>>> When I finished school in 2010 (yep, along time ago now), I wanted to go try and make it as a musician. I figured if punk bands could just learn on the job, I could too. But my mum insisted that I needed to do something, just in case.
Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician. My mom also talked me out of it. Her argument was: If there's no way to learn it in school, then go to school anyway and learn something fun, like math. Then you can still be a rock star. Or a programmer, since I had already learned programming.
So I went to college as a math major, and eventually ended up with a physics degree.
I still play music, but not full time, and with the comfort of supporting myself with a day job.
> Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician.
> I still play music, but not full time, and with the comfort of supporting myself with a day job.
Some people say;
Pursue your dream or you will regret it.
This is said by people who regret their own choices.
Other people say;
Don't make your dream a job, because all it will
be is a job and no longer special.
This is said by people who had misconceptions about what pursuing their dream actually entailed.
I say;
Happiness is found in neither a dream chased nor a chosen
profession. It is instead a choice we make each day in
what we do, in how we view same, and if we allow
ourselves to possess it.
What constitutes each day is immaterial.
I do think you need the dream to be happy. Money/career is a prerequisite of dreams.
Some want to live on the seas. They can be perfectly happy as a sailor, even if poor and single.
Some want a family, educated children, respect. They would likely need a nice house, enough resources to get a scholarship, a shot at retirement. This is obtainable working in public service, even without money.
But most have multiple dreams. That's what makes things complex. The man who wishes for a wife but also wishes to be on the seas will find much fewer paths available. Sailors also don't generally get respected by most in laws.
To mix the two, they try to find the dream-job. Perhaps work for a big oil company and be 'forced' to go offshore.
Eventually people learn that desire is suffering in some form and cut down on the number of dreams. They may even see this as mature and try to educate others that this is the way. Those who have kids often are forced to pick kids as the dream. So there's a selection bias as well.
"Don't put one foot in your job and the other in your dream, Ed. Go ahead and quit, or resign yourself to this life. It's just too much of a temptation for fate to split you right up the middle before you've made up your mind which way to go".
But that's a trap, the money you "need" is partly decided by how much you have available. Once you're used to the money from a 40 day job it's hard to do with less, but other people manage fine because they never got used to having a lot.
I think PP's point was .. that even if you spend your whole life pressed into laboring to produce a surplus to satisfy the excessive consumption of the elites of your heretical society, in ways that create existential risk for future generations, and are at odds with your own inner values and moral compass..
you can still see the 'immateriality' of all that in the grand scheme of things and choose to be happy.
There is no sociopolitical statement, no call-to-arms, no pontification as to the measure of one's life, no generational implications. There is an existential consideration, but not of the nature your post implies.
Happiness is an individual choice, available to us all at any time.
If anyone at any time can simply choose to be happy, why do we care whether (for instance) our arms get chopped off? We are equally capable of choosing to be happy with or without arms. Why do we avoid harm?
Thank you, your post cured my depression. (Sarcasm)
This is pure magical thinking. There are many reasons to be not happy. Being in pain, having lost a loved one, not having your physical needs met and well simply having depression or a myriad of other problems.
And people shouldn't be happy with all circumstances. It is not healthy to be happy all the time. Sometimes accepting the negative emotions is important for growth.
> Thank you, your post cured my depression. (Sarcasm)
Your welcome. (Sarcasm returned)
> This is pure magical thinking. There are many reasons to be not happy. Being in pain, having lost a loved one, not having your physical needs met and well simply having depression or a myriad of other problems.
Of course there are many life situations where "being happy" is not what a person can or needs to experience at that moment, where "moment" is defined as some period of time determined by each person. And there are medical conditions where trying to choose happiness is simply not possible, such as "having depression or a myriad of other problems."
> And people shouldn't be happy with all circumstances. It is not healthy to be happy all the time. Sometimes accepting the negative emotions is important for growth.
I never wrote anything to that effect. What I wrote was:
Happiness is an individual choice,
available to us all at any time.
Just because a choice is available does not mandate it must be chosen immediately and unconditionally.
But you go ahead and mischaracterize what I wrote to serve whatever agenda you have and I will reiterate what I posted earlier in this thread:
My key point is that happiness is a choice.
