Preferences

Several people think I’m unhappy and could improve my life by lightening up and not being so “strict” in my avoidance of things I “disagree with”, or by making more of an effort to do what other people do. They don’t realize that different people have different preferences, and I’m not unhappy to pursue different things than most people enjoy pursuing. I’m merely “unlucky” in that my preferences tend not to be accommodated by the societal structure around me because they’re uncommon. You can’t become happy by trying to enjoy things the majority enjoy – it doesn’t really give you a sense of community. I.e. in some ways I’ve been in an environment I don’t enjoy, but I think I could build an environment I do enjoy (living in a country / nature setting instead of a city would be an example of such a change).

Interesting discussions

I don’t enjoy talking about everyday things – the weather, people’s lives, even politics are too predictable to engage me (though I sometimes do them out of necessity / politeness). But why is it that it seems whenever I try to step it up a notch, there is a taking of offense or a narrowness of thought on the part of either me or the other person that causes at least one of us to cease to enjoy the conversation, even when I try to discuss it in an enlightening or diplomatic way? What is it about interesting topics that prevents people from enjoying talking about them? Is it that you’re bound to be met with disagreement when engaging in higher thought, and if so, why is disagreement a problem? Do I define interesting conversations as controversial ones? Yet what non-mundane topics are there besides the ones where human knowledge is not yet fixed absolutely? Humour is the only one I can think of. Sweet, sweet humour, what would I ever do without you?

Even academic discussion tends to involve narrow claims within specific disciplines, i.e. be dry and relatively boring. Interesting topics (for me) tend to bridge disciplines and address big questions, questions that require broad knowledge to be understood and discussed. I’m very happy to know many friends and family members who can not only tolerate but even sometimes enjoy such discussions, though some others haven’t been able to tolerate these sorts of discussions with me. Even at present I struggle to raise the bar to things that haven’t already been discussed. As I push the bounds of coherent thought and my claims and discussion topics become more and more provocative, wild and insane in a mere effort to relieve my own boredom (could one call this intellectual rape?), will more and more people fall away? Will I eventually be relegated to a shack where I write a computer program to have discussions with me, one which is designed to discuss complex topics without taking offense? Will I find some solace in teaching mundane things such as school courses? (Even my attempts to teach interesting things are not seen as teaching but as arguing, nobody being willing to take the role of student.) Or perhaps I’ll just stop talking as much or at all, and maybe even be happier for it? I’m curious as to what my future holds with respect to discussions. It feels like an era has ended – I see no way to rekindle the magic of the discussions from about 2006-2010, but I guess better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Being spoiled

Being spoiled means always getting what you want, even to the point of excess. It’s possible, however, to spend (and often deny yourself) resources and time in ways that make you better / more powerful, whether more knowledgeable, healthier, more skillful, etc., without making yourself spoiled. Most North Americans are spoiled, but they have a unique opportunity to use their wealth to acquire priceless things, an opportunity which most people in the world don’t have. Eschewing the pretentious niceties of the rich or even (by their standards) the middle class, which only serve to make a person soft, incompetent, and unhappy, they could do things exciting, empowering and unique. One of the greatest mysteries of my experience is why most choose the less happy existence of being spoiled.

Abstract environmentalism

People trying to be environmentally conscious need to look beyond the resources they’re using. Many other things cause waste as well, such as ignorance or selfishness. If you lack an understanding of how to do something well, you’ll have to waste extra resources doing it suboptimally and not even realize it. Or if you don’t care about doing your job efficiently, you could unknowingly cause business clients to act suboptimally or in ignorance, causing great waste. Likewise generosity and community, if done correctly, can save many more resources than each person living minimally but in isolation. All these things are abstract / intangible, yet environmentalists often focus only on tangible resources. For example the horrific degradation of customer service, or the atrocious education quality due to dependence on calculators and computers etc, could be, in the long run, more an environmental catastrophe than the destruction of a rainforest, due to the massive waste these things cause.