Should people take life seriously or just be happy?
I would say it's a false dichotomy. To be truly happy, you have to take life seriously.
Taking life seriously doesn't mean taking every single thing you can't control seriously, of course. The wisdom of the stoics is important, but not focusing on things you can't control isn't the same as not taking life itself seriously and taking the things you can control seriously.
I became a father in 2021 after a lifetime of thinking that was impossible. I released my first book about a month before he was born. Most fathers wouldn't publish a novel length book to their son, but I felt like it was important to get started.
Being a father is one of only a few things in my life that have ever made me truly happy, one of the other things being my marriage. These two things are a big part of my life, and I take them both deadly seriously. That totally changes the calculus of things. Going outside, going for a walk, going to the park, they stop just being something you do for your own happiness, and start being something you do because you're serious about your life and that makes it important. By doing the things that aren't fun in the moment, by taking life seriously and treating it like something that matters, you do these things and fundamentally become happier because the things you care about succeed.
Meanwhile, while I got to the park with my son 7 times a week some weeks, I see we're living in ghost world. The sidewalks are empty. The parks are empty. Everywhere is empty. Where are the kids? Obviously there's a lot fewer kids now that we aren't in a baby boom, but the truth is there's still plenty of kids but nobody takes live very seriously so they're just at home playing on their electronics and watching slop videos.
In fact, I think taking life seriously and acting like it matters is how you make sure you're doing the right things and ensuring your happiness continues. Doing the right thing when nobody's watching is serious. Deferring gratification when it can pay off is serious. Raising your kids is serious. Staying connected to your wife or husband is serious. You ultimately end up with what Aristotle called eudaimonia, human flourishing. It's a deeper happiness than just being able to say you enjoyed doing something transient briefly.
I finished my second book and first novel this year. I took writing it very seriously, and spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of world could make people happy. It wasn't a world of fleeting joy and lackadaisical attitudes. It's a world rich with meaning, where people take their lives, their communities, their responsibilities seriously. It's a world where people make commitments to the people around them, and that's where they find joy and meaning. We are free, so we are free to do the right thing that makes the world a better place to live in.
I would say it's a false dichotomy. To be truly happy, you have to take life seriously.
Taking life seriously doesn't mean taking every single thing you can't control seriously, of course. The wisdom of the stoics is important, but not focusing on things you can't control isn't the same as not taking life itself seriously and taking the things you can control seriously.
I became a father in 2021 after a lifetime of thinking that was impossible. I released my first book about a month before he was born. Most fathers wouldn't publish a novel length book to their son, but I felt like it was important to get started.
Being a father is one of only a few things in my life that have ever made me truly happy, one of the other things being my marriage. These two things are a big part of my life, and I take them both deadly seriously. That totally changes the calculus of things. Going outside, going for a walk, going to the park, they stop just being something you do for your own happiness, and start being something you do because you're serious about your life and that makes it important. By doing the things that aren't fun in the moment, by taking life seriously and treating it like something that matters, you do these things and fundamentally become happier because the things you care about succeed.
Meanwhile, while I got to the park with my son 7 times a week some weeks, I see we're living in ghost world. The sidewalks are empty. The parks are empty. Everywhere is empty. Where are the kids? Obviously there's a lot fewer kids now that we aren't in a baby boom, but the truth is there's still plenty of kids but nobody takes live very seriously so they're just at home playing on their electronics and watching slop videos.
In fact, I think taking life seriously and acting like it matters is how you make sure you're doing the right things and ensuring your happiness continues. Doing the right thing when nobody's watching is serious. Deferring gratification when it can pay off is serious. Raising your kids is serious. Staying connected to your wife or husband is serious. You ultimately end up with what Aristotle called eudaimonia, human flourishing. It's a deeper happiness than just being able to say you enjoyed doing something transient briefly.
I finished my second book and first novel this year. I took writing it very seriously, and spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of world could make people happy. It wasn't a world of fleeting joy and lackadaisical attitudes. It's a world rich with meaning, where people take their lives, their communities, their responsibilities seriously. It's a world where people make commitments to the people around them, and that's where they find joy and meaning. We are free, so we are free to do the right thing that makes the world a better place to live in.
Does ChatGPT drive cars and eat food and buy houses and talk on the phone too?
Maybe they watch netflix or use diapers or baby formula too?
Maybe they watch netflix or use diapers or baby formula too?
Careful: if he touches your paper you're allowed to break his arm and steal his motorcycle. He said so.
Looking at Labor through an economic lens without special pleading because it is labor rather than some other thing that you buy and sell makes it pretty darn clear the things to raise wages are not the things people think. I don't think it's a mistake that all of those things that would make labor more valuable have been made taboo.
