>>8 I never said I'm particularly smart, though I guess I'll take the compliment. To my mind persistence is a different virtue entirely. As for why I'm not the happiest person on earth, it seems that you are misunderstanding brains. Our happiness is not primarily determined by how good our situation is or how well we're doing. A brief glance at global happiness statistics should be enough to tell you as much. They keep their respective baseline, and beyond pharmaceutical intervention there isn't very much one can do about that. I've gotten a good bit *happier*, but it's probably saner to attribute that to the general shift of neurotransmitter equilibria that comes with ageing as opposed to any particular course of action. For this reason among others, happiness is probably a pretty ill-chosen target to be aspiring to. I achieve more of my goals than the average person, and I've made myself pretty useful to others. Playing ones part in making the world nicer seems a much more fruitful path than personal bliss imo. Again: golden rule. It's what I'd want others to do.
I never said I'm particularly smart, though I guess I'll take the compliment. To my mind persistence is a different virtue entirely. As for why I'm not the happiest person on earth, it seems that you are misunderstanding brains. Our happiness is not primarily determined by how good our situation is or how well we're doing. A brief glance at global happiness statistics should be enough to tell you as much. They keep their respective baseline, and beyond pharmaceutical intervention there isn't very much one can do about that. I've gotten a good bit *happier*, but it's probably saner to attribute that to the general shift of neurotransmitter equilibria that comes with ageing as opposed to any particular course of action. For this reason among others, happiness is probably a pretty ill-chosen target to be aspiring to. I achieve more of my goals than the average person, and I've made myself pretty useful to others. Playing ones part in making the world nicer seems a much more fruitful path than personal bliss imo. Again: golden rule. It's what I'd want others to do.