[mapontosevenths]

> A lot of what we want, what we perceive as living a full life, having fun and so on comes from culture (and increasingly in the last decades/centuries, with mass media).

This is very important. I didn't figure it out until late in life, and wasted a lot of effort and money that could have been better spent.

When you want something ask yourself "why", then ask yourself "why" about your answer as well. Keep doing that until you hit bottom and its usually something like "so other people will think more highly of me."

Whenever you find yourself with "impressing others" as a motivation, ignore it. You'll learn to care less about what others think about you when you realize how seldom they do.

[testermelon]

In case of our strongest desires, it usually is just trying to impress others. We as a society need to come up with ways to cultivate strong desires with a better root.

Hierarchy is a very strong driver for our motivation. But also it’s kind of hard to fight for in real life depending on the societal situations. To the point where some cultures integrate the defeatism into cosmology like the caste system.

I wish there is a systematic way to find “better things to fight for”. But I bet most of them are spiritualistic or religious in nature.

[mapontosevenths]

People who are not constrained by their circumstances usually quickly realize that the most difficult question in life really is just "what the hell do I do with it?" Especially those unencumbered by superstition, dogma, or other socially induced goals.

> We as a society need to come up with ways to cultivate strong desires with a better root.

Are you sure? Who causes most of the worlds problems? The guy who craves nothing more than a good meal and a six pack, or the overachieving empty-soul who can never rest satisfied?

Not to get too woo-woo, but attachment and aversion are the root of all evil. I think that maybe instead of replacing peoples strong desires with better ones we'd be better served by showing them how little achieving those desires will really do to change their lives and how empty most of those goals truly are.

Maybe, if we could teach people how to be content sitting alone in Pascal's empty room we could have a proper society where the goals aren't all about selfishness and eternal growth at the expense of human happiness.

[mettamage]

The 5 why’s and all that