I can quit whenever I want! Now excuse me I'm going to snort Tylenol and paint these 40k figurines.
That's rude. If you're in herdecke of course you should punch the mayor. These people should have gone to stich instead.
Since I was born yesterday and can't tell when stuff is fake, it's really sporting of all the democrats to star in all these commercials.
In my home country of soviet canuckistan, they actually just mandated Phonics be returned to our canuckistani indoctrination centers.
Phonics started being knocked out like 40 years ago. It's only recently that the sheer stupidity of whole word reading has become unavoidable and we've seen some pushback.
Phonics started being knocked out like 40 years ago. It's only recently that the sheer stupidity of whole word reading has become unavoidable and we've seen some pushback.
Sepsis is truly terrible. Bacteria infects the blood, and every hour you have it untreated your survival chance goes down.
My dad nearly died of it, and it wasn't a nice neat "oh then I got better" -- It was an absurdly long recovery, and we nearly lost him long after the initial incident.
My dad nearly died of it, and it wasn't a nice neat "oh then I got better" -- It was an absurdly long recovery, and we nearly lost him long after the initial incident.
The thing I find most funny is that if you're trying, we're living in one of the least advertiser-friendly periods in a century.
You can watch streaming that has no ads, you can read websites with adblock or with paid subscriptions or just use websites that don't have ads, social media can be stuff like the fediverse that's ad-free, you spend a lifetime consuming patreon content -- both free stuff, and stuff that's behind the paywalls -- that lack advertisements for anything but itself.
It's kinda strange when you think about it, how much of our brains are filled up with stuff like advertising jingles. Meanwhile, we don't watch either cable TV or OTA TV, or even the radio.
You can watch streaming that has no ads, you can read websites with adblock or with paid subscriptions or just use websites that don't have ads, social media can be stuff like the fediverse that's ad-free, you spend a lifetime consuming patreon content -- both free stuff, and stuff that's behind the paywalls -- that lack advertisements for anything but itself.
It's kinda strange when you think about it, how much of our brains are filled up with stuff like advertising jingles. Meanwhile, we don't watch either cable TV or OTA TV, or even the radio.
If you want to piss literally everyone on the road off, drive the speed limit.
But I'm not gonna stop. that's the limit, I'll drive the limit. Even if I do have a convoy of 100 vehicles behind me waiting for the road to split again.
But I'm not gonna stop. that's the limit, I'll drive the limit. Even if I do have a convoy of 100 vehicles behind me waiting for the road to split again.
When people were going around going "What is the fed going to do to help address social justice?" I'm like "What interest rate on interbank deposits would best serve the black community?" And the obvious answer is that it's a stupid question.
The fed's sole purpose is to act as a lender of last resort for banking institutions, and to help try to maintain maximum employment and low inflation. Within that mandate, their job has nothing to do with anything that really matters.
Looser monetary policy may lower unemployment, but it also causes money to trickle to the top. Tighter monetary policy may raise unemployment, but it also reduces the ability of the rich to use leverage to increase their share of the pie.
Tighter reserve requirements mean banks are less likely to go out of business due to shocks, looser reserve requirements man that banks are more likely to issue new loans to borderline individuals.
The fed's sole purpose is to act as a lender of last resort for banking institutions, and to help try to maintain maximum employment and low inflation. Within that mandate, their job has nothing to do with anything that really matters.
Looser monetary policy may lower unemployment, but it also causes money to trickle to the top. Tighter monetary policy may raise unemployment, but it also reduces the ability of the rich to use leverage to increase their share of the pie.
Tighter reserve requirements mean banks are less likely to go out of business due to shocks, looser reserve requirements man that banks are more likely to issue new loans to borderline individuals.
We're so stupid we voted for this government because Trump said what every American tourist has said for 50 years and what us presidents have been saying for 100.
I really hate minetests new name.
Luanti sounds like a hedge fund or boner pills.
"Ask your doctor if Luanti is right for you. In some cases luanti may cause irritable bowel syndrome, heart attacks, stroke."
Luanti sounds like a hedge fund or boner pills.
"Ask your doctor if Luanti is right for you. In some cases luanti may cause irritable bowel syndrome, heart attacks, stroke."
I've started playing the Paradise Lost and Paradise Found poems for my son. The audiobook starts with a biography, and it's really interesting. I never knew anything about John Milton, certainly not that he was a Puritan, labeled a heretic, and an English Republican. He married some lady who he really shouldn't have and wrote about the reasons divorce should be legal.