Hey all,
Whats is the point of changing one’s values and overall philosophy in life, if one’s sense of life has been miserable for many years?
When man’s emotional reactions to the world are fear, hate, guilt etc. and it’s hard or even impossible to change the sense of life. So what the point of recreating ones’s values trying live a happy life when the underlying emotions are always negative and may never change?
Thanks,
D
Your summary comes across as rather cynical.
Changing one’s sense of life is difficult, but not impossible. Identifying the premsises upon which your sense of life is built upon requires ruthless, relentless introspection. Even after discovering a mistaken premise, integrating a new premise in its place is not automatic.The desire for happiness is seeking the value. To actualize the value of happiness requires the virtue of doing what is necessary to bring it about.
To simply say we want happiness, or money, or knowledge is not enough. Discovering and implementing the actions that should result in happiness, money or knowledge is the prerequisite to having the chance or opportunity to actualizing ones values.
I disagree there anything cynical in my post since this is how I think it is. I remember Peikoff having said that it may be impossible to change one’s sense of life and perhaps he is right, can’t really tell is this the case since I don’t have any evidence about it. Thanks for sharing.
I remember Peikoff having said that it may be impossible to change one’s sense of life and perhaps he is right, can’t really tell is this the case since I don’t have any evidence about it.
Sense of life is a lot like a psycho-epistemological style. In other words, it’s an issue of psychology in addition to some re-evaluation of premises. All Peikoff probably meant was, based on his knowledge about psychology as a layman, it may take a long amount of time to change one’s sense of life. Since sense of life is a result of a lifetime of experience, change may take a really long time.
I have some trouble understanding this: How is the happiness that you gain by doing virtues affected by irrational sense of life?
For my own experience I can say that my emotions are true happiness without any sign of negative sense of life. It’s times when I’m not doing anything special eg. just taking it easy or in the morning when I wake up, I feel this emptiness and fear without any particular reason.
And I have to think almost every morning that there’s nothing wrong with the world to get that empty feeling away. It doesn’t go away each time even if I can assure myself that everyting is okay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m dot depressed, it’s just bugs me that I can’t wake up every morning feeling excitement towards the world and not this fear/tension without a reason.
Couldn’t you be aiming too high?
Excitement, every morning!
Philosophically, Objectivism holds the benevolent universe premise, and it is achievable - given enough integration with reality.
For now, I would suggest not to force achieving the premise. Reduce expectations, and aim for a ‘neutral universe premise’, one that is not out to get you personally - but leaves much up to your own volition, introspection, reasoning and considered actions.
Gaining just a little influence over your environment each day - in what might seem the most insignificant ways - is , well, “empowering”. (Dislike that word.)
Many years before I found out that Rand admired this prayer, it affected me also: “Grant me the serenity to to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.”
In many people, I think, unconscious, non-specified, or impossible, expectations inflates anxiety.
However, I have no particular expertise beyond experience, so please treat this advisedly.
Couldn’t you be aiming too high?
Excitement, every morning!
Oh, yes, I overexaggerated it a little. Sorry for that.
I’d be happy for just to a neutral state of mind but not anything less, if there’s no reason to be feeling anything special.
I’ve been reading a lot of self-help books before finding objectivism. I remember many of them saying that one must accept whatever one is feeling at the moment etc.
Nowdays I see it much more beneficial to find the roots of my emotions. It is quite difficult at times to find the real honest reasons for some emotions where they are accumulating from. But it just isnt’t nice when there really is no reason to negative emotions, or I can’t introspect honest enough to find the real roots.
One thing I want to ask also is how much can one be in control or their emotions? The thing is that when I’m feeling fear/tension it’s tough to do the virtues required. At times me doing virtues turns to passivity, when I’m not doing the things required because I’m feeling the opposite emotion that the virtues requires eg. courage.
When I do the virtues even if the emotion isnt’t right my actions come off as unnatural and edgy. Maybe they will transform to be more flowing if I do them constantly for many years. My motivation to do virtues drops because some of my actions come off as unnatural, in other words I’m not feeling the emotion that the action imposes and I feel like a fake.
I see it is my happiness atstake when I’m not excercising the values of my mind to the physical world. But still I’m not doing them because of fear of rejection from the world is too great.
Wow this sounds so melodramatic! 
And I think I answered to most my own questions but don’t be scary to share you opinion! I’d appreciate it.
It sounds cliche not melodramatic and I mean it in a sympathetic way. I don’t believe there’s anything unnatural in the way you feel.
The stage between sleep and wake is a window that allows us to see our mind more “integrally” or in another “whole” way (as we can glimpse BOTH our states of mind while dreaming and while being awake, almost at the same time). That is why awakening and going to sleep are the phases where most normal typical psychological troubles become obviously evident (like people who have trouble going to sleep).
you say of that time when you awake to a new day (after spending hours digesting thoughts in very different cosmos within your mind)
I’d be happy for just to a neutral state of mind but not anything less, if there’s no reason to be feeling anything special
but there IS reason for feeling something both special and intense. There is no reason however to feel neutral, that would be a feat to accomplish.
you have every valid reason to feel angst during that time (expressed in either emptiness, or mild depression, whatever).
I’ve found myself in that situation a lot. The only exceptions don’t occur naturally or by default, they occur when I purposefully set something that I really want to wake up to. For instance if when I wake up I know I’m at the beach and that the ocean expects me, I just feel joy. (for others might be the arms of a lover). But that’s ideal. Another way is to wake up wanting do something you really love doing, something you had to give up the night before due to physical stress (sleep). By doing what you like, I specifically mean the absorbing state of mind best described by Mihaly Csiksentmihalyi as “flow” .
That seems to me the best most productive and satisfying way to avoid dealing with the infinite existential questions that pervade a semi intelligent mind on a daily basis.
other popular but less satisfying ways to evade the full scope of reality include earning a living for the sake of it, raising a family (for the sake of it), drinking and doing drugs.
Flow occurs naturally so it might be hard to achieve if you’re conscious about trying to achieve it (in the same way that sometimes when you don’t remember something, you know you will eventually remember it if you stop thinking about it) . So maybe a way to begin your daily routine of achieving flow might be doing something that mildly engages you increasing difficulty gradually.
Maybe you already achieve flow and you still the same way on the mornings. Psychology is surely not clear cut, no “science” called study of the soul can be.