Philosophy Wire: Factors for success. (Why?) Factors for happiness.

Characteristics beyond intelligence can factor into someone's ability to succeed, according to research. New findings, which come from analyzing data from more than 11,000 West Point cadets, both strengthen early theories about grit and point to other attributes key to long-term achievement. [1]

We so constantly seek success.
But we cannot see that success is the safest way to failure.

There is no way to reach success in life by aiming at life.
For the aim of existence is death.

There is no way to find success in this cosmos by aiming at the top.
For the foundations of being lie deep beneath the dirt.

Go on.
See for yourself.
Succeed.

And the worms under the dirt will keep on crawling.
Succeed.
And the stars will laugh at you...

No, you are not trying to catch the uncatchable.
You are just wandering around trying to find how to throw away what you already have…
Think.

Would you ever search for something if you hadn’t already had it?

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Philosophy Wire: Measure happiness? Hahaahahaha!

Photo by Spiros Kakos @ Pexels

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2022-06-25]: Using innovative new methods researchers have built a new index that uses data from books and newspaper to track levels of national happiness from 1820. Their research could help governments to make better decisions about policy priorities. [1] How sad. We believe we can define and measure happiness. But being happy is something you can never comprehend. It is like loving a painting or feeling full by listening to a piece of music. You are happy when you are with your kid. You feel happy when sitting with your grandparents. But for no particular reason. Every data you have indicates that you shouldn’t. You will die anyway. Everyone will vanish from this cosmos. Why be happy for anything? And yet you are. No, it is not a problem that you do not know why. This is the reason why you are happy! And you know that very well...

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Philosophy Wire: Calculating probabilities… Calculating pain…

A Dartmouth study on how we use reward information for making choices shows how humans and monkeys adopt their decision-making strategies depending on the uncertainty of information present. The results of this study illustrated that for a simple gamble to obtain a reward, when the magnitude or amount of the reward is known but the probability of the reward is unknown and must be learned, both species will switch their strategy from combining reward information in a multiplicative way (in which functions of reward probability and magnitude are multiplied to obtain the so-called subjective value) to comparing the attributes in an additive way to make a decision. [1] Rewards. Incentives. Probabilities. So unethical we have become. That we calculate everything. That we dream of benefits and outcomes. But nothing worth having is related to pleasure. For pleasure makes us attach to here and now. But ethics is transcendental. Don’t get me wrong. Ethics is indeed related to pleasure. But not in the way our coward soul thinks it does. Look at the benefits. Look at pleasure. Find where eudaimonia is. And turn around. And seek pain! Feel your self! Everything going black. Everything turning into light…

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Philosophy Wire: Death as balance. Rain and rainbows.

When a sample of Paenibacillus sp., a soil bacteria, is fed a diet of glucose and nutrients in the laboratory and allowed to grow at will, the microbes end up polluting their local environment so quickly and completely that the entire population soon kills itself off. [1] Death is the way of nature to keep balance. We fear it because we love life. But there is no life without it. It is not a difficult truth to grasp. It is just a hard truth to accept. We always strive for more. We always want more. We wish for success. We hope for love and completeness. We are after imbalance every single minute of our life. We are all after happiness. But there can’t be a rainbow without a little rain. Life is the way of nature to keep balance. We fear it because we love death. But there is no death without it. Strive for less. Seek unhappiness. Try to be incomplete. Let go of love.

People crying…
Looking at the rainbow.
A rain drop falling on their hand…

- There is a hurricane coming.
- I know…, you say.

And you start smiling…

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Philosophy Wire: Feeling. Laughter and smiles. Tears and cries.

People may be happier when they feel the emotions they desire, even if those emotions are unpleasant, such as anger or hatred, according to a research. [1] But if you desire to feel that unpleasant feeling, how can it be “unpleasant”? We have wrongly tagged things as “bad” and “good” and our everyday existence suffers from it. We just Are. Pain and suffering is part of the cosmos we live in. Happiness cannot be always laughter and smiles. Happiness is also tears and cries. We desire life. But this means we also desire death which is part of life. We seek light. We are light. And this means that we must accept darkness as well…

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Philosophy Wire: Against Ego…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2017-02-05]: “I had to fight my way out of depression. The person who was holding me back from my happiness was ME”, says Keanu Reeves. How much effort do we spend every day to do things a sparrow would never do…

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Philosophy Wire: Mother. Unhappiness. Happiness.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-11-06]: A child cries when he realizes during the first day at kindergarten that he will not be with his mother. [1] It is the simple things which make us unhappy. It is the simple things which can make us happy again. So boringly true, that it is almost enlightening.

