Bottom line: If the main topic of conversation you have with your friends is not how you can better yourself, you need to get new friends.

This is the most important line, but I suggest you read the whole thing to see how the author got there. I’d say this is perhaps the most important lesson I think should be given to children: you are who your main friends are. ::

Today I had lunch with an aunt I don’t visit enough. I then had tea with Susan and we drove on the 101 while she DJ’d from her iPhone. She sang to me.

Now we sit in our sunlit SF apartment listening to The XX, drinking Yerba Mate. From this position of perfection, I am starting a formal email discussion with a friend regarding Harris’s Moral Landscape.

Work is great. I am healthy here in the Bay Area with the one I love, and we have the Internet so I can share ideas with friends who are distant.

Today I am thankful. ::

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We shamefully laughed at them, when we should have been swinging and weeping with them. And deep inside we knew that. We understood their passion but like a pimple-faced 15-year-old we bent to the pressure and applied ridicule.

Fuck that.

I’d be proud to cry at a sufficiently awesome double rainbow, and if someone laughs at me I’ll slay him with a double-sided light saber-mop-handle thingy.

The next time you see this happening, grab a mop handle and help the one who’s enjoying the rainbow–not the one laughing at him. ::

Post a happy thought.

[ Thanks to Stephen for the link. ]

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The quote that triggered my thought was:

Obesity is the result of finding your happiness in food.

The reason I did my own post here instead of just posterousing that one is because I think he grazed the concept here without hitting it.

I think the key is that people who don’t have creative outlets or otherwise acceptable ways of being happy are naturally sucked into certain types of activities, e.g. eating for pleasure, shopping for pleasure, etc.

People are tempted to think that skinny, non-materialistic people are interesting and active, and have lots of projects going on. But that’s not the case. It’s the opposite. People with lots of projects and interesting things in their lives tend to be non-materialistic and view food and “things” as a desert rather than a meal. Life is the meal.

So, if you have an eating or a shopping problem it’s likely because there aren’t enough active and creative things going on in your life that occupy your time and focus. And in their absence, there is food, T.V. and shopping.

Notes

¹ Yes, I know there are many active and creative fat people.

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I think a lot about why people aren’t happy. I’m reading a book now by Bertrand Russell that offers a compelling theory: Modern people are unhappy because we have too many options and we don’t truly have to struggle for anything.

To summarize: In the past (when we didn’t live in massive cities and have everything provided to us via technology) it was difficult just to get by with food on the table and a warm bed. Our big threats of the time were things like, “dying from the winter”, and “kids getting eaten by bears”.

Life was simple. Struggle was simple. And surviving was the clearly-defined standard for happiness. Being happy meant having food to eat, wood for the winter, and a family that wasn’t dying of some horrific disease.

But now it’s different. We’ve been robbed of our natural struggles, and as a result we spin our engines at full speed while in neutral. Engines hate that.

So this is a narrative I’ve been applying to things lately, and I am wondering if it applies to the happiness of women as well. If you’re squeamish you should look away now.

There are limitless explanations of why modern women seem to be so unhappy. The explanation used to be that women wanted to be treated exactly the same as men in all situations, and thus to receive the same pay and the same respect. It seems, however, that this isn’t actually the case.

Increasingly, women are becoming vocal about the fact that they’d like to stay at home and perform a more traditional role. This is looked down upon by many career-oriented women, however–as if it’s signing up for a type of slavery that the western world worked so hard to defeat.

But I have another way of looking at it. Perhaps it’s just another instance of struggling for simplicity–for looking for a pure path. And I think biology is a part of that. Look at the 50′s. There you have the classic setup, with Mr. Cleaver coming home from the office with his briefcase to a dolled-up woman who’s just finished dinner.

Both the man and the woman feel like they’re¹ on the right path in this scenario–even if those roles are far from ideal given a modern, progressive outlook on life. It’s the simplicity of knowing that the man does x and the woman does y that keeps things going. And the man knows that if he brings home money and is a decent husband and father, then he’s a “good” man. The woman knows that if she takes care of her man and her children, then she’s a “good” woman.

