Synthesizing Happiness

Synthesizing Happiness (Full Version)

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DemonKia -> Synthesizing Happiness (6/28/2009 7:35:56 AM)
NihilusZero posted this link in another thread, & I found it to be so profound & fascinating I thought it deserved its own discussion attempt: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy? It's video of a 21 minute talk given by Dan Gilbert at the 2004 TED conference. I've been forwarding it to my loved ones. I'll post some of my thoughts about it at a later point . . . . .

CarrieO -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/28/2009 8:48:47 AM)
Thanks for re-posting this delicious "food for thought" link.

PyrotheClown -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/28/2009 2:16:07 PM)
I thought this was gonna be a thread bout extacy.....

kittinSol -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/28/2009 2:25:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: PyrotheClown I thought this was gonna be a thread bout extacy..... Everything starts with an E... Sorry, Kia - I, too, thought this might be about happy pills :-) .

pahunkboy -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/28/2009 3:55:00 PM)
good find. :-)

TreasureKY -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/28/2009 4:42:00 PM)
I watched the video when it was posted in the other thread and admit that some interesting discussion topics crossed my mind. Foremost and related to D/s, I wondered if submissive personalities were perhaps more readily able to synthesize happiness ... that perhaps the lack of choice they experience in submitting to a dominant helps them to reach a more serene existence and state of contentment?

DemonKia -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/29/2009 11:00:12 PM)
FR, after read thru LOL about the 'happy pill' expectations . . . . . Nah, the video is about making happiness happen in one's brain without any external chemical inputs. &, yeah, TreasureKY, that's a great point. One of the things that occurred to me after seeing it was that it explains a certain amount about why people living in very poor communities can report higher average levels of happiness as compared to those living at the top of the income pyramid. One of the corollaries of what he discusses is that, because greater amounts of money can correlate to greater feelings of freedom, they can also correlate to diminished happiness just because of all those choices & that lack of feeling stuck, & thus reduced opportunity to synthesize happiness . . . .. Not the most popular thing to take from it, but I could see how that could play out . .. . . It also spoke to me about changes that have been perceived in marital happiness -- when there was no option but staying married, those conditions 'forced' a greater proportion of married persons to synthesize happiness. Now that staying married is more optional & choice driven, there's an accompanying reduction in potential happiness. (On average & big generalities, yep.) Not that I think making people be stuck in marriage is a good idea; sometimes the best moral choice can lead to the possibility of less happiness, or at least that's another possible implication for me of what he discusses in that video. I am biased, tho', in that I tend to think that the pursuit of happiness is fine in some limited sense, but I'm skeptical about it being a be-all-&-end-all goal . . . . . For me, happiness is an emotion that comes & goes, like all other emotions, & the pursuit of being 'happy all the time' seems a little unrealistic.

HatesParisHilton -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/29/2009 11:11:31 PM)
and the part where we twll people about psychotic break reactions from pills like wellbutrin and related "hello, is there anybody in there" by Pink Ffloyd style "therapy" begins when...? [;)] oh man, the only people that don't hate the Pharmo-Mafias are the lawyers paid to defend them and those heading the class-action suits AGAINST them. ONE FLAWLESS MOTH OF NO-HANG=UP ORGASMS AND LOVE BETWEEN YOU AND ANYONE YOU DIGMOSTONTHISSITE will fix your head ten times as long and 100 times better than ten years on any fucking pill or any goddamn diet.

NihilusZero -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/29/2009 11:20:45 PM)
:) Ever since the first time I saw this video, it's been one of those types of things that gets logged into the back of my brain banks that I know I should more actively apply to my daily activities and yet leave latent. While I've traditionally been skeptical of compromise as far as it's relevant to my own relationship history, this has always given me food for thought. It's interesting to keep in mind that the studies referred to in the video measured level of happiness in a long-term future (a year, in the first few examples), however when we make life-altering decisions normally it's within the scope of immediate emotional application. Thinking that for many of our decisions...ones that we may adamantly be sure about, that how we interpret the results down the line will be closer to equal than we imagine at the time we make those decisions. It particularly seems interestingly applicable in cases where any discussions of "settling" versus "odds of finding your ideal" come up...ones where I've normally been more inclined to not yield in the "what one is looking for" department.

HatesParisHilton -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/29/2009 11:33:17 PM)
"month" flawless MONTH, I meant to post. Now, look at the post of NihilusZero above. I've met at least 12 Aussie women he'd probably dig alllll to hell who are on synth-happy swallow swallow because they can't meet a guy like him. So if they did, and feltfulfilled for more than a month, think of the money they'd save. the self-esteem they'd build. the friendships even by ACCIDENT they'd make, by people just broaching conversation with them at a table alongsode them at a chic 4 star cafe for "after hot and properly painful erotica" lattes (triple shot, of course). Can any Pharmo Mafia synthesize THAT?

