and i buy the same kind of chocolate bar for $1000 dollars, they dont taste any different. i dont enjoy one more than the other. if you do, then by all means, spend more than you have to, work harder for less, in fact, work hard for free because that will make you value your reward even more (whatever that might be). you might think that makes you not lazy or whatever. i just think it makes you inefficient and irrational.
When Ege boils his point down to its most base state, which is--
"I wouldn't find you lazy as long as you don't stop trying and you don't give up."
I get really confused, because what is giving up? To me, this statement of giving up is only satisfied by suicide.
Some people rest between battles, and may leave their rifle at home, but so long as they are alive they have never given up-- like I said, we fight an infinite number of battles.
I came back to this thread even though I said I'd stay away because I think your point is clear now, and I'm going to make this my one counterpoint.
survival and contentment are the ends, the purposes for everything we do. if we can achieve both without struggle, without improvement or sacrifice, so much the better.
why is survival and contentment the purposes for everything we do? there can't be any other motivation for why people make take some course of action?
If they are in fact our only motivation, then I'll question your second statement - is contentment really possible without some effort made on it's behalf?
While trying to affect some change, you get sufficiently discouraged (for whatever reason) that you stop trying to do so. Of course, with this definition people give up things all the time, so giving up in the context of this discussion might be "discouraged from trying to affect change for an extended/indefinite period of time".
While trying to affect some change, you get sufficiently discouraged (for whatever reason) that you stop trying to do so. Of course, with this definition people give up things all the time, so giving up in the context of this discussion might be "discouraged from trying to affect change for an extended/indefinite period of time".
I will keep saying it until people actually listen to me.
We are always trying to affect change, even if it is just to overcome the complexes and insecurities we have preventing us from affecting change on the world around us.
We never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up so long as we are alive.
There are times where our pace may become infinitesimal, but it is progress just the same.
You need to disprove two points here, so far as I can see, to debunk what I am saying--
1) People who are alive are constantly thinking, and
2) It is impossible to choose to forget something, and have it permanently be exiled from our mind.
Then, so long as we are conscious, and unable to choose our every thought and whim, we are undergoing and creating the constant change that is life.
Every person strives towards happiness. That is the end goal of the human spirit. A person is successful if he is happy, and he is a failure if he is not happy.
Ege derives happiness from self-improvement. That is fine and dandy, and I can relate, as I derive happiness from self-improvement as well. If that was where it ended, this thread would not exist.
Where ege (and his author) falls down is in conflating his particular means of achieving happiness with some sort of objective best method of achieving happiness. If you achieve happiness by trying to push yourself towards greatness, then that's good. If you achieve happiness by watching movies on HBO and hanging out with your friends, then that's not as good, according to him.
The irony is that, at the same time, he is accusing others of not getting that it's only the route taken, and not the destination, that's most important in life. Meanwhile, he insists that the path of happiness is only valid if it results in the destination of self-improvement.
It all makes sense to me, now.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Where ege (and his author) falls down is in conflating his particular means of achieving happiness with some sort of objective best method of achieving happiness. If you achieve happiness by trying to push yourself towards greatness, then that's good. If you achieve happiness by watching movies on HBO and hanging out with your friends, then that's not as good, according to him.
The irony is that, at the same time, he is accusing others of not getting that it's only the route taken, and not the destination, that's most important in life. Meanwhile, he insists that the path of happiness is only valid if it results in the destination of self-improvement.
Alright, I'm pressed for time, but I'll try to respond.
As I explained, I tried to define greatness as "not giving up".
In this case, giving up can be defined as settling for something lesser.
To give a really really basic and material example, if your dream is to have a mansion, but you can only afford a house, and you say, "ok whatever, I'm content with that", you're giving up.
There is nothing in my mentality that condones watching TV or spending time with friends. You are strawmanning to a tremendous extent.
I'll reply to the second paragraph when I get back.
Ege, at what age are you presuming a dream to be an actual goal?
Do you have any idea how many kids want to be sports heroes or astronauts or presidents?
