The word of the week is "Eudaimonia" - classical Greek for'happiness' but is also known as the ultimate good.
According to Aristotle, eudaimonia is the highest, most inclusive human goal. I don't read much Aristotle, but I agree that we all want to be "happy". However, instead of looking for happiness by eating way too much Hagen-Dazs "sticky toffee pudding ice cream",thinking about sex or writing comments on SG, eudaimonia is arrived at by acting with virtue over an entire lifetime. By acting with courage, honesty, pride, friendliness, and wittiness.
In a nutshell: "do the right thing".
Now, how the fuck do I do that?
Can we all agree that doing the "right thing" often comes at personal sacrifice and does not always make you popular? It is also sometimes difficult to know what the right thing is - and it changes from situation to situation.
More often than not I really don't know if I am doing the right thing or not. Is being a member of SG "the right thing"? Usually when I try to "do the right thing" I feel like an arrogant ass. Or, it might be years before I know that what I chose to do was right.
It is so much easier to do what you want to do and rationalize that it is the best you can do. Maybe you won't be "happy" but you won't be "unhappy". This is why the phrase "we are all doing the best we can" bugs the crap out of me. The truth is, most of us, including myself, are usually not trying at all.
Another option is to follow some rules that someone else defined and hope that we are "doing good" and we hope that we will be accepted by other people who follow the same rules - Insert "Buddhist, Christians, Democrats, Corporate Citizen..." Maybe it's a good option. I have always been suspect of groups, even after discovering that I have a lifetime membership.
In the end I have to share the insightful musings of philospher David Lee Roth: "Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it."
According to Aristotle, eudaimonia is the highest, most inclusive human goal. I don't read much Aristotle, but I agree that we all want to be "happy". However, instead of looking for happiness by eating way too much Hagen-Dazs "sticky toffee pudding ice cream",thinking about sex or writing comments on SG, eudaimonia is arrived at by acting with virtue over an entire lifetime. By acting with courage, honesty, pride, friendliness, and wittiness.
In a nutshell: "do the right thing".
Now, how the fuck do I do that?
Can we all agree that doing the "right thing" often comes at personal sacrifice and does not always make you popular? It is also sometimes difficult to know what the right thing is - and it changes from situation to situation.
More often than not I really don't know if I am doing the right thing or not. Is being a member of SG "the right thing"? Usually when I try to "do the right thing" I feel like an arrogant ass. Or, it might be years before I know that what I chose to do was right.
It is so much easier to do what you want to do and rationalize that it is the best you can do. Maybe you won't be "happy" but you won't be "unhappy". This is why the phrase "we are all doing the best we can" bugs the crap out of me. The truth is, most of us, including myself, are usually not trying at all.
Another option is to follow some rules that someone else defined and hope that we are "doing good" and we hope that we will be accepted by other people who follow the same rules - Insert "Buddhist, Christians, Democrats, Corporate Citizen..." Maybe it's a good option. I have always been suspect of groups, even after discovering that I have a lifetime membership.
In the end I have to share the insightful musings of philospher David Lee Roth: "Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it."
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And I always come to this conclusion: uncertainty makes us feel uncomfortable. That part isn't good. But what makes us feel uncomfortable are the things that, perhaps, motivate us to do something, or at least to think.
a cool guy is david lee roth, uh
I usually feel that my comments on your journals are dumb. And this is a compliment for you: i think you're smart.