I hope everyone can find a way to choose it.
If you have your basic needs met, have no physical ailments etc. I would agree with you. Your statement applies to a certain subset of folks that are defeatist, pessimistic etc. but not everyone.
They’re not entirely wrong, and your comment is seemingly unhinged and unprovoked… but there’s a lot of literature on stuff like mindfulness, CBT, and the impact thoughts can have on one’s emotions, especially happiness.
CBT and mindfulness can help with SOME problems. It is great when it does but it also can work less well or even harmful for other problems. Especially people that are prone to rumination don't benefit much from it, they need the opposite of mindfulness.
The unhinged part was to imply that people can just choose to be happy under any circumstance which is obviously magical thinking.
>to imply that people can just choose to be happy under any circumstance which is obviously magical thinking
Worse, I'm afraid. It's ideological thinking of the basest sort.
Magical thinking at least lets a person see that their bullshit isn't working, potentially even walk it back, correct themselves.
In ideological thinking, you gotta act as if the impossible wish has already come true. Reality says otherwise? Well, wish harder - or else. That's ideological thinking for ya.
And those are only two of the cards in that deck. I've observed that with sufficient mental self-mutilation, people can in fact choose to be happy under any circumstance. Occasionally even at no cost to innocents. (Though rarely - who'd permit them a clean getaway?)
Woulda had a field day with figuring out what complexes are puppetting AdieuToLogic, if their most coherent argument wasn't "fuck off" - pardon, "full stop".
>> to imply that people can just choose to be happy under any circumstance which is obviously magical thinking
I never said nor implied that. It has only been the person with the account name "cardanome" who has applied absolutist determiners such as "all" and "any" to mischaracterize what I wrote.
> Worse, I'm afraid. It's ideological thinking of the basest sort.
Projection is a poor position to espouse and one easily identified such as the above, further supported by your previous assertion of "[w]hat you're promoting is a deeply narcissistic worldview."
Reread what I originally wrote in this thread objectively, if either you or "cardanome" can:
I say;
Happiness is found in neither a dream chased nor a chosen
profession. It is instead a choice we make each day in
what we do, in how we view same, and if we allow
ourselves to possess it.
What constitutes each day is immaterial.
But that's just me.
This is what is called a personal philosophy[0], specifically:
2 a : pursuit of wisdom
b : a search for a general understanding of values and
reality by chiefly speculative rather than
observational means
> Woulda had a field day with figuring out what complexes are puppetting AdieuToLogic, if their most coherent argument wasn't "fuck off" - pardon, "full stop".
I was directly replying to this[1] post, which contains phrases such as "I think PP's point was ..", "elites of your heretical society", and "at odds with your own inner values and moral compass".
If you and/or "cardanome" cannot comprehend why I finished with "full stop" in response to this post, then there is nothing I can do to help either or both of you understand.
Reread your own post some more. How you found it necessary to exhibit a couple of universally known pieces of horseshit so that your original piece would make sense as some sort of reaction to those. Outstanding.
There's a reason why you're finding it necessary to explain what a personal philosophy even is. Think about that before you go ooh wizdum (and if you have a spare dictionary, throw it up.)
>No, my point is happiness is a choice.
If happiness was a choice, there would be no point to happiness.
> How you found it necessary to exhibit a couple of universally known pieces of horseshit so that your original piece would make sense as some sort of reaction to those. Outstanding.
> There's a reason why you're finding it necessary to explain what a personal philosophy even is. Think about that before you go ooh wizdum (and if you have a spare dictionary, throw it up.)
All you have done in this thread is direct conversations into ad hominem attacks you launch and/or a meaningless non sequitur such as:
> If happiness was a choice, there would be no point to happiness.
As I alluded in a peer comment, I hope you reflect on why you choose this style of communication and have someone in your life you trust in which you confide regarding same.
I am not that person and shall no longer enable your vitriol.
I could of course explain exactly what my words "hinge" on, and what "provokes" them. I've found that this does not create understanding where previously it was lacking. So instead let's talk about what you said.
Two of your words I consider harmful and insulting:
>is seemingly
What the hell?!