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Philosophy Wire: Pain. How can you live without it?

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2015-02-24]: Is pain something positive or not? [1] Try to feel a moment of happiness. Without being unhappy. And you will see it is impossible.

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Philosophy Wire: Happiness. Success. Blood. Genes. Sweat.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-04-15]: Happiness is something personal. What does it matter to be successful? What does it matter for you to be successful? Blood, genes or… sweat? [1] In things that most people think as important (social success, work, money etc) blood and genes are the most important. But you have to see clearly inside you in order to find the truly important things. And you don't need to sweat at all in order to find them. Happiness is readily available next to you. The only thing you must do is see it. And understand that this is the only component of "successful". You are the others. Happiness is in the others.  Love each other.

And God said, Love your enemy,
And I obeyed Him & loved myself.
Kahlil Gibran

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Philosophy Wire: Tao. Living good.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-11-16]:

Don't be so overwhelmed by pursuing your happiness.
Seek the empty, so that you can be full… (Tao)
The world is illogical. Do not try to seek what the logic dictates.
Don't pursue anything, so that you have everything… (Tao)
Seek unhappiness to be truly blissful (Tao _ skakos)...

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Philosophy Wire: Everyday routine. I adore it.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-02-10]: We hate daily routine. We believe it is like a disease which eats our inside slowly, day by day. And yet, this routine is what highlights us. Without it, we would be nothing. Inside it, we thrive. Let’s accept it. Let’s adore it.

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Philosophy Wire: Zimbabwe, happy people, poor people...

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-01-31]: Zimbabwe says that its public account stood at $217 last week. [source: web news] It is weird how we all think money is necessary for a state to go by. But even without any money at all, the state of Zimbabwe continues to... exist. So? Sure people in a "civilized" state will die if the state does not have any money to take care of them. But that is true only because we made things so dependent of money. And surely people in Africa are not used to being taken care of. This "no money" situation makes no real difference to them... Let us NOT send money to Zimbabwe! Let us let them enjoy their new-found freedom...

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Philosophy Wire: Blind mice, blind painters, Mars…

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2013-01-07]: UK researchers report that totally blind mice have had their sight restored by injections of light-sensing cells into the eye. [source: BBC News] This reminded me of an exceptionally good book I (did not?) read – “An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales” - in which a blind-from-birth painter became unhappy when he gained his vision because he lost his favorite world in which he used to live in and entered a new world in which everything was unknown and hostile. If mice could talk, we could be surprised…

> Check the new philosophy blog Philosophy Snapshots !

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Why do good people suffer?

This is one of the greatest problems that troubles philosophers around the world: Why do good people suffer?

I think the problem can be solved if we understand that it is not really a problem. Who are we to know that suffering is "bad"? Who are we to know that being "happy" in this short material life is our purpose on this planet?
The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not. The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. 

C. S. Lewis

Are you so certain that you do not need any signposts? How "good" and philosophically beneficial is to never be sick or unhappy, in a life the meaning of which is to allow you a glipse at the eternity of nothingness one day? How "good" and philosophically "proper" is it to never have to think of death in a life which leads directly to it? How can you live without death?

Perhaps suffering is a reminder to turn to personal insight (ενόραση), as Hannah Arendt postulates, in contradiction to the pleasures we all seek in this life. Because these pleasures (e.g. a full plate of spaghetti) make us live through other things and take us away from the One which we all feel when alone. And we surely need more of that than spaghetti...

Denn das Schöne ist nichts als des Schrecklichen Anfang, den wir noch grade ertragen, und wir bewunderen es so, weil es gelassen verschmäht, uns zu zerstören. Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich.

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we still are just able to endure, and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us. Every angel is terrifying. [1] ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies

Beauty is the beginning of terror. Love is the beginning of loss. Great emotions are tangled up in our own dissolution or the loss of those we cherish. Life is a vale of sorrow. But sometimes our most sublime experiences happen just at the edge of tears. [1]

Pain makes everything more clear. Pain makes us see the things which are really valuable in life. (and guess what: life itself is not among them) Pain drives us to see into our self.

And no one likes that...

Perhaps pain reminds us of what is really important. Which are not the material joys but death itself. Everything in nature serves a purpose. We just have to accept it. The road of the devil is the easiest one. He who loved, felt pain at the same time. He who never loved anyone, is already dead. Feel sorry for people who have never experienced sorrow. Feel happy for every tear you have shed. Cