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verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
Deleted User said:
Sounds rather Amish; their objective is humility before a Creator. What's the motivation in "Jantelaw"?
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If I were to guess, it is also humility, but not before the Creator, but before the rest of the community. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing, if it were not taken to an extreme...
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
nhoeg said:
...When going in public transport in the US, I've experienced a lot of people smiling and talking to me. Very comforting and good vibes. When going shopping in the US I've also experienced almost superficial kindness to me.
I Denmark, on the other hand, the woman behind the disk at the local supermarket hardly says "hello". And in public transport, people just think you are being extremely weird if you begin smalltalk. People mind their own business and everyone seems reserved here compared to elsewhere....
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Maybe you have seen this picture

(And yes I'm aware Sweden is a different country than Denmark... but I'm guessing there is some similarity in culture)
 
nhoeg

nhoeg

Kava Manliness
Yes - Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Denmark (and maybe Finland) are really the same in that sense. Nobody talks, lol. "Look the other way, look busy" :meh:
 
TheKavaSociety

TheKavaSociety

New Zealand
Kava Vendor
Deleted User01 said:
Looks like the Nordic countries and Switzerland round out the top 10. Maybe it's true, Blondes do have more fun. Maybe @Henry can tell us why New Zealanders are so damn happy all the time. Mexico is happier by only an iota. I think the U.S. fell to 15 when they let the cranky old man club have the last vote. I'm always interested in knowing if the countries that adhere to "Socialism" are indeed the happiest. Social medicine is huge if it works. I'll bet that's why so many entrepreneurs come to the states to roll the dice. And so we celebrate the fourth knowing that the sky is the limit if you live in the U.S. But you also have the freedom to live dirt poor if you so desire. Please, let's not make this political and get banned. Let's just celebrate that we have the freedom to go as high or as low as we want and nobody be stopping us.
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From my experience, the "happiest" (and safest) places are those with a high degree of equality. And I mean genuine equality and not some kind of Soviet style quasi equality with super rich and powerful party members and masses equal in their poverty. Now, the real question is how to promote equality without threatening freedom and economic growth. Perhaps the best solution would be to share the gifts of nature/God (i.e. minerals, land, etc) and let people posesses whatever they themselves produce. Norway seems to be quite successful (as opposed to Saudi Arabia).

Regarding the American spirit/dream, one of my favourite American thinkers had the following thing to say nearly 150 years ago:

"This public domain -- the vast extent of land yet to be reduced to private possession, the enormous common to which the faces of the energetic were always turned, has been the great fact that, since the days when the first settlements began to fringe the Atlantic Coast, has formed our national character and colored our national thought. It is not that we have eschewed a titled aristocracy and abolished primogeniture; that we elect all our officers from School Directors up to President; that our laws run in the name of the people, instead of in the name of a prince; that the State knows no religion, and our judges wear no wigs -- that we have been exempted from the ills that Fourth of July orators used to point to as characteristic of the effete despotisms of the Old World. The general intelligence, the general comfort, the active invention, the power of adaptation and assimilation, the free and independent spirit, the energy and hopefulness that have marked out people, are not causes, but results -- they have sprung from unfenced land. This public domain has been the transmuting force which as turned the thriftless, unambitious European peasant into the self-reliant Western farmer; it has given a consciousness of freedom even to the dweller in crowded cities, and has been a well-spring of hope even to those who have never thought of taking refuge upon it. The child of the people, as he grows to manhood in Europe, finds all the best seats at the banquet of life marked "taken," and must struggle with his fellows for the crumbs that fall, without one chance in a thousand of forcing or sneaking his way to a seat. In America, whatever his condition, there has always been the consciousness that the public domain lay behind him; and the knowledge of this fact, acting and reacting, has penetrated our whole national life, giving to it generosity and independence, elasticity and ambition. All that we are proud of in the American character; all that makes our conditions and institutions better than those of older countries, we may trace to the fact that land has been cheap in the United States, because new soil has been open to the emigrant."
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
Henry said:
From my experience, the "happiest" (and safest) places are those with a high degree of equality. And I mean genuine equality and not some kind of Soviet style quasi equality with super rich and powerful party members and masses equal in their poverty. Now, the real question is how to promote equality without threatening freedom and economic growth. Perhaps the best solution would be to share the gifts of nature/God (i.e. minerals, land, etc) and let people posesses whatever they themselves produce. Norway seems to be quite successful (as opposed to Saudi Arabia).

