Changes while being content

[Perceiving exists.]

When we wake up, we don't wanna get out of bed.
When we need to sleep, we don't wanna go to bed.
When we need to shower, we don't wanna take a bath.
When we are in bath, we don't wanna get out.

Am i wrong, or do you recognize something in the above?

What makes us content (comfy if you like), and why (do we not want to change if we are)?
Why is this good or verse? Is it recognizable in (non-human)nature and perhaps evolution for that matter?


"A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

- Albert Einstein.

[Skip]

It's amazing how fast you can get out of even the most comfortable bed when you smell baking cinnamon buns or the coziest of baths when there is an attractive date waiting.

It's all a question of motivation. We leave a state of contentment for the expectation of something more pleasurable, more rewarding, more worth having. Why should we desire change, if it's not an improvement?

[Perceiving exists.]

Why should we desire change, if it's not an improvement?

I do not think one can be motivated for any other than such cause, but maybe the higher cause is not to want the change but to hold on to being satisfied.
Better is not always better. Never the less, i like your examples

A balance of values, some appearing more, some appearing less, and some appearing as they are?

[Blaggard]

Tolkien once described orcs as a race who were always unsatisfied, always in some sort of angst, and always trying to find some sort of comfort and often failing, they always had an itch they could not scratch even when they were relatively happy; hence at odds with the world in as much as they were the opposite of Elves (Elves being completely in harmony with both life, existence, and the world but lacking free will: hence). The orcs were created by the dark lord Morgoth, I say created they were just twisted Elves, only God or Eru as Tolkien called him has the secret fire, that which can create life. It was though only through being driven by fear or oppression orcs could even be made to move in a direction conducive to some sort of social order. I often think he was talking about the raw state of man, I think we are all pretty much born in that state, and what drives us is a will to overcome that state of affairs. We can't probably become more than orcs as we stand, but we can at least keep their nature at bay.

I think no one is ever really satisfied even when on a sea of satisfaction surrounded by all they could ever be satisfied by, as the Chinese say, let all your dreams come true, except one... wise words. Happiness is relative, an imposter, and fleeting. Nonetheless it is what we strive for by surmounting our fears.

I think if you want to put it in terms of evolution you have to say contentedness leads to complacency which is less favourable to adaptability. This makes sense, if you are always evolving mentally or physically and never safe you are more likely to survive when the conditions are not so favourable. There's of course a caveat with humans we mostly over the last 300,000 years have only evolved mentally (well sometimes physically but you get the point our genes across the board are fairly homogeneous), although barely evolved mentally probably, and because of culture/civilisation, but we should not become complacent none the less. Change is genetically fit in either the other animal kingdom or our animal kingdom, it is what keeps us alive, barely at times but on this planet at least.

[Perceiving exists.]

I often think he was talking about the raw state of man, I think we are all pretty much born in that state

And i think, i agree. Its a nice comparison.

There was a Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi, who talked about one of his dreams;

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

And later i came across this;

One does not catch a butterfly, no, let it go. If she doesn't comes back, she was never yours to begin with, but if she does come back she will be yours forever.

Im sure you do understand

You said; "Happiness is relative,", but i think happiness can be absolute too, just like life is.


Regarding what you added i think its time to stop moving forward and back up a bit to take a break?

[Blaggard]

I often think he was talking about the raw state of man, I think we are all pretty much born in that state

And i think, i agree. Its a nice comparison.

There was a Chinese philosopher, Zhuangzi, who talked about one of his dreams;

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.

And later i came across this;

One does not catch a butterfly, no, let it go. If she doesn't comes back, she was never yours to begin with, but if she does come back she will be yours forever.

Im sure you do understand
"Happiness is relative,"
I think happiness can be absolute.


Regarding what you added i think its time to stop moving forward and back up a bit to take a break?

Yeah sorry and I certainly do understand what you meant. Sometimes I think a little faster than I can write.

Have a break have a kit kat.

Those are nice poetic quotes about what it means to be a person, they sum up very well how we are, there are many ways to skin a cat as the English say.

