Meaning VS Happiness 4/18/2013

What is it that I mean when I ask Is it better to suffer with meaning or to be happy without it? Let me
use an example. Of course there is the saying "ignorance is bliss," because sometimes learning the truth
about things can be depressing, but people find a meaning in the search for truth. Is studying, working
hard, and living a meaningful life the better option over being lazy but being content with life? Is
struggling with ambitions to achieve but always living in anxiety better than living the Diogenes lifestyle?
Does it depend on the person? I guess some people can only strive for meaning and that happiness is
just by accident or luck? Or maybe happiness isn't the right word, but then how do you define
happiness? Maybe I mean contentment.

I hope that despite my confused ramblings, I am still able to elucidate you to what I am trying to get at.
Is it more important to be happy/content with nothing or to suffer and find meaning in trying to achieve
more? I suppose many will say it is more important to strive for progress, seeing as it has brought us the
internet, computers, cars, etc. and we find joy in these things, but if we could find joy in not achieving
anything, though it sounds depressing to us, would that be just as good or not better? If humanity made
no progress, but was happy with that, would that be just as good? Is a pig wallowing in mud better than
depressed Socrates?

Now though, I've brought up two different things: The individual path and the path of all of humanity.
So, I guess that means either/or can be discussed. Surely, because this isnt an ideal society, that the
right option is to aim for progress, because those that are content without it dont have to have it, but
what if everyone could be happy without it? This sounds pretty depressing, because nothing would ever
change, it would be eternal recurrence with nothing worth mentioning being written in history books
that dont exist. It is easy to look at someone elses life and imagine it is depressing based on your
standards, but are high standards a good thing?
When you improve your standards it is hard to go back to accepting what you accepted before. Look at
videogames, I remember when PlayStation Original graphics use to blow my mind when I was still in
elementary school. Now, most of them look so blocky and ugly as to be near unplayable. You dont
really realize how ugly a thing is until you experience something more beautiful. When that happens,
imagine how depressed you will be if you are thrust back onto the old thing due to literal or figurative
poverty. Most of us, Id say, enjoy improving our situation and I think that is because we find a meaning
in it, like we are achieving an objective goal of life.
I think this means that when we achieve something great that we get a temporary high from it, but then
it becomes standard, a standard you have to maintain. When we fall down a few pegs, it hurts us, it
crushes us, but then we adjust, it becomes standard. So, you fluctuate repeatedly, looking forward to
your next high. It seems unhealthy to live such an emotionally unstable existence though. I think there
is a value to those that dont care what they achieve and are just happy living however they are. People
that find value in the small things and not caring about progress. However, maybe we feel these people
hold us back, those of us that do depend on advancing. Maybe we depend on them, because we
depend on people to bring us novelties. We want to achieve greatness, but we end up being mediocre,
we get stuck in the middle. So, we depend on great scientists and inventors to bring us free progress
that we dont really earn and then we criticize those that dont even strive for mediocrity.
Maybe Epicurus was right when he said that to make a man happy, do not add to his riches, but take
away from his desires. Maybe it is better to be at the bottom of the pit, with no lower area to fall to,
than standing precariously on a branch above it with hope of escaping out of your misery, always
climbing higher so that the fall will always be that much worse when it does happen.
-Greg dratsab Huffman

(4/19/2014) Response on Philosophy Now forum:
This might be a little bit of a tangent, but I didnt know where else to post this, so I decided to put it as a
note to this work, since it was the closest.

[quoting Greylorn Ell, some possibly relevant discussion omitted]
"IOW, few humans are qualified to have a purpose of their own. Your remarks suggest that you believe
yourself to be one of those few. So I'm curious. Is it possible to create a purpose that is somehow only
your own, a purpose not subject to those of others, or of external circumstances?"
I am admittedly a determinist, so I won't say that we don't have constraints. The reason we were
created by nature was survival + replication, however, just like an employee might be hired for a specific
purpose, but given a lot of leeway, so man may have came about to survive and reproduce, but be given
a lot of leeway in regards to what he really wants to craft out of the free time. Once man achieves his
basic necessities, then he can move on to what motivates him. This motivation is given by nature, but
man is a product of nature, and everything man crafts is also a product of nature in the same way.
However, unlike an employer, nature really doesn't give a shit whether you survive or die, or reproduce
or not. Survival is necessary to accomplish one's own meaning in life, but reproduction is a mere
compulsion that can be prevented via the loopholes of contraceptives, thanks to the genius of man.
If man is capable of living a life of happiness on drugs and being a druggie doing nothing, more power to
him (as long as he doesn't infringe on the rights of others). The problem is that most men, maybe none,
can be happy living that life. They will become depressed and lash out at society. Thus, they failed to live
a life of meaning, and failed to develop a goal for their life. However, if you set yourself a meaningful
goal such as becoming an artist, architect, pioneer, writer, etc. and you achieve that goal, you have a
higher chance of living happily, and that really is the goal isn't it? If you still aren't happy, then keep
setting new goals for yourself. Stagnation seems to be the quickest way to depression and drug-
dependence.

(8/21/2014) Chat with Alexander Sabol (aka Rice)
I was having a nice chat with my pal Rice about stuff, and I ended up mentioning something
similar to him, and then I went on a rant about how ones consciousness wants/needs are often
opposed to the needs of the world. For example, would you rather be a blissful bum or a tortured CEO?
The world would see the CEO as more successful, but the bum would have a happier consciousness, and
isnt that what true success is? Finding happiness. To the world, the CEO is a success, and provides for
their economy, whereas the bum does nothing for them, but doesnt need them. It is doubtful that the
CEO would want to have the bums life if offered, but why is that?
I believe it is because we cannot imagine the effect of happiness without any of its conventional
causes. It would be like asking a fat kid who is obsessed with ice cream if he would like to live in a world
of happiness, only it is deprived of ice cream. Speaking of, didnt they do an episode of the Simpsons
like that? Where Homer finds a perfect world, but it doesnt have donuts then when he abandons the
world it starts raining donuts anyway, I digress. Imagine a world full of nothing but pain, and complete
immorality, would you want to live in such a world? But, what if everyone there was a sadomasochist?
You cant imagine it would lead to happiness, because none of the things that trigger your happiness are
met. You cannot imagine having new triggers.