It’s the simplicity that makes this work. It’s the Amish approach. Focus on the basics and stay within conservative roles. They’re doing it because they think they know the mind of God, but others could conceivably do something similar because they know the innate desires of the genders (through science, not religion).

We’re learning more and more that, as children, boys and girls start immediately on activities that are gender-based. Boys flock to the guns and trucks, and girls can’t wait to get pretty and play with dolls. Perhaps this is telling us something about what we should be doing as enlightened adults building a society. Perhaps the simplicity found in childrens’ games should be harnessed as a model for happiness.

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Of course, it’d be silly to think that setting women back 100 years and putting them in aprons and heels in the kitchen would fix things. Slavery is simple too, and that doesn’t make it a good idea. And men aren’t going to embrace the idea of working 10-hour days (manual labor, you understand) in order to have a decent chance to survive the winter.

We’re beyond those times, and I’m glad we are.

But there seems to be something to this. There’s something to simplicity. And there’s something to embracing the roles that are built within us. A common denominator in all of this is the concept of eliminating options. It’s the billions of choices available that produce the anxiety.

If we know the path we’re supposed to be on, and it’s a struggle to navigate that path successfully, then it’s automatically fulfilling when we do so. But if we have the option of being an interior designer or a mother or a CEO of a company or an architect–then we can’t ever know if we made the right choice.

Women sit at home as mothers and say, “Wow, I wish I wouldn’t have settled for this.” And they make it as great business leaders and say, “Wow, I can’t believe I don’t have a husband or children.” At that point the worst option is the one that was chosen.

So what’s the solution? Roll it all back to the 50′s? Spin up some “Get Amish” bootcamps and charge thousands to have modern families adopt traditional roles? I actually see that happening soon. I think there is going to be a backlash against modernity–where many decide to embrace what seemed to have worked in the past.

But that won’t work.

It worked because it was necessary, first of all. And even then it only partially worked. If a woman has a brilliant idea and speaks up in mixed company only to be laughed at because women aren’t supposed to be smart…that’s a problem. And if a man decides he doesn’t want to enter a high testosterone field and “kick ass” with the rest of the alphas, and he’s looked down upon by women because of it…that’s a problem.

And sure, that’s still the case today. But it doesn’t mean we want to reach backwards in time to embrace even more of that. Equality is good. Having options is good.

But we need a balance.

We need a way to acknowledge and embrace gender roles without limiting who men and woman can become, or can be respected as. And we need a way to build simplicity into our lives without limiting our options.

Thoughts? ::

Notes

¹ I am conscientiously objecting to breaking out his/her as is technically required. We need to start accepting “they’re” when we talk about two different subjects.

–

1. Portion control: eat slow, eat to not be hungry, not to get full
2. no food after 8pm; no heavy meals
3. minimize “white” foods
4. healthy snacks at work
5. coffee
6. breakfast @ home
7. 30 minute walks, 3x week
8. situps 3x week
9. gym 2x week
10. jits 2x week
11. striking 2x week
12. table tennis 3x week

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via joegebbia.posterous.com

Simple enough…

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I also find it very interesting that I just got done posting my options and happiness post without watching this video. Very strange. Or, perhaps I’d seen the video (or the research findings) many years ago and already knew of it.

I’m reading a Bertrand Russell book right now that talks about happiness and how to achieve it in the modern world. One of his main points, which I think is excellent, is that modern, first-world people are unhappy because our basic necessities are met, and that the struggle for those (and the achievement of them) was what made us happy.

I have been thinking about another (yet I think related) facet of unhappiness for years: options. I think for many, the more options you have the less happy you are with any option you end up choosing. This applies to everything from DVDs to careers and spouses.

Your selection always sucks because despite the fact that you get moderate happiness from your current situation, you can’t help but wonder if you would have been happier if you went another route. It’s the good/better problem, where you let the best be the enemy of the great.

Anyway, I think this is tightly bound to the fact that you aren’t struggling just to have any good option, which is what Russell was writing about. If you have a tiny TV and you only get one channel (and even then only sometimes) then whatever comes on is seems inordinately brilliant. Why? Because the alternative is nothing to watch at all–kind of like freezing in the winter.

So how about that as an exercise? The next time you’re unhappy with your options, just pick one from the bunch and pretend it’s all you have. ::

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