Feeling Poor?

Of course this is the ultimate first world problem. But we all have our psychological issues. A lot of people hit the gym for looks, a lot of people work for extra money to buy unncessary things, and so on… Nobody really needs videogames, a car other than the most basic one (or even that), yadda yadda…

If you’re absolutely and completely indifferent to how much you make, that’s great, and you may be mentally/spiritually a couple notches above most people. It’s not that those people are less or more inclined to help the less fortunate - they just don’t have the same internal balance as you when looking at their own self-worth or whatever.

That said, if you’re absolutely and completely indifferent to how much you make, send me your resume :wink:

Edit: I actually met 2 guys in the last few years that quit their jobs to literally walk around nature, as incredible as that sounds. Smart guys, and yet their ideal life seems to be walk around pretty sights all day, ask people for food, and sleep often in the woods. And they seem pretty happy about it.

it’s kind of sad how many people there are out there who don’t understand money and happiness. money is not the cause of happiness, earned money is the effect of happiness. there are a few great thinkers who have proved the reason for this confusion: the widespread acceptance of a deeply flawed philosophy. the only true happiness for human beings is the use of one’s mind to its fullest potential in a productive and moral activity for one’s own benefit. earned money is the effect of this activity, and therefore the effect of happiness, not its cause. the enjoyment of earned money enhances one’s happiness, but it doesn’t reverse the fundamental cause and effect.

^ there must be something wrong with me then, or I’m not human, because I’m happiest when I’m barely using my mind at all.

There’s something wrong with all philosophical statements. Otherwise they’d be facts.

It’s much easier to use “one’s mind to its fullest potential in a productive and moral activity” if you have a lot of money. If you’re an impoverished goat farmer living in a shack in the middle of some desert in Africa, you’re not going to have many opportunities for mentally productive activity. On the other hand, if you’re Larry Paige, you can dump $100 million into far fetched scientific fantasies, like mining asteroids. Freaking mining asteroids.

Happiness writes in white ink on a white page. I find it hard to believe that anyone, who has spent more than half a minute with his or her own mind, could succumb to the antiquated notion that the path to happiness, if such a thing even exists, is through wealth accumulation. Happiness and a sense of fulfillment are side effects of our pursuits, and derive from the luxury of seeing personal efforts and struggles come to a successful conclusion. Everyone struggles but few succeed. While happiness may be correlated with one’s level of wealth, money in and of itself obviously does not cause happiness. Although I agree with most of the things you said, Turd Fergeson, the notion that earned money is an effect of happiness is only true for the fortunate but rather neglible subset of sentient beings, rendering the statement rather dubious as a candidate guiding principle. The sense of inferiority one feels when confronted with more successful individuals in our lives, especially those that are closer to us (university friends,family acquaintances,peers), may turn into a stifling poison circulating through the mind or motivate us to be better ourselves…Nature loves diversity not fairness, crooked lines not straight, this simple principle applies to one’s notion of happiness as well.

Kim Kardashian don’t date no scrubs…

This forum is in great danger of having some genuinely honorable men and women on it. Who knew?

There may be hope for civilization yet.

what Larry Paige can do with his money has no bearing on the goat farmer’s happiness. other people’s oppurtunity set is only important to people who don’t understand what true happiness is. the level of opportunity for productive activity a goat farmer has is directly correlated with the level of liberty he enjoys. if he’s free to trade value for value with his neighbors, and everyone’s property rights are protected, there is no limit the productive activities these people can pursue.

Have you heard about the Book of Mormon? It’s like Atlas Shrugged, except it’s true.

Some nerds came up with a theory called the “hedonic treadmill”…

“the hedonic treadmill , also known as hedonic adaptation , is the supposed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

I like to enjoy “the doing” rather than fixate on the outcome of the doing.

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Have you read Objectivism? It’s like every other philosophy except it’s true.

This comment confuses and upsets me. I’ll be back after a couple mimosas.

You cannot possibly be that stupid.

I must be. Please enlighten me.

Because you’re worshiping the watered down psuedointellectual ramblings of a f*cking psycho with more logical holes than a block of swiss cheese as “true philosophy” and you’re too stupid to realize it. Probably because you have no philosophical background yourself.

“Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation. Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten with Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation – Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street – on him. What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’””

http://www.alternet.org/books/145819/ayn_rand%2C_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders%2C_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killers?page=4

I’m not even going to bother addressing it beyond that. Other than going to state that Darwin himself found the concept of social Darwinism both horrifying and disgusting.

Living by her teachings was impossibly to do in any logical manner, as she proved herself by very rationally exploding at her lover for cheating on her in front of everyone and rationally dying of lung cancer (she insisted that smoking, as symbolic of the fire of the mind, was necessary for people in her company, unironically called The Collective).

Really, the woman was loco. In addition to smoking, she insisted that men she associated with not wear facial hair, listen to Tchaikovsky and not Mozart, read Hugo and not Hemingway, etc., for reasons known only to her.

Her own life was a direct contradiction to much of her own “philosophy”.

damm, Rand was a psycho from what you’re telling me…I read in Greenspan’s bio that he was a big fan of hers…but no idea she was a crazy bytch…

My point is that objectivism is a philosophy whose truth is “demonstrated” by works of fiction, where the author is able to make pretty much anything happen that she wants.

At least the Mormons actually believe that Jesus came to the Americas, and understand that they are using religious faith to back it up, rather than some kind of pseudo-objectivism posing as scientific knowledge.

Objectivism has a few useful ideas about the importance of political and economic liberties that are then taken to extremes that resemble religious fundamentalism more than anything else.

She writes with great bitterness and power…but she wouldn’t survive a second in her own social darwinistic utopia…what has always frightened me somewhat is that quite a few notable individuals (such as Greenspan) are enamoured by her philosophy…Objecitivism sounds like a selfish pubescent child with a broad vocabulary, taking some good ideas to almost psychopathic (read : lack of empathy) extremes

oh i see, you read something on the internet that says she was loco. you’re right, what was i thinking? You’re obviously extremely well versed in her philosophy, so please expalin to me the logical holes.