The Pursuit Of Happiness Makes Us Sad

[Hugh Johnson]

Riiiight. I forgot we live in lala land where people don't have kids or jobs or anything that demands the precious time and attention that could be spent gazing at their navels.

I don't like Peterson. He's an overhyped flash in the pan.

Anyone that gains the devotion of today's youth is almost certainly a charlatan.

Trump and Peterson have a large intersection of followers for that reason. They're both made for reality TV characters.

You claimed more than there is no bliss meditation, a fact disproven with a five second google search. You claimed the people can't find eight hours a day to meditate, when a cursory look into how people with no jobs or part time jobs live would prove you wrong, You are either too stupid to conceive of what an argument consists of or utterly dishonest. It is hardly a mystery why someone like you can not understand Peterson's arguments.

 

[Xisca]

@Xisca so like crying in the shower? smoking and getting drunk. maybe crying would help but a lot of what is done for relaxation is no bueno.

Crying in the shower is usually only letting go of the pressured steam. I do not say it is useless, but this kind of discharge does not often help to deactivate the past in the sense of removing the activation. The part that helps is what is spontaneous AND hold in consciousness. If you feel the tension, and then start to tremble, even only the jaw, and let it happen and stay present to the experience, sob and then yawn and feel better, yes this is ok.
Relax is no bueno when forced, like when you say you have to relax and you voluntarily drop your shoulders. No spontaneous, no bueno....

Allan Watts is not so bad as far as I have listened to some audio, and I could translate most of it into more scientific language, and it matched. Some good examples too, and good knowledge of history, learned a lot!

 

[Xisca]

So a core principle of Peat's philosophy regarding thinking is to disregard established paradigms, dogma, authority and such.

Jordan Peterson shares the same vice as many professors do when lecturing or sharing their thoughts. They practice authoritarianism.

This is how authoritarians act, prescribing their will and beliefs on other people, not just doing it with physical force, but with mental force as well.

It can look so, but i think it is not right.
RP is also an authority, and though I understood he would let his students look for themselves and think, he also taught, so this means that he would let his students think around known elements, like what has been stated by research. No teacher can let his students reinvent too many wheels!
Too many young people want to reinvent the wheel too soon. Teacher need some author-itarianism, so that student accept what is stated until then know all parts of a topic. Then they can have more accurate thinking.
In the east, they had gurus for this reason: accept to do something under an authority, and then by practise you will understand something by your experiment!!
Authority in a way, goes with the self-experimentation!
When you have a real teacher, you should do what is stated, and experiment what you feel when doing it, instead of asking and wanting an oral explanation of everything before doing it. There things that have to be understood after, by practise, by experience. And you do not understand it if you do not do it right as you have been told to do. And there is always enough room for experimentation. I have done twice a course just because I wanted to do it all while knowing the end!
"The method of true knowledge is experiment"
Experiment what you are told until you understand enough to decide safely what can be changed.

 

[sladerunner69]

He does not make definite blanket statements, has never said "individualism is very bad", and your views on him are nothing but a strawman. When he generalizes, he usually says he is doing so.

My apologies, I didn't you realize you had personally absorbed every second of Jordan Peterson material available on the internet. So I guess this interview must not be real then? I guess he was dubbed over by the editors when he says that thing?
steven crowder jordan peterson - Bing video

Labeling someone's argument a strawman has to be the oldest trick in the internet-psuedo-philosopher's book. Every come across the Joe Rogan crowd? They will literally make that claim indiscriminately on anyone who criticizes him.

 

[sladerunner69]

It can look so, but i think it is not right.
RP is also an authority, and though I understood he would let his students look for themselves and think, he also taught, so this means that he would let his students think around known elements, like what has been stated by research. No teacher can let his students reinvent too many wheels!
Too many young people want to reinvent the wheel too soon. Teacher need some author-itarianism, so that student accept what is stated until then know all parts of a topic. Then they can have more accurate thinking.
In the east, they had gurus for this reason: accept to do something under an authority, and then by practise you will understand something by your experiment!!
Authority in a way, goes with the self-experimentation!
When you have a real teacher, you should do what is stated, and experiment what you feel when doing it, instead of asking and wanting an oral explanation of everything before doing it. There things that have to be understood after, by practise, by experience. And you do not understand it if you do not do it right as you have been told to do. And there is always enough room for experimentation. I have done twice a course just because I wanted to do it all while knowing the end!
"The method of true knowledge is experiment"
Experiment what you are told until you understand enough to decide safely what can be changed.