Desires -change-. They are not necessarily "given up" so much as learned about and shed like so much dead skin when you find something better suited to who you actually are.
survival and contentment are the ends, the purposes for everything we do. if we can achieve both without struggle, without improvement or sacrifice, so much the better.
why is survival and contentment the purposes for everything we do? there can't be any other motivation for why people make take some course of action?
honestly, and i know this is a shitty answer, survival and contentment are the ultimate purposes because that's how we define the words. we do something because we think it is the right or best thing to do at the time, even if what we do sometimes makes us unhappy. we might be unhappy but we are content (at that moment) with the choice we make because if we would have been content with a different possible choice, we would have done that instead.
sure, you can have secondary or parallel goals. most goals arent mutually exclusive of each other. but if you keep stripping away layers, if you keep asking, why, why, why, you ultimately end up with, "because i think it will make me happy in the end."
If they are in fact our only motivation, then I'll question your second statement - is contentment really possible without some effort made on it's behalf?
sure. it's not that hard to imagine. someone might give me a gift. i might get lucky and win the lottery. i might be born poor and get adopted by a rich family. shit, sometimes im perfectly content with just a chocolate bar, and that cost me almost zero effort to obtain.
furthermore, i would go so far as to say that for mostly rational beings (which i think people are), the amount of effort exerted doesnt really affect contentment. it may make the journey toward the result more or less enjoyable (and generally less effort equates to more enjoyment), but a piece of shit is a piece of shit and a masterpiece is a masterpiece. i may work for 1000 hours on a project but if it doesnt pan out, that sucks. i may work for an hour on a different project, but if it turns out to be the best thing ive ever done, that's great.
effort (the means) are absolutely secondary to result (the end). that's not to say it isnt important, because it is. it's just secondary. when you put it first, like the op is trying to do, you end up with a skewed rationale where working harder for less suddenly becomes more rewarding and worthy of greatness than working efficiently and without effort. in other words, why drive when you can walk? why live in hawaii when you can live in the arctic circle? why eat steak when you can live on bread and water?
pretty much every invention ever created has attempted to make things easier for us. this is a good thing. it allows us to direct our energies toward more worthy goals. like helping our families or others. or making ourselves better so that we can better help our families or others. self improvement purely for narcissistic reasons doesnt make you great. it makes you silly and kind of pathetic.
getting back onto the main discussion, the op wants to say that people shouldnt be content with what they have, they should seek more. he places positive value in the act of striving for more. but striving for more is not where the focus should be. he is placing undue value on the act of striving itself. what he should be placing more value on is the desire to help others. people like ghandi and jesus are great because they tried to help others, not because they were "consistently striving to improve themselves". their goals (im guessing) were focused outward, not inward. i bet the idea of self-improvement never even entered their minds.
To give a really really basic and material example, if your dream is to have a mansion, but you can only afford a house, and you say, "ok whatever, I'm content with that", you're giving up.
Yes, I get that. If your dream is to have a mansion, and you decide it's not worth the trouble, and you're content with a house, you're giving up. The part where we disagree is whether or not giving up there is an objectively bad thing.
See, I get your point. I just think it's dumb.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Yeah, I see your point too now, and I also just find it unbelievably dumb.
I used to dream of being an actress, but I accepted at some point I was content to reenact musical theatre with friends in dorm rooms and my birthday party, on those occasions I am somewhere to celebrate it.
Ege, the reason this thread has made me so incensed is that, because I grew up in regular circumstances, and forged the majority of my dreams there--
before being plunged into ridiculously reduced circumstances--
I have had to 'settle.' I said I equate commiting suicide to giving up, because that is how far I have been. I've woken up in hospitals, and spent weeks in those wards, because I have tried that. I've tried to give up.
Do you know what it meant for me to go onward, to push forward?
Three meals a week, electricity, but no running water, gas, or heat of any sort for months.
My dreams as a child have not changed-- I still want to be an actress, and also a mother, and I want to affect massive change in the world, but I have settled for, at the moment, enjoying what circumstances give me.
I relish the fact I can enjoy a full three meals a day in my current circumstances, and I am replenishing my strength before I move back into poverty and homelessness, because these are corollaries to some of the 'lesser' dreams I concocted while 'settling.'
