{"id":3843,"date":"2022-02-09T19:42:13","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T19:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/?p=3843"},"modified":"2022-02-09T19:42:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-09T19:42:13","slug":"less-is-bess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/2022\/02\/less-is-bess\/","title":{"rendered":"Less is bess"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Wonderful article over at The Atlantic<\/a>. Allow me to quote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo survive, all living systems tend to maintain stable conditions as best they can.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And that goes against our economic system, which pushes us not to maintain stable conditions but rather, pushes us to disrupt stability, to gamble for more. Even though this is not sustainable nor healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The very interesting thing here is that what wealth is has dramatically changed: wealthy people prior to 2010s had access and owned things only<\/em> wealthy people owned. Now? Not at all. Someone broke can have a 65\u201d 4K TV, just like a wealthy person. A wealthy person will poop using a smartphone just like a broke person.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s called diminishing returns<\/a> in economics. That is, being wealthy today isn\u2019t all that, at all.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a HUGE difference to me. There\u2019s something pointless in wealth now. Same with fame! Who really wants to be famous these days with all the trolls, paparazzis, scams, etc? So you stay on your couch, shades down, scrolling Twitter like non-famous people? It\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n

The hedonic treadmill really, truly shows its limits in the 2020s.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people see themselves as little more than their attractive bodies, jobs, or bank accounts, it brings great suffering. Studies show that self-objectification is <\/em>associated with<\/em><\/a> a sense of invisibility and lack of autonomy, and physical self-objectification has a <\/em>direct relationship with<\/em><\/a> eating disorders and depression in women. <\/em>Professional self-objectification<\/em><\/a> is a tyranny every bit as nasty. You become a heartless taskmaster to yourself, seeing yourself as nothing more than Homo economicus. Love and fun are sacrificed for another day of work, in search of a positive internal answer to the question Am I successful yet? We become cardboard cutouts of real people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Sir. You too close, bro.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we grow older in the West, we generally think we should have a lot to show for our lives\u2014a lot of trophies. According to numerous Eastern philosophies, this is backwards.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, that\u2019s what I said last month, talking about \u201cold ass Eastern philosophy\u201d<\/a>. It\u2019s about the little, true, quiet things in life because when you achieve something big, it doesn\u2019t last. It blinks. Frustrating.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can, in fact, find immense fullness when we pay attention to smaller and smaller things.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a master at this. I love to observe, see things switch, notice changes. I will enjoy every single sunset and sunrise in my life, even though I\u2019ve already had so many of them. All the little things that bring me joy, never cease to bring me joy. Grabbing a loved one\u2019s face and kiss it will never get old. Thinking about it satisfies me right now!<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lifelong battle against our inner caveman.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

You mean our inner capitalistman because cavemen I\u2019m sure, were mostly chilling after running errands. Looking at butterflies and wondering what the fuck they are and why they fly so erratically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wonderful article over at The Atlantic. Allow me to quote. \u201cTo survive, all living systems tend to maintain stable conditions as best they can.\u201d And that goes against our economic system, which pushes us not to maintain stable conditions but rather, pushes us to disrupt stability, to gamble for more. Even though this is not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3843"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3844,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3843\/revisions\/3844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/har0ld.com\/playground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}