Regarding the American spirit/dream, one of my favourite American thinkers had the following thing to say nearly 150 years ago:

"This public domain -- the vast extent of land yet to be reduced to private possession, the enormous common to which the faces of the energetic were always turned, has been the great fact that, since the days when the first settlements began to fringe the Atlantic Coast, has formed our national character and colored our national thought. It is not that we have eschewed a titled aristocracy and abolished primogeniture; that we elect all our officers from School Directors up to President; that our laws run in the name of the people, instead of in the name of a prince; that the State knows no religion, and our judges wear no wigs -- that we have been exempted from the ills that Fourth of July orators used to point to as characteristic of the effete despotisms of the Old World. The general intelligence, the general comfort, the active invention, the power of adaptation and assimilation, the free and independent spirit, the energy and hopefulness that have marked out people, are not causes, but results -- they have sprung from unfenced land. This public domain has been the transmuting force which as turned the thriftless, unambitious European peasant into the self-reliant Western farmer; it has given a consciousness of freedom even to the dweller in crowded cities, and has been a well-spring of hope even to those who have never thought of taking refuge upon it. The child of the people, as he grows to manhood in Europe, finds all the best seats at the banquet of life marked "taken," and must struggle with his fellows for the crumbs that fall, without one chance in a thousand of forcing or sneaking his way to a seat. In America, whatever his condition, there has always been the consciousness that the public domain lay behind him; and the knowledge of this fact, acting and reacting, has penetrated our whole national life, giving to it generosity and independence, elasticity and ambition. All that we are proud of in the American character; all that makes our conditions and institutions better than those of older countries, we may trace to the fact that land has been cheap in the United States, because new soil has been open to the emigrant."
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Absolutely agree with your comments on equality leading to happiness.

New vocabulary word: 'primogeniture'.

So are you suggesting the character of New Zealanders was shaped in a similar fashion to the US?
 
D

Deleted User01

Bravo @Henry, wonderful essay on this fourth of July. If you want to throw your hat in the ring for President of the U.S., just let me know. There are only 567 candidates right now but you can be the Kava Party's candidate. :D
 
TheKavaSociety

TheKavaSociety

New Zealand
Kava Vendor
verticity said:
Absolutely agree with your comments on equality leading to happiness.

New vocabulary word: 'primogeniture'.

So are you suggesting the character of New Zealanders was shaped in a similar fashion to the US?
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NZ used to have a very egalitarian character because of the type of people that settled it (the poorest of the poor that despised any kind of privilege) and because of the land issue.
But things are changing now: http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...h-poor-divide-killed-its-egalitarian-paradise
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
blindy107

blindy107

Kava Lover
On the original subject, I seem to find more fear or anxiety when I have more to lose. Or more to protect. I couldn't care less about myself but once I started becoming responsible for others as well my definition of fear changed.

I also had a baaaad reaction to some med testing we were doing to combat chronic headaches. It's left me with a slightly increased fear of people after a late night meltdown last summer. It took a while to get to a better place.
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
blindy107 said:
On the original subject, I seem to find more fear or anxiety when I have more to lose. Or more to protect. I couldn't care less about myself but once I started becoming responsible for others as well my definition of fear changed.

I also had a baaaad reaction to some med testing we were doing to combat chronic headaches. It's left me with a slightly increased fear of people after a late night meltdown last summer. It took a while to get to a better place.
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Original subject? What original subject? Oh right--the philosophy of anxiety. Or I guess that basically means the "cause" of anxiety. So @nhoeg suggested from his reading that a feeling of not trusting oneself to do the right or safe thing can be a cause of anxiety. But I hear what you are saying. When I became a parent, I became a lot less anxious about what would happen to me, but quite terrified that anything bad might happen to my child. So maybe we can categorize the causes of fear (and in pathological form, anxiety):
1. Fear of losing some thing
2. Fear of a person that you care about being harmed, or losing the person
3. Fear of yourself being harmed
Conversely, there is anxiety that one's "needs" will not be met:
4. Fear that I will not get something I believe I need: A relationship or a material good.
And I would add one more, for very depressive people, or those whose circumstances are unpleasant, or who are suffering:
5. Fear that things will stay this way (this might be a special case of #4)

Kierkergaard's example would seem to be a special case of both #2 and #3: Fear of losing some thing (self control), and harming myself.
 
nhoeg

nhoeg

Kava Manliness
verticity said:
Original subject? What original subject? Oh right--the philosophy of anxiety. Or I guess that basically means the "cause" of anxiety. So @nhoeg suggested from his reading that a feeling of not trusting oneself to do the right or safe thing can be a cause of anxiety. But I hear what you are saying. When I became a parent, I became a lot less anxious about what would happen to me, but quite terrified that anything bad might happen to my child. So maybe we can categorize the causes of fear (and in pathological form, anxiety):
1. Fear of losing some thing
2. Fear of a person that you care about being harmed, or losing the person
3. Fear of yourself being harmed
Conversely, there is anxiety that one's "needs" will not be met:
4. Fear that I will not get something I believe I need: A relationship or a material good.
And I would add one more, for very depressive people, or those whose circumstances are unpleasant, or who are suffering:
5. Fear that things will stay this way (this might be a special case of #4)

Kierkergaard's example would seem to be a special case of both #2 and #3: Fear of losing some thing (self control), and harming myself.
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I agree on those fears. But I think you miss one. The fear of death - and I don't mean death in it's concrete sense where one is paranoid about getting killed everyday. I mean that we have a general fear of dying some day without feeling calm about what one has achieved in life. If we end our lifes unhappy about what has happened in our lifes, and we think that we COULD have done things differently, our whole 'mission' has failed. I think this is a strong underlying anxiety for everyone.
 
nhoeg

nhoeg

Kava Manliness
But I think it is interesting what you guys say about having kids. I guess you can say that it changes the whole 'anxiety-spectre' in our minds. It removes the subject of the anxiety to some degree, right?

I don't have kids yet, so I guess my anxiety is mostly centered around myself. Such an ego.:notworthy:
 
D

Deleted User01

When you have kids, it stops being about you. I spent countless days shuttling back and forth between kiddie events, hosting parties for him and his friends, coaching and helping out in organized sports, and so on. We even added on to the house with the thought of trapping the littler fellers in the house as they got older and thus keeping them out of trouble. Rec Room and swimming pool and endless sleepovers seemed to do the trick. You never have time to worry about anything except the next event. It was fun until he grew up and now I thank God that I now have time to myself. Anyway, my wife is the designated worrier in my house and she is very good at it. Wish I could get her to do kava.
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
nhoeg said:
I agree on those fears. But I think you miss one. The fear of death - and I don't mean death in it's concrete sense where one is paranoid about getting killed everyday. I mean that we have a general fear of dying some day without feeling calm about what one has achieved in life. If we end our lifes unhappy about what has happened in our lifes, and we think that we COULD have done things differently, our whole 'mission' has failed. I think this is a strong underlying anxiety for everyone.
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I know what you mean, though maybe that could be considered a combination of #3 (harm to self) and #4 (not getting what you want -- I guess I should also add not accomplishing what you want)

I think I did miss one though:
7. Generalized anxiety/fear for no actual reason at all: maybe due to something wrong with your brain, or a reaction to drugs. I would call this "free-floating" or "diffuse" anxiety (Edvard Munch was a big fan of this kind of anxiety!)

I think #1-6 can, over time, actually turn into #7, where you forget why you are anxious all the time, you just know that you are.
 
verticity

verticity

I'm interested in things
nhoeg said:
But I think it is interesting what you guys say about having kids. I guess you can say that it changes the whole 'anxiety-spectre' in our minds. It removes the subject of the anxiety to some degree, right?

I don't have kids yet, so I guess my anxiety is mostly centered around myself. Such an ego.:notworthy:
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Hey man, enjoy your single life while you can... you'll have plenty of time to worry about kids later..

Unfortunately, though, having kids doesn't remove worry about yourself, but it adds an extra dimension to that worry, namely, worrying about the effect on my kids if I died/something bad happened to me..
 
D

Deleted User01

FYI do any old guys that may be retiring but feel like you didn't accomplish much. Hey, you now have a new life and there is still plenty of time to give your time to charitable causes and raise your self esteem many notches that you may not have thought was possible. It's never too late to make your mark in life. Don't brood if you don't money. In old age, money doesn't make people that happy. It makes younger people happy because they want "stuff". Retired folks, not so much.
 
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