I tend to think closer to neutral between Pleasure & Displeasure is the most stable and healthy realm to exist in @yawnguy.
I have experienced a little hardship, and I have also experienced high amounts of pleasure (especially from helping others) but I noticed that there was a cost to myself and others in both.
When happiness for oneself and happiness for others is the first priority for a person, suffering will accompany that happiness. That is because happiness is their first priority, not the prevention, reduction and elimination of suffering.
On the otherhand, focusing on the prevention, reduction and elimination of suffering in and of itself, will make life more comfortable and easy, even if it's not flooded with super amounts of happiness.
I think The Pursuit of Happiness is a misguided attempt at making life comfortable and easy. It has it's perks but I can see now that focusing on what I mentioned is superior.
Thank you @yawnguy.
I am not sure about this but I think Western societies and maybe all modern societies in general, focus more on the pursuit of happiness and less on the prevention, reduction and elimination of suffering.
It might even be an epidemic.
P.S. I will see about making edits to my original post.
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Personally, happiness is pretty irrelevant. I strive to get a result with something in the real world, not to tweak my feelings to feel a certain way. It's like my stress-release work: the real purpose is to discharge the harmful energy out of a hot topic, and the fact that one also often feels amazingly calm and peaceful for minutes or hours is purely incidental, although far more visible.
Yeah, the pursuit of happiness as an end in itself is very wrong-headed.
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Do you think Western societies in general gravitate to much towards the pursuit of happiness and not enough towards the prevention, reduction and elimination of suffering? @yawnguy
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It's all bread and circuses. The powers that be don't want the plebs (us) to look closely at what they are doing, so it's all distraction from their wanton destruction of basically everything that's worthwhile on Earth in their pursuit of unlimited wealth. In addition to the mindless distraction, shoot-em-up video games do what? Desensitize an entire generation to killing others themselves, not just watching others do it, and become familiar with military everywhere -- as in martial law imposed when "we" have finally had enough. Although I don't think the drugged populace will ever have the guts to rise up. Etcetera.
Western societies do what they are told to do. It's a top-down action, not a bottom-up (grass roots) one. These are the kind of agendas I was referring to before.
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The agendas that I want to have are:
I think as a group, these are the wisest agendas to have (personally & collectively). @yawnguy I only realized this recently and have been trying to center my mind and life around it since.
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The way I see it is there is positive stuff; neutral/null; negative stuff. If you only work on the negative stuff, the best outcome possible is no suffering, a neutral state. What about all the positive not getting any attention? It's also a depressing environment for the alleviator, the caregiver, because he/she is continually immersed in misery. One has to be a saint to not be affected negatively by that.
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I think a caregiver and person in general would only suffer if they neglected their own suffering for the sake of helping others.
If we focus on the prevention, reduction and long-term elimination of suffering (including our own), we are ensuring that the happiness we enjoy is not causing misery for ourselves or others.
P.S. I edited the post again to describe my current perspective. Thank you for discussing this with me @yawnguy I am learning a lot through writing, reflecting and discussing.
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