Isn't it weird how every step you take wipes away another persons?
How the place you are sitting on has already been sat on?
How the air you're breathing has already been inhaled?
How every single syllable you speak have been spoken by another?
How every color you see has been seen already?
How each noise you hear has been heard before?
How all the feelings you've had have already been felt?
How everything you think has already been thought by someone else?
-E.W.
That seems like the better of the two and what I'm trying to achieve. To what extent are the damns not given? If you had the option to either make people slightly happier and love you for it, or a lot happier and hate you for it, which would you take? What about slightly happier and end up a hitler in their eyes(assuming the net happiness increase outweights the decrease in happiness from their hatred of you)? Another question, if you don't mind, do you value your own happiness the same as you value other's?
I think we have different conceptions of happiness. I could give some sort of transient happiness to someone else, a new computer, a meal or $100 bucks. It's a sort of happiness. If you can't be a happy ditch digger than you don't know how to be happy. I've known poor happy idiots and others who were brilliant or rich who were extremely unhappy. Happiness is at best a personal affliction. Some people will never achieve it, either through a lack of self examination or a lack of suitable brain chemistry. A few people will have such lives of pain that it will never be for them. The rest of us have to find a path that leaves us a peace with who we are and achieve some quality of understanding in our faults and failures and learn how to cope with the problem of pain. I don't depend on others to make me happy, I don't depend on possessions to make me happy. Probably relates to not caring a lot about what other people think. Our society is pretty dependent on people caring about what others think. Do you have the whitest whites, is your fully functional but old car making you look like a schmuck, do you have an I phone? What's everybody thinking about you, are you measuring up. Stay unhappy, feel needful, buy more. I don't have any answers to any of these things that matter. I'm not looking for people to love me more than they do for me being me. I would be OK with being hated if I did something that I thought it was the right thing to do. I'm certainly not capable or interested in maximizing societal utility to my detriment, I lead a little life that is of little overall consequence. At least my interactions and relationships have a chance at authenticity. I'm not putting on a show and am inviting people to engage with me on a real level. I like to have fun social interactions and am mostly enthusiastic about getting to know people. I do a lot of bullshitting for the money on the job but am just as willing to drop the facade if the people I'm dealing with are down with it. The show is an acceptable thing for me in exchange of filthy lucer. I value my families happiness and am willing to sacrifice some of my happiness for their benefit. As I don't believe that I can make others happy in any real sense, I certainly don't spend a lot of time worrying about weather I'm going around making everyone happy all the time. People are responsible for their own feelings, you only impose feeling upon yourself, you are responsible for your reactions to the way other people treat you. If you saw the nastiest review I ever received on Yelp it'd drop your jaw but I pretty much just gave it a dry chuckle and was confirmed in my estimation that the guy who left was just as an unhappy nasty prick as he seemed during the interaction that inspired his review. I'm more worried about being a pro-social (as opposed to being anti-social) person than making people happy. I'm more likely to tell someone they are a bastard if they are abusing a clerk or a bus driver in my presence, even if it causes a scene and ruffles some feathers. I think it's important to treat everyone with as much respect and tolerance as you can muster, even if they are a bit difficult as long as they aren't acting with bad intentions. I don't think it's important to worry about weather they are unhappy. I'm working hard to help my five year old understand that possessions and fulfilling material desires isn't what makes her happy. I'm trying to help her understand that she isn't responsible for and doesn't need to suffer mental anguish when people don't give her the love that she desires. I want her to understand that she is in charge of her own feelings and that the best she can do make an honest attempt to be a good friend who likes to enjoy other peoples company. It's a hard and strange world for a five year old, bombarded by advertising which pushes all their buttons of desire, wanting to best friends with other kids who attentions are sometimes fickle. All you can really do is help them try and find a center and some self worth and the ability to self examine.If you had the option to either make people slightly happier and love you for it, or a lot happier and hate you for it, which would you take? What about slightly happier and end up a hitler in their eyes(assuming the net happiness increase outweights the decrease in happiness from their hatred of you)?
Wow, thanks for your incredibly detailed response. As much as I want to, I don't think I could fully attain as healthy an outlook as that. I've always just been someone that wants to make people happy, even if they are jerks to me/others. A happy person is a happy person, right? I don't care that much about being recognised as the source of their happiness though, an attitude which would probably cause quite a lot of distress. I'm also pretty fond of the idea of making an impact on society, but maybe that's just because I'm young. As someone who has recently been/is being parented, I think what you're working to show your daughter will be quite valuable, and I would certainly appreciate it when I'm older in her position. :)
I agree that most of these things have been done before but does that make is any less precious? Doesn't every single human being see and experience things differently? In my own opinion, everything is original from each persons own point of view.
I agree that most of these things have been done before but does that make is any less precious? Doesn't every single human being see and experience things differently? In my own opinion, everything is original from each persons own point of view.
'Original' is one of those concepts that is used to allude to variety of things in various contents. Sometimes it has grand albeit ambiguous connotations, such as when it's married with a judgement of aesthetic value (e.g. the use of colour in this painting is original). Or sometimes its as simple meaning one's own authentic work or the first iteration of something. Your questions are surrounding the latter of the definitions above, which is synonymous novelty (i.e. 'new and different from what has been known before'). As such, diagnosing your questions as an issue with 'novelty' rather 'originality' is an advantageous distinction to make as it focuses the aim. Looking to researcher called Maria Kronfeldner, she posited that there's two different types of novelty: 1. Historical novelty - Something that is novel to everyone past and present 2. Psychological novelty - Something that is novel to an individual or a group I think this is a nice way to think about it because it means that whilst a feeling of yours might not be historically novel, it can be psychologically novel. Or whilst your steps in a new place are certainly not the first time anyone has ever stepped there, they are the first time you've stepped there. And that's what should matter really. This somewhat ties in into what mk said about no-one else having your perspective. It becomes impossible for us to do anything we deem worthwhile if we become infatuated with the desire to be historically novel. Furthermore, merely being 'new and different from what has been known before' has little value unless that newness is in some way useful or progressive. This is why I think 'originality' as a value judgement means a lot more than simply being 'novel' (psychologically or historically), but this probably isn't the right context to delve deeper into that particular discussion.