They are grim necessities, but no matter in what context I set them, your point makes it seem as if because I am not gunning for equal rights and antidiscrimination policies and chasing that original dream I had of being an actress, I am lazy.
In your eyes, I have failed, and this incenses me. It shouldn't, but it does, and not just because I feel slighted, but because I feel you are slighting an entire culture that is at less of an advantage than you.
My biggest accomplishment this week was resisting the urge to go into my sister's closet and crossdress while I was home alone all day. That is a large accomplishment for me, it was hard, and it physically pained me the same way you might be phyiscally pained if you go participate in a marathon for AIDS or some other noble cause.
This thread incensed and incenses me, and I should say you incense me, because you are discounting my life, in its minutae, and you are discounting the details, and the context, and you are not appreciating everything I do everyday that is altogether 'insignificant.'
My dreams are not unattainable, but damn near so. In order to remain happy-- not content!-- but happy, I have concocted other dreams, which are 'lesser.'
There is one response you might come up with to this, which is, "Well, you came up with new dreams and are gunning for them, so I still commend you."
In your example, the man who once dreamed of a mansion now has not settled for a house, but dreams of living everyday of his life in that house.
Please stop ignoring my posts, because I just feel even more slighted. Each post of mine and each point I make that goes absolutely unaddressed is another slight against my infinitisimal life that I eke out, but I love.
But shitheads like you make it that much harder, and I want you to at least show me you are reading my posts and attempting to parse why our way of thinking, our way of living is not lazy, or reprehensible, but just fine.
Just fine, just the same as yours is.
EDIT: I think that you might also say, now that I look at it, that I am still somewhat trying towards my goals, in which case I direct you to my previous reply--
"There are times where our pace may become infinitesimal, but it is progress just the same.
You need to disprove two points here, so far as I can see, to debunk what I am saying--
1) People who are alive are constantly thinking, and
2) It is impossible to choose to forget something, and have it permanently be exiled from our mind.
Then, so long as we are conscious, and unable to choose our every thought and whim, we are undergoing and creating the constant change that is life."
No one ever gives up on a dream, so long as they hold it. If they have 'given up', it is because the dream has changed. No one is able to let go of a dream, and if they are happy with what it has become, then what is your point for attacking them?
In the end, they are fulfilling your sick little schemata, so you should be satisfied. They have achieved one dream, or are making small and slight progress towards something bigger and better-- we have infinite dreams, and in our minds, for a very long time, we figure we have infinite time to achieve them.
Posts
Y'all need to go to Space.
And race China to the Moon.
Like... inside of ships?
Or just as bare chemical fodder for later use as a soil ingredient for the greenhouses?
You tell me.
I rest my case.
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Well, at least, I know more about things involving American politics. Which is almost as good as being smarter.
There is nothing smart about American politics.
Get out now before it eats your soul.
Did you know everytime a fundamentalist Christian opens his or her mouth American society crumbles? I didn't. But thanks to this forum I do now!
In looser relation to the topic, this has always been one of my favorite Bob Dylan quotes:
for most people, working hard just for the sake of working hard is meaningless.
there are of course, people who cannot enjoy things unless they have "worked hard" for such things. maybe you are one of those people. but it makes no sense to me. if i buy a chocolate bar for $1 and i buy the same kind of chocolate bar for $1000 dollars, they dont taste any different. i dont enjoy one more than the other. if you do, then by all means, spend more than you have to, work harder for less, in fact, work hard for free because that will make you value your reward even more (whatever that might be). you might think that makes you not lazy or whatever. i just think it makes you inefficient and irrational.
"I wouldn't find you lazy as long as you don't stop trying and you don't give up."
I get really confused, because what is giving up? To me, this statement of giving up is only satisfied by suicide.
Some people rest between battles, and may leave their rifle at home, but so long as they are alive they have never given up-- like I said, we fight an infinite number of battles.
I came back to this thread even though I said I'd stay away because I think your point is clear now, and I'm going to make this my one counterpoint.
Clarify what it is to give up.
why is survival and contentment the purposes for everything we do? there can't be any other motivation for why people make take some course of action?
If they are in fact our only motivation, then I'll question your second statement - is contentment really possible without some effort made on it's behalf?
While trying to affect some change, you get sufficiently discouraged (for whatever reason) that you stop trying to do so. Of course, with this definition people give up things all the time, so giving up in the context of this discussion might be "discouraged from trying to affect change for an extended/indefinite period of time".
We are always trying to affect change, even if it is just to overcome the complexes and insecurities we have preventing us from affecting change on the world around us.
We never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up so long as we are alive.
There are times where our pace may become infinitesimal, but it is progress just the same.
You need to disprove two points here, so far as I can see, to debunk what I am saying--
1) People who are alive are constantly thinking, and
2) It is impossible to choose to forget something, and have it permanently be exiled from our mind.
Then, so long as we are conscious, and unable to choose our every thought and whim, we are undergoing and creating the constant change that is life.
Every person strives towards happiness. That is the end goal of the human spirit. A person is successful if he is happy, and he is a failure if he is not happy.
Ege derives happiness from self-improvement. That is fine and dandy, and I can relate, as I derive happiness from self-improvement as well. If that was where it ended, this thread would not exist.
Where ege (and his author) falls down is in conflating his particular means of achieving happiness with some sort of objective best method of achieving happiness. If you achieve happiness by trying to push yourself towards greatness, then that's good. If you achieve happiness by watching movies on HBO and hanging out with your friends, then that's not as good, according to him.
The irony is that, at the same time, he is accusing others of not getting that it's only the route taken, and not the destination, that's most important in life. Meanwhile, he insists that the path of happiness is only valid if it results in the destination of self-improvement.
It all makes sense to me, now.
[/Presumed Condensate]
Yes.
Alright, I'm pressed for time, but I'll try to respond.
As I explained, I tried to define greatness as "not giving up".
In this case, giving up can be defined as settling for something lesser.
To give a really really basic and material example, if your dream is to have a mansion, but you can only afford a house, and you say, "ok whatever, I'm content with that", you're giving up.
There is nothing in my mentality that condones watching TV or spending time with friends. You are strawmanning to a tremendous extent.
I'll reply to the second paragraph when I get back.
Do you have any idea how many kids want to be sports heroes or astronauts or presidents?
Desires -change-. They are not necessarily "given up" so much as learned about and shed like so much dead skin when you find something better suited to who you actually are.
honestly, and i know this is a shitty answer, survival and contentment are the ultimate purposes because that's how we define the words. we do something because we think it is the right or best thing to do at the time, even if what we do sometimes makes us unhappy. we might be unhappy but we are content (at that moment) with the choice we make because if we would have been content with a different possible choice, we would have done that instead.
sure, you can have secondary or parallel goals. most goals arent mutually exclusive of each other. but if you keep stripping away layers, if you keep asking, why, why, why, you ultimately end up with, "because i think it will make me happy in the end."
sure. it's not that hard to imagine. someone might give me a gift. i might get lucky and win the lottery. i might be born poor and get adopted by a rich family. shit, sometimes im perfectly content with just a chocolate bar, and that cost me almost zero effort to obtain.
furthermore, i would go so far as to say that for mostly rational beings (which i think people are), the amount of effort exerted doesnt really affect contentment. it may make the journey toward the result more or less enjoyable (and generally less effort equates to more enjoyment), but a piece of shit is a piece of shit and a masterpiece is a masterpiece. i may work for 1000 hours on a project but if it doesnt pan out, that sucks. i may work for an hour on a different project, but if it turns out to be the best thing ive ever done, that's great.
effort (the means) are absolutely secondary to result (the end). that's not to say it isnt important, because it is. it's just secondary. when you put it first, like the op is trying to do, you end up with a skewed rationale where working harder for less suddenly becomes more rewarding and worthy of greatness than working efficiently and without effort. in other words, why drive when you can walk? why live in hawaii when you can live in the arctic circle? why eat steak when you can live on bread and water?
pretty much every invention ever created has attempted to make things easier for us. this is a good thing. it allows us to direct our energies toward more worthy goals. like helping our families or others. or making ourselves better so that we can better help our families or others. self improvement purely for narcissistic reasons doesnt make you great. it makes you silly and kind of pathetic.
getting back onto the main discussion, the op wants to say that people shouldnt be content with what they have, they should seek more. he places positive value in the act of striving for more. but striving for more is not where the focus should be. he is placing undue value on the act of striving itself. what he should be placing more value on is the desire to help others. people like ghandi and jesus are great because they tried to help others, not because they were "consistently striving to improve themselves". their goals (im guessing) were focused outward, not inward. i bet the idea of self-improvement never even entered their minds.
Yes, I get that. If your dream is to have a mansion, and you decide it's not worth the trouble, and you're content with a house, you're giving up. The part where we disagree is whether or not giving up there is an objectively bad thing.
See, I get your point. I just think it's dumb.
I used to dream of being an actress, but I accepted at some point I was content to reenact musical theatre with friends in dorm rooms and my birthday party, on those occasions I am somewhere to celebrate it.
Ege, the reason this thread has made me so incensed is that, because I grew up in regular circumstances, and forged the majority of my dreams there--
before being plunged into ridiculously reduced circumstances--
I have had to 'settle.' I said I equate commiting suicide to giving up, because that is how far I have been. I've woken up in hospitals, and spent weeks in those wards, because I have tried that. I've tried to give up.
Do you know what it meant for me to go onward, to push forward?
Three meals a week, electricity, but no running water, gas, or heat of any sort for months.
My dreams as a child have not changed-- I still want to be an actress, and also a mother, and I want to affect massive change in the world, but I have settled for, at the moment, enjoying what circumstances give me.
I relish the fact I can enjoy a full three meals a day in my current circumstances, and I am replenishing my strength before I move back into poverty and homelessness, because these are corollaries to some of the 'lesser' dreams I concocted while 'settling.'
They are grim necessities, but no matter in what context I set them, your point makes it seem as if because I am not gunning for equal rights and antidiscrimination policies and chasing that original dream I had of being an actress, I am lazy.
In your eyes, I have failed, and this incenses me. It shouldn't, but it does, and not just because I feel slighted, but because I feel you are slighting an entire culture that is at less of an advantage than you.
My biggest accomplishment this week was resisting the urge to go into my sister's closet and crossdress while I was home alone all day. That is a large accomplishment for me, it was hard, and it physically pained me the same way you might be phyiscally pained if you go participate in a marathon for AIDS or some other noble cause.
This thread incensed and incenses me, and I should say you incense me, because you are discounting my life, in its minutae, and you are discounting the details, and the context, and you are not appreciating everything I do everyday that is altogether 'insignificant.'
My dreams are not unattainable, but damn near so. In order to remain happy-- not content!-- but happy, I have concocted other dreams, which are 'lesser.'
There is one response you might come up with to this, which is, "Well, you came up with new dreams and are gunning for them, so I still commend you."
In your example, the man who once dreamed of a mansion now has not settled for a house, but dreams of living everyday of his life in that house.
Please stop ignoring my posts, because I just feel even more slighted. Each post of mine and each point I make that goes absolutely unaddressed is another slight against my infinitisimal life that I eke out, but I love.
But shitheads like you make it that much harder, and I want you to at least show me you are reading my posts and attempting to parse why our way of thinking, our way of living is not lazy, or reprehensible, but just fine.
Just fine, just the same as yours is.
EDIT: I think that you might also say, now that I look at it, that I am still somewhat trying towards my goals, in which case I direct you to my previous reply--
"There are times where our pace may become infinitesimal, but it is progress just the same.
You need to disprove two points here, so far as I can see, to debunk what I am saying--
1) People who are alive are constantly thinking, and
2) It is impossible to choose to forget something, and have it permanently be exiled from our mind.
Then, so long as we are conscious, and unable to choose our every thought and whim, we are undergoing and creating the constant change that is life."
No one ever gives up on a dream, so long as they hold it. If they have 'given up', it is because the dream has changed. No one is able to let go of a dream, and if they are happy with what it has become, then what is your point for attacking them?
In the end, they are fulfilling your sick little schemata, so you should be satisfied. They have achieved one dream, or are making small and slight progress towards something bigger and better-- we have infinite dreams, and in our minds, for a very long time, we figure we have infinite time to achieve them.
This is human nature.