FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Although I do realize that no one likes me at this site and few people will read beyond this word (and, of course, many of you are going to cut and paste that phrase, quote it and say, "you were right", in a witty attempt to mock me or something simialar, I'd prefer if you refrained.) we had an interesting debate at FP that resulted in this essay, and I thought it was relatively interesting enough to re-post. Heck, DW liked it. I think he's my follower now.
Anyway:
I won't say my proposal is responsible for all happiness or even correct, but it has a ring of truth to it.
It's not getting what we want that makes us happen. It's the process of getting what we want. Imagine you could do anything in instantly. Your life would be pointless.
Some say they'd be happy had they a million dollars. So, what if someone gave you a million dollars? Then what? You'd spend it. Then it would be over with. Your quality of life would improve and then things would stabilize. It wouldn't matter at all to you after that.
Think about what makes people around you important to you. Could it be the fact that they don't care about you? An actor doesn't care about you at all, and they're the coolest person in the world. An ant, in contrast, is infinitely uncool. You couldn't care less about it and you're completely important to it.
It's as if being scared of something makes us want it. We're scared that we're worthless and that no one else cares about us, and we want others to care about us, and that makes us think of them as important.
If you were the most important person in the whole goddamn world, how happy would you be? You wouldn't be. Others would envy you, but if others knew how you felt they'd pity you, since you'd be the saddest man on the face of the Earth. Life would be pointless, because you've attained all of your goals. And then there'd be nowhere to go, nowhere to look for, nothing at all for you.
Consider that no one is really selfish (selfish in a way that you only want to improve yourself, not the broadened definition). Most people say Grind is selfish. But he's stated before that he'd be against a progressive income tax, even if it negatively affected our economy and hurt him. This little ironically unselfish belief shows that he does care about things. Like all of us do. If Grind didn't care about anything, he'd kill himself, because his life would be meaningless. All of us would.
I'm scared shitless of being successful.
What's an example of a person that's completely successful? A heroine addict. They've chemically altered his brain to acheive a state of happiness that he'll never reach anywhere else in life, and couldn't have reached otherwise. After that, there isn't anything in life for them. Just ask a heroine addict the most important moment of their life. Whenever they put the needle in their vein. They will be ashamed to admit it, but it will pop up in their heads.
Just some random thoughts from WM...
Anyway:
I won't say my proposal is responsible for all happiness or even correct, but it has a ring of truth to it.
It's not getting what we want that makes us happen. It's the process of getting what we want. Imagine you could do anything in instantly. Your life would be pointless.
Some say they'd be happy had they a million dollars. So, what if someone gave you a million dollars? Then what? You'd spend it. Then it would be over with. Your quality of life would improve and then things would stabilize. It wouldn't matter at all to you after that.
Think about what makes people around you important to you. Could it be the fact that they don't care about you? An actor doesn't care about you at all, and they're the coolest person in the world. An ant, in contrast, is infinitely uncool. You couldn't care less about it and you're completely important to it.
It's as if being scared of something makes us want it. We're scared that we're worthless and that no one else cares about us, and we want others to care about us, and that makes us think of them as important.
If you were the most important person in the whole goddamn world, how happy would you be? You wouldn't be. Others would envy you, but if others knew how you felt they'd pity you, since you'd be the saddest man on the face of the Earth. Life would be pointless, because you've attained all of your goals. And then there'd be nowhere to go, nowhere to look for, nothing at all for you.
Consider that no one is really selfish (selfish in a way that you only want to improve yourself, not the broadened definition). Most people say Grind is selfish. But he's stated before that he'd be against a progressive income tax, even if it negatively affected our economy and hurt him. This little ironically unselfish belief shows that he does care about things. Like all of us do. If Grind didn't care about anything, he'd kill himself, because his life would be meaningless. All of us would.
I'm scared shitless of being successful.
What's an example of a person that's completely successful? A heroine addict. They've chemically altered his brain to acheive a state of happiness that he'll never reach anywhere else in life, and couldn't have reached otherwise. After that, there isn't anything in life for them. Just ask a heroine addict the most important moment of their life. Whenever they put the needle in their vein. They will be ashamed to admit it, but it will pop up in their heads.
Just some random thoughts from WM...