Are you Chinese by the way Perceiving or Eastern at least? I ask only as a matter of perspective.

[Perceiving exists.]

Yeah sorry and I certainly do understand what you meant. Sometimes I think a little faster than I can write.
Have a break have a kit kat.

No need to be sorry sometimes i too write faster than i think

there are many ways to skin a cat, indeed, and there are many ways to die, just like there are many ways to live.

"Are you Chinese by the way perceiving or Eastern at least? I ask only as a matter of perspective."

No, im just your ordinary average 'white guy', i guess like yourself?

[Skip]

I like the orc example. There are people who hate contentment and are always looking for excitement. It's all right, as long as all they do is break their own necks, trying to jump fourteen buses with a motorcycle, but they also start wars and seduce other men's wives and cut down perfectly sound cherry trees, just for the challenge. We need to breed that out of the gene-pool. So, don't let your daughters marry snow-boarders or missionaries, right?

[The Voice of Time]

It's all about your expectations, and when you have sour expectations you immobilize yourself. You don't want to get up if you've not had sufficient sleep (but when you've had enough you could in fact look forward to get up, I sleep a lot so I experience this occasionally) or if your room is cold. In a shower you don't want to get out if the room's cold or if you for instance have duties to attend to afterwards and which you want to wait with, so you excuse yourself with a longer shower.

[Blaggard]

I like the orc example. There are people who hate contentment and are always looking for excitement. It's all right, as long as all they do is break their own necks, trying to jump fourteen buses with a motorcycle, but they also start wars and seduce other men's wives and cut down perfectly sound cherry trees, just for the challenge. We need to breed that out of the gene-pool. So, don't let your daughters marry snow-boarders or missionaries, right?

Quite the opposite I think, we need the doers as much as we need those people who sit in caves in the dark talking about how fire is impossible to make. The point I think is satisfaction leads to stagnation, some people can attain it but some people don't and can't seem able to, this to me seems as evolutionary fit to animals as to humans. One of the definitions of life is irritability, the ability to change things when you are in less favourable conditions usually by movement out of the less favourable condition such as in plants: phototropism etc, and humans getting up and walking out. We need a broad spectrum of people not a homogeneous mass of people. All we need is to get rid of that Orkish self destructive side, which says mine is right by the power of my arm, I will only fear that which can defeat me, and co-operation only comes at the end of a whip or coercion. The slave mentality that leads people to gleefully commit or at least attempt genocide in any number of ways for Sauron the Necromancer our lord and mighty god.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9D0OLM0fqQ

[HexHammer]

When we wake up, we don't wanna get out of bed.
When we need to sleep, we don't wanna go to bed.
When we need to shower, we don't wanna take a bath.
When we are in bath, we don't wanna get out.

Am i wrong, or do you recognize something in the above?

What makes us content (comfy if you like), and why (do we not want to change if we are)?
Why is this good or verse? Is it recognizable in (non-human)nature and perhaps evolution for that matter?


"A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future."

- Albert Einstein.

We get complacent because we don't have a high motivation that drives us, because our situation may allow us for selfendulgence.

If we have been born piss poor or in religious sect like Amish, we would have been raised in strict ways and now allowed ourselves such luxuries.

Einsten doesn't understand psychology, people with foresight will take account for the coming future.

[Perceiving exists.]

"If we have been born piss poor or in religious sect like Amish, we would have been raised in strict ways and now allowed ourselves such luxuries."
Condemned to be free, is not the solution either yeah?

Einsten doesn't understand psychology, people with foresight will take account for the coming future.

are you, trying to be funny?
Such a fool, this Einstein we are speaking of.
this world has gotten worse than i thought.

tell me im wrong, and tell me why

And let me rephrase that quote for you;
A satisfied man is too happy with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Do those who see the future know, the past hasn't happened yet?





[Edited by iMod]
hey iMod, maybe provide some reason too ?
makes it understandable in this already in so many ways lacking of understanding-world?
thx