Philosophy Now Forum

When I go for a walk in nature all the worries and resentments accompany me like a mob of hounds, I can tell you.

My newest experiment that seems to work:
negative thoughts are a bad habit and can be combatted by something positive and not quite pleasant.
I count during the day the moments when I indulge in negative thinking and later at home pull at the streching machine a number of times and so my biceps grow.
So the negative thinking is transformed into biceps.
When the negative thoughts show up I immediately think about the healthy punishment (I hope to shorten the attack of the negative thought that way) and thus hope to recondition myself.

Does it make any sense to anyone ?

duszek wrote: Italians call "sfogo" the practice of taking frustration out. Can we create a good English word for it ?

How about "venting" or the more old-fashioned "catharsis"? Either way, I feel it's far out of proportion to the actual (real-life-based) frustration or pent-up emotion people have. I think they're told by popular media that they ought to let their frustrations out, not repress their negative feelings, etc. or they'll accumulate and make you ill. I believe a little repression (aka self-control; good manners) is not such an unhealthy thing.

My newest experiment that seems to work:
negative thoughts are a bad habit and can be combatted by something positive and not quite pleasant.
I count during the day the moments when I indulge in negative thinking and later at home pull at the streching machine a number of times and so my biceps grow.
So the negative thinking is transformed into biceps.
When the negative thoughts show up I immediately think about the healthy punishment (I hope to shorten the attack of the negative thought that way) and thus hope to recondition myself.

Does it make any sense to anyone ?

Absolutely! You are turning frustration (which is a kind of failure) into a kind of success. There may be many other ways to do this, both physical and mental, customized to each person's needs and temperament. That's self-empowerment; taking control. Probably the best therapy in the world... even better than falling in love or getting a puppy.

• "Catharsis" is a great word.

• I've personally never benefited from traditional meditation. However, some of the benefits meditation is supposed to bring, I have gotten from contemplation. It has done me quite well. I wonder if we should classify contemplation as a kind of meditation.

duszek wrote:When I go for a walk in nature all the worries and resentments accompany me like a mob of hounds, I can tell you.

Try it without clothes on while puffing a joint and muttering quatrains from the Rubaiyat. It never misses.

Risto wrote:When I read the title, I come to think of a celebrity who appears to have everything, yet kills himself or herself. I would say that, yes, that person had pretty much everything that could affect happiness in some way.

How much do we know about the private lives of celebrities? We see what the publicists tell us and the glossy magazines show. Yes, that movie actor or singer had lots of shiny possessions that we might have envied - but we have no idea what relationships or desires they gave up to acquire those things. Yes they were god-looking and photogenic, but we don't know how much self-denial and daily physical discomfort it cost them to maintain that sleek commercial package. Indeed, we don't ever know what they have and what they lack; we judge them on the most superficial surface ... and maybe that's contributing to their unhappiness. (In some cases, of course, it's just clinical depression or bipolar disorder, like any waitress or car salesman might suffer.)

Sonja Ljubomirsky et al have claimed in their research that around 50% of subjective happiness is determined by genes, 10% by circumstances and 40% by intentional activity.

I assume this is a statistic compiled from many statistics, rather than a direct observation of individuals. Because, the day after someone's told that they have a cancer with only 15% survival rate, even after a prolonged and distinctly unpleasant course of treatments, a lot more than 10% of his unhappiness is circumstantial, even if he comes from a long line of Pollyannas.
However, once embarked on treatment, some people cope better, endure longer and recover faster than others, and that's probably down to heredity and temperament, as well as their support structure and intentional activity.

One intentional activity could be thinking.

I suspect it's the most decisive one. And it can be learned, reinforced and practiced.

A very helpful thing would be to improve metacognition and become more aware of one's thinking. That's perhaps one goal of meditation. You see your thoughts appearing just as they are and you notice them without any judgment. If the thought is, "I'm such an incompetent person", you could learn to notice it, name it, and choose a decent coping mechanism such as, for example, to go for a walk in nature.

Excellent approach! I've seen it work on patients with chronic pain, depression and distressing home situations.

Jaded Sage wrote:• "Catharsis" is a great word.

• I've personally never benefited from traditional meditation. However, some of the benefits meditation is supposed to bring, I have gotten from contemplation. It has done me quite well. I wonder if we should classify contemplation as a kind of meditation.

Absolutely. Cogitation, reflection, rumination, daydreaming, even brooding... just so you pay attention to the content of your mind. We tend to carry a lot of unexamined junk.

Skip wrote:

Jaded Sage wrote:• "Catharsis" is a great word.

• I've personally never benefited from traditional meditation. However, some of the benefits meditation is supposed to bring, I have gotten from contemplation. It has done me quite well. I wonder if we should classify contemplation as a kind of meditation.

Absolutely. Cogitation, reflection, rumination, daydreaming, even brooding... just so you pay attention to the content of your mind. We tend to carry a lot of unexamined junk.

I like rumination. I've used that word before. Also musing. Not so much brooding though. I'm not sure it helps to 'think deeply about something that makes one unhappy' according to Apple's dictionary.

Skip wrote:Absolutely. Cogitation, reflection, rumination, daydreaming, even brooding... just so you pay attention to the content of your mind. We tend to carry a lot of unexamined junk.

I've always been a very keen gardener and for most of my life I've spent at least a couple of hours of every day in my garden. Nowadays I've gone full on with the new lingo and I call it "de-fragging the hard drive".

In the first place, I don't believe there is anyone who had everything, especially not everything they could want. There may be a few people who are satisfied with what they have, but most still want more or better. Wanting more or better doesn't always make you unhappy.

In the 2nd place i don't believe that those who don't have everything they could want are really unhappy. Most people will find a way to be happy with what they have. Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.

thedoc wrote: Happiness is wanting what you have, not having what you want.

Well put. When we want something we don't have we are confronted with two choices. We can either set strategies in place to achieve what we want or we can stop wanting it.

Ah, the western Buddha! Ya know what's funny about reason in this instance? It doesn't help.

Jaded Sage wrote:I speak from experience when I say the sense of the undeniable reason takes time to sink in and become effective.

You're quite right. Contentment is an acquired talent and it certainly gets easier as we get older.

Obvious Leo wrote:Contentment is an acquired talent.

Very interesting and innovative!

I wonder if contentment is a talent or a skill. It it a skill if it is acquired. It is a talent if it is unacquired. Let's say 'talent' can be 'refined' and 'skill' can be 'improved.' I bet it is both. I think it might be the case that when talent is refined and skill is improved that they end up merging together. I suppose the real question is how to do that.

I think contentment, as it comes with age, stems more from acceptance. Once you accept your limitations, including your longevity, you become content by necessity.