DemonKia -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/30/2009 12:58:01 AM)
Ummm, Hatesparishilton, the OP has nothing to do with pharmaceutical drugs, or anything like that. Do yourself a favor & watch the video, cuz you're too smart to waste your time ranting about a non-issue. & you might have something valuable to contribute after you know what we're actually talking about here . . . . . [;)] &[:D]

HatesParisHilton -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/30/2009 1:09:09 AM)
or maybe I'm smart enough to have watched the video, and thought "Damn Kia has been so nice to me! I better give her an excuse to get back to that "DEMONIC" side! THAT makes me happy. Kind of like George and Martha, who suffered forced marriage due to money issues very similar to those discussed by MrGilbert, asnd stresses caused by such forcing them to yield to some of the foibles of starined relationship paradigms. Butman, that shit sounds SO much more prosaic than the sly grins I'm passing you now and the raised eyebrows and "Kirstie" playful "grrrr" glare you just gave me then! Always be thr Trickster, never the tricked, and thus always play with the rules while appearing to respect the pages of the rulebook!

DemonKia -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/30/2009 2:17:14 AM)
lol Apologies. I misunderstood your posts, but now I 'get it', lol . . . . My bad . .. . [8D] Okay. Pharma drugs: I tend to think that most everyone is 'damaged' to some degree or another. Some benefit from pharma-psychoactives. I have an aunt & a cousin who are schizophrenics, & they both spent many years trying to live without the drugs, with terrible results. The drugs help them to behave more 'normally' & live in society, but they have significant side effects, & ultimately my aunt ended up institutionalized, where she is now. In Cali it's tough to get stuck in a mental care facility, & she easily met the minimum standard. I was relieved when she was institutionalized because she was a danger to herself & others. Her son, on the other hand, has done really well ultimately on the drugs & lives a productive & satisfying life, given the level of dysfunctionality he displayed in the first decade of his illness. I have a life-long serious depression thing, for which I've done & do a lot of stuff. I don't like taking pharmaceuticals myself, & they provided only minor relief when I tried them, so I opt to continue doing things like exercise & cognitive re-training types of things. Sometimes people have no choice about pharma, sometimes they do . . . . Are psycho-active pharmaceuticals over-sold by the pharma industry? Yeah, maybe, maybe not, but that's way more a question of business practices, market construction, economic policies, & that kinda thing. As long as job 1 is quarter-to-quarter & year-over-year profits, it's gonna be tough to avoid the excesses of short-term profiteering imposing on other considerations; that, however, would be a discussion for another thread. There is a serious partnership / relationship dilemma sketched out by those studies he talks about in that video. & the logic of how that grass-is-greener-next-door propensity explains a piece of why humans don't exclusively mate for life, as there's always other choices walking around. & apparently something on the order of two-thirds would pick the choice that would make them less happy ultimately, if given their druthers. With a caveat that those who internalize a norm of 'being stuck'* in their relationships could be expected to evidence greater relationship satisfaction than those who perceive themselves as 'free' to change their mind. & with a further caveat that this attitude or position can & probably does change over the course of some people's lives, as some of this is a matter of perspective, which can change. So, one question that occurs to me is: can people learn to synthesize happiness? We can start to observe bits of this process, which means we might be able to affect outcomes . .. . . * meant somewhat ironically.

HatesParisHilton -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/30/2009 2:33:23 AM)
I think that expectations of relationship schematics that are "round peg square hole" can wrongfully prescribed by a surrounding CULTURE and thus wrongfully effect reasonable ecxpectations of "happiness" as much as Riddlin and prozac are OVER prescribed by whitecoats out to make a buck. That's the logline version (injoke between Kia and I, folks). \ \ second-pass-on-the-spec-from-shitty-exec's-prod-assistant comment (another injoke, for Kia, very 20th Century Fox and WB-oriented): "Okay, the problem is location versus suspension of disbelief, see, I KNOW it's about Fu Manchu, but can we POSSSSSSSIBLY set it in Sherman Oaks and get Lucy Liu in the lead to cover the cultural demographic aspect, to cut scouting and setup costs?" or what the distributor would say: "Hey, hy can the bi-sexual protag in NorWest expect to get outta life the same brass ring of Happiness established by het culture begun in Boston by people who think tatts are only for marines with PTSD and prison excons?" \ \ My problem with Gilbert, sociologically, is the same problem I have with Joseph Cambpell. They both ignore the triggers that lead to the needs that leed to the questions that they claim to answer to make people feel better. It's like a cook or vintner ignoring the flavour changes brought about by the SOIL the cacao or shiraz grapes COME from. The SOIL is the SOUL.

RCdc -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/30/2009 3:10:08 AM)
The only issue about the whole thing I have on a personal level is the idea of settling. Other than that, I pretty much believe we make our own happiness (rather than synthesize - not sure if that word works for me - I'll think on it). I am big of the whole you make your own path thang. It comes down to being happy with your own lot and how much emphasis you put on the relevance of an event or action. I always say it's about seeing perfection as the goal, rather than the finalie. My preference is that perfection is when I die, rather than something achieveable in my life. People also go on about mistakes and bad choices. I don't see mistakes as such, but I see lessons and some are good and some are bad. If you don't learn from them, then that's back to the whole you make your own path thang again. You either learn from it and then move on or you fester and continuing having to take the lesson again and again and again, never moving on and being perpetually unhappy. the.dark.

HatesParisHilton -> RE: Synthesizing Happiness (6/30/2009 4:30:45 AM)
"The only issue about the whole thing I have on a personal level is the idea of settling." yeah, see, that's a relationship-convention round hole made a long time ago, but the divorce rates rendermost of us a square peg.

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