...oh, right:
- If you say "X is Y", you gotta back it up. Scary!
- If you say "X seems to me Y", you gotta justify your perceptions. Nasty!
- But saying "X is, seemingly, Y", that's totally safe! Because it's bullshit. It posits a statement as true knowledge and elidies the need for justification outright, on the syntactic level.
What's worse, you probably didn't even notice you were doing this. You just picked up the pattern from people who looked like they had what you wanted.
That cognitive habits like yours are so widely accepted as "normal", is exactly why I'm guessing that CBT (or, for that matter, parent poster's wireheading suggestions) are probably going to be super effective on you, not kidding.
If you were to give those a shot, anyway. Instead of, you know, just stating existences of literatures at people. Also unless your current state of mind wasn't already achieved by similar methods. In any case, do report back!
Easy to say it's immaterial when you're probably an american or european with plenty of material comfort. When was the last time you didn't eat for lack of food, for instance? Adieu to logic, indeed.
Luckily you can still pursue being a musician without all the pressure of having to be successful. On this road, one day you are free to declare your own success to yourself
Indeed. On the other hand, I also know my limitations, since roughly half the people I play with are pro's with music degrees. And I'm still trying to improve.
I'm inspired by the quote from Pablo Casals when he was in his 90s. They asked him why he still needed to practice, and he said: "Because I'm finally beginning to see some improvement."
Maybe if the internet and piracy hadn't fucked artists over, they could have made decent money as a musician selling their work without having to be a major-label superstar. Alas, we do not live in that timeline.
Yes. Mostly, until relatively recently on a historical time scale. In the middle ages, musicians were employed by towns, and had a guild. They also worked for princes, the church, etc. I read an article saying that they often did double duty as cops on market days.
There was perhaps less of a distinction between "arts" and trades. People did all kinds of work on paintings, sculptures, etc., and expected to get paid for it. They rarely put their names on their works.
I've read a bit about Bach's life, and he was always concerned about making money.
One music history textbook I read identified the invention of printed music as the start of the "music industry." Before the recording era, people composed and published sheet music. There were pianos in middle class parlors, and people bought sheet music to play. Two names that come to mind were Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton. Movie theaters hired pianists or organists, though that employment vanished when talking movies came out. The musicians of the jazz era were making their livings from music. One familiar name is Miles Davis. His father was a dentist, and his parents considered music to be a respectable middle class career for their son. People did make a living from recordings before the Internet era. Today, lucrative work in the arts still exists for things like advertising and sports broadcasting.
(Revealing my bias, I'm a jazz musician).
In fact the expectation that an artist should not earn a decent living is kind of a new thing.
Piracy didn't fuck artists over I think (anecdotal), because it was the precursor to Spotify which has been great for artist discovery. Until the industry / artists caught on and started pushing shit. And the payment model for Spotify is bad, a million streams earns about $3-5K according to a quick google and few actually get that far.
But it's good for discovery, and artists generally don't make much off album sales either; concerts and merchandise is where it's at.
Really still kicking myself for not majoring in robotics in school. I wanted to program, so I studied computer engineering but hadn't really absorbed that much in classes. But I will likely never have access to all the robotics stuff my school had, nor the guided learnings.
Never too late to try stuff out of course, but very little beats structured higher ed education in relatively small classes (think there was only about 24 people in the robotics major?)_
Nothing beats concentrated work. You can do that without formal education. It might even be easier: you can probably afford pretty good arduinos and raspberries and H-bridges and sensors and actuators and...
It shouldn't be hard to go beyond what almost all universities provide.
On the other hand, the one robotics course I took involved getting access to computers at 3am and doing horrific matrix multiplications by hand that took hours. Of course, this was a long time ago.
Amusing coincidence. I also wanted to be a rock star, or at least a successful working musician. My mom also talked me out of it. Her argument was: If there's no way to learn it in school, then go to school anyway and learn something fun, like math. Then you can still be a rock star. Or a programmer, since I had already learned programming.
So I went to college as a math major, and eventually ended up with a physics degree.
I still play music, but not full time, and with the comfort of supporting myself with a day job.