Saying that death is straighforwardly bad? Nah, that's too obvious, so it's a stupid and unwise opinion. The smart and wise opinion must be that death is good, actually.

I'm not convinced that there's anything more to discuss. It's all this kind of trivial contrarianism. Attempts to signal intelligence by playing devil's advocate - "what if bad thing... good?"

> For myself I want to know why everyone seems to agree that happiness is the goal.

Saying happiness is the goal isn't a problem. Saying that not being happy is some sort of failure or problem which must be remedied as soon as possible definitely is.

Life has ups and downs, and in the end you die. Bearing the burden of unhappiness with equanimity is part of a good and wise life.

Which is why a lot of good advice isn't "How to be happy" but "How to handle that."

The idea is that having a desire for things that don't happen is sure to cause you unhappiness. "Wish" is maybe a bit of a bad term to use there, but it also works- don't hope for things to happen, just accept what happens.

You can still work to make things happen, of course, but don't put any emotional investment into one result. Maybe you try to make your favorite dinner and get it. Great. Maybe you try to make it and the stove breaks and you can't. Okay. If you focus on the difference between the thing you wanted and the thing that happened, you'll just make yourself miserable.

“Seems a tautology, a restatement…” ironic isn’t it hahah. I mean no harm, just made me smile

I think the word "wish" is a bit loaded in my head which is why I struggled with that proverb. You can't "wish" for something to happen "as is" - Isn't that the opposite of the point of the wish? If I buy a lottery ticket, "I wish I win it" rather than proactively "wish the things happen the way they happen" - because they will "always happen the way they happen" irregardless of whether I wish for it or not. Now not being dissapointed by the outcome and our relationship with reality is where I think it is, but the word Wish just doesn't resonate with me.

I get what you and /u/hxub are saying, it's more of a "Dissapointed wishes are seeds for grudges" I guess

Stoicism sounds nice in theory, and perhaps to an extent it is, but in practice I find "bear with every suffering and try to control your emotions" to not be fruitful. One shouldnt try to surpress everything and at times should be angry or hateful. Tailoring your personality to be "ok" with everything feels very hollow. Who are you as a person at the end?

But why do anything if your only goal is for things to happen as they will?

It's not wishing for it to actually happen. It's wishing that everything happens as it actually will. In other words, not wishing the thing you were wishing for in the 1st place, but for whatever life throws at you

I think it is essentially about fostering acceptance

hahahahahaha everyone is on antidepressants

>“Don’t seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will—then your life will flow well.”

What's the difference between wishin for it to happen as I want it to, and wishing for it to actually happen? I'm struggling with this quote

It's a statement of fact, there isn't a single first rate mind that is born that way, they're all built and developed over time. Perhaps my wording was off, and that mature and immature minds would be more fitting.

This is, hands down, the most pretentious remark I've ever read.

His book sounds vert interesting but I can't read spanish unfortunately :/

>I'd move mirth to the first one

Interesting. I'm not a native English speaker and the word mirth came into my vocabulary via G.K.Chesterton (Christian thinker) where it is most definitely in the second category. But looking at the dictionary, yeah, I think you're right. Must be a particular use of the word in Chesterton.

May you live to see what you strive for.

A lengthy lifetime without happiness.

(Edit: It's been a long week. I apologize for this. Hopefully we all find what we are looking for in unironic ways.)

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That helps, thanks.

And yes, the categories make sense, though I'd move mirth to the first one. And I agree the 3rd is the most important. Society over the individual. Normally that aligns with the 2nd, and it sucks to live when it doesn't.

Whenever this discussion comes up, I get the feeling that 'happiness' must be defined beforehand. I say this because you seem to be talking about two forms of what may be called happiness. There is happiness as in joy, excitement, pleasure; and then there's happiness as in mirth, fulfillment, contentment, peace. The interviewee touches on this extremely briefly:

>There are two types of happiness: lowercase and uppercase.

He goes on to say

>But since the 18th century we have become aware of another kind, a social, public happiness, the only one in which we can agree, which leads us to ask: in what model do we want to live?

So he's addressing mostly this third kind of happiness, and hence why he does not cover the distinction you're addressing. It's this 'social happiness' that has become trendy in his opinion.

He's not saying anything remotely new, by the way. He's basically echoing Augustine, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and so on down the existential tree...

Second rate minds want to always be happy, first rate minds want to know why

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Fashionable? That seems like an odd label. For myself I want to know why everyone seems to agree that happiness is the goal. When did that happen, and why don't we ever rethink it? I like happiness the same way I like sweets, and I don't think it's good for us. Happiness comes and goes unpredictably, so even when you catch some, you can't make it stay. For me there are much more important things than happiness. I prefer contentment. That's something you can work towards and hold. I find it much more satisfying than happiness.

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