In the east they taught traditionally ina very authoritarian manner- and look what it has brought them. Proto-fascist societies and very rigid social castes, women who are generally opressed, few people willing to participate in progressive social issues etc. In fact I think the east is a tremendous example illustrating how tradition/conformity can go so wrong. I totally disagree that teachers can't let students "reinvent too many wheels"- first off there should be no limit to the amount of improvements made to an existing system. This is the essence of progress,- intellectual diversity, curiosity, ambition. Ray Peat never gives precise prescription about almost anything, just reccomendations. He won't even say "don't eat pufa" he simply says "my general recommendation for people is to eat to raise the metabolism"... very non-prescriptive and leaving the most room for people to come to their own choices. This individualism and self-discovery is ultimately the most important aspect of learning, I think. Creativity is much more important that obedience, otherwise no progress will ever be made. You could argue that allowing people too much freedom will create leniency for laziness and gluttony, or for the creation of worse systems and paradigms, but I think that there is a "free market" effect where the best, most effective and most beneficial ideas will shift towards becoming normalized as long as people are aware of them.

 

[pimpnamedraypeat]

You claimed more than there is no bliss meditation, a fact disproven with a five second google search. You claimed the people can't find eight hours a day to meditate, when a cursory look into how people with no jobs or part time jobs live would prove you wrong, You are either too stupid to conceive of what an argument consists of or utterly dishonest. It is hardly a mystery why someone like you can not understand Peterson's arguments.

I never even used the word bliss. I said it would be boring and high impossible for most people to meditate for 8 hours a day. why are we still arguing about something so minor?
Let's get to the meat of this disagreement.

Peterson is a hack. He has nothing interesting to say. I listened to that Joe Rogan interview and when I think back I can't remember one point he made expect that it is possible for the average college student to be turned into a sociopathic Nazi through mind control and indoctrination.

How insightful. I've seen c-rated horror movies that made that same point with greater effect.

This schmuck regurgitates random
points and factoids he's picked up from his vast reading and yea it sounds nice you know why? Because someone else has done all the heavy lifting for him. But the second he tried to come up with an original thought he becomes totally incomprehensible - it's like wtf is this guy talking about - talk about a bad thinker.

But peterson isn't a thinker. He's a regurgitator. He's a conman. He just repeats what other have said better than him and leave his sources on the cutting room floor.

Jordan Peterson is the human version of a psychology today article. Which explains why suckers like you like him so much. He's prole chow for the intellectual srivers who want to feel smarter than they really are.

Find me a Peterson video where he's saying something insightful I dare you. Telling college students they need to eat more and to stop procrastination, oh what a sage!

This guy is all presentation. He spouts stupid ***t in a well worded, officious manner and wraps it up in this breathless, excited tone like he's saying something groundbreaking. He's a showman for the people who consider themselves too smart for t.v.

But even then he's jumping on a bandwagon. Even in his flaws this man is a facsimile. Steve jobs proved that presentation > substance when he walked on stage and made thousand of people orgasm over the next phone that was just like the last one. But Peterson does one ever better. He doesn't need a product. Hes discovered that if he phrases it just right, people will treat his verbal droppings like they're the new iPhone.

 

[Xisca]

In the east they taught traditionally ina very authoritarian manner- and look what it has brought them. Proto-fascist societies and very rigid social castes, women who are generally opressed, few people willing to participate in progressive social issues etc. In fact I think the east is a tremendous example illustrating how tradition/conformity can go so wrong. I totally disagree that teachers can't let students "reinvent too many wheels"- first off there should be no limit to the amount of improvements made to an existing system. This is the essence of progress,- intellectual diversity, curiosity, ambition. Ray Peat never gives precise prescription about almost anything, just reccomendations. He won't even say "don't eat pufa" he simply says "my general recommendation for people is to eat to raise the metabolism"... very non-prescriptive and leaving the most room for people to come to their own choices. This individualism and self-discovery is ultimately the most important aspect of learning, I think. Creativity is much more important that obedience, otherwise no progress will ever be made. You could argue that allowing people too much freedom will create leniency for laziness and gluttony, or for the creation of worse systems and paradigms, but I think that there is a "free market" effect where the best, most effective and most beneficial ideas will shift towards becoming normalized as long as people are aware of them.

1st let me state that I have taught in fields where a being would either suffer or even die if a mistake was made....
This makes a big difference with other fields where I would be less authoritarian. Also, there are ways to be authoritarian or to explain that you have to, and that you will be open to explanation AFTER the necessary is done.

That being said, also, though I am not a specialist of eastern countries, I have some clue that the caste problem was mainly that the outouchables were outcasts. And the caste system existed when there was no school, and then it was much simpler for children to learn from their families and environment.

It makes me come to the point that I do agree with the very experimental way of learning, when you have time and when children are around working adults. I live in a place where some people have had this experience at least during holidays, and some are actually working easily in something they were pure OBSERVERS of, as children who did not even make the effort of learning anything, just being around parents or grand-parents.
Teaching is increasingly difficult because children do not have enough opportunities to be observers, and also they have too much opportunities to be around a sad school system.
Most people are traumatized by their teaching history, and thus want to learn and not be taught!
And I want to teach when the result of what is done has a consequence for me... I am not paid for some teaching I do to youngsters who want to learn things about living in nature, and I do not accept that it results in breaking tools etc. When you experiment alone, you make mistakes, and pupils do not pay for the repair, if repair is possible... So, let's not reduce to school, but open to life examples.

hope you can see the openess I speak about, as it includes creativity, but a creativity that can use all the details that have been learned before. You can be more creative when you know many options, so that you can combine them! Be it the wheel or other inventions, the richness of progress comes from teaching what others have found, AND then permit to beat the master and have time to go further! By the time you would have reinvented the wheel, you have time and art to invent much more. Skill comes from this, assimilate what is known, plus combine with enough art and creativity so that your master becomes like a beginner....

And I do maintain that there are fields where you have to learn let's say 4 things, and each is necessary to understand the others. You have to practise with a certain guideline until you have gone around the 4. Then the master for SURE has to let you experiment so that you can become more creative!

No, for me freedom do not create laziness. It can create accidents in some fields, I said it before. Also there is the freedom of the teacher, and I listen very often to the teacher answer a question by "if you can wait, this I will tell later". I speak about a teacher who master and knows how to teach. The little spiritual stories we know about in the west are this sort of example, when the zen master asks the pupil to do something, and by doing so, the experience will bring the understanding. This I said is when authority crosses and joins free experimentation! Authority should be remembered as coming from author, and abuse should not be named authority.

The best example where freedom leads to everything but happyness is when you are free to buy and consume in our world. This freedom is no more freedom!
The best example is when a master was teaching about happyness... You cannot teach by any other way than by putting the pupil in the right situation to experiment! But the master controls safety and adequacy of the teaching situation.
The pursuit of happyness has all to do with the modern concept of freedom! Freedom in a sense is the bu**s**t that makes us sad. When you want to do something and do it freely, what makes you want to do it? Then we could go just crazy because we cannot be really free!! If you can be happy when you do what you have to, then you have more freedom on the essential: your own internal feelings.

 

[mangoes]

@Hugh Johnson Talking about bliss meditation, how does the average person really achieve it? Coz I've been trying for years and my mind just never wants to shut up...

 

[Xisca]

Do not make it shut up. It tells something of you, it translates your inner sensations: go to the body and the felt-sense.

 

[Regina]

And what do we make of :
http://nypost.com/2017/06/30/i-love...e&tse_id=INF_08392730604611e790011d41b85aaeb5

 

[schultz]

And what do we make of :
http://nypost.com/2017/06/30/i-love...e&tse_id=INF_08392730604611e790011d41b85aaeb5

lol

 

[haidut]

@haidut

Any advice on how to set up goals then?

What should be the "purpose of life"?

Aren't those things automatically discovered, when in good health?

"Be good" as in the old Aristotelian moto may be a good start. Spontaneity and good deeds, usually in service of others or at least in regards to something you consider meaningful also helps a lot. Peat said once that "we live for and in others", so as long as you are doing something you feel is purposeful I think it gives meaning and ultimately happiness. Good health is also a prerequisite. It is hard to be happy if you feel unhealthy. That does not mean a person should become a health nut, but at least consciously trying to make good choices tends to "reduce entropy and improve health", again as Peat said.
I think it differs from person to person, but I am pretty sure acting like a robot, dispassionately in pursuit of money or another meaningless goal is guaranteed not to make a person happy. The business type wearing a suit and keeping detailed history of activities trying to predict the future from past records, is a good example of somebody not on the path to happiness.

 

[DaveFoster]

The business type wearing a suit and keeping detailed history of activities trying to predict the future from past records, is a good example of somebody not on the path to happiness.

Well said. Maybe our "pursuit of happiness" leads to dissatisfaction because the parameters of our understanding have been warped by a dominant cultural narrative.

Modernity dissuades any certainty regarding sources for human meaning, but traditional cultures universally held similar experiences in high regard, such as paternal, familial and romantic love; an impactful role in one's family and community; a shared spirituality; and lastly a sense of origin and identity (often related to one's values, spirituality, geography and history.)

The specific context for meaning varied by each community, but the fundamental common facilitators become further distant from our lifestyles each passing day, replaced instead by a "blank slate," anomic, multicultural nihilism that treats humans as an economic means in a loosely-defined yet dogmatically-pursued progression toward "something better."

Hopefully, birthrates will continue to decline in the West, so as to save future generations from the same degree of suffering.