Posted by Eddie Sylvano on February 7, 2003, at 9:48:16
In reply to Am I nutz?! , posted by JohnDoenut on February 6, 2003, at 23:04:30
>I have also taken to studying in too much detail perhaps the actions and antics of movie action heroes and how they seem to make things happen effortlessly and how I wish I could do the same. Does that make me crazy?! :)
------------------------------Someone posted an article a while ago about the origins of depression which I criticized, but did have a valid point... at no time in human history have people been exposed to such increasingly difficult images and standards of success.
70 years ago (not more than one lifetime), you were doing pretty good if you had a place to live and food on the table. The only references of success were the people who lived around you, and a handful of Hollywood icons. Nowadays, society looks to the television for social reference, and what they see (well, if they're not watching "Roseanne") are perfect people delivering professionally scripted lines in an artificial world. Somehow, the media has gone from entertainment to role model, and an impossible one at that.
I can't imagine that 99% of our human ancestors ever worried that they weren't making the most of their career, living stylishly, or losing weight. They were at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, just hoping to eat and avoid conflict. When this went well, they were happy. For that matter, I'm sure that most of the world still lives no more than a few steps beyond that state. It's only when survival and safety is assured that we can ruminate over being "the best." As the Bhudda said, the cause of suffering is desire, and we're in a society of exponentially increasing desire. You're not sad because you're a failure, you're sad because you want to be a big success. I don't usually buy into anti-technology diatribes, but when it comes to the suffering it can cause, I can't really argue. We weren't meant to live like this, so we need to maintain a realistic viewpoint in order to do so without being warped by it.
I say, cultivate some good friends, find a loving mate, and live a simple life. Happiness doesn't require satisfying anyone other than yourself. If you live to be an old man with a roof over his head, you did better than the vast majority of humanity.
poster:Eddie Sylvano
thread:36519
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030201/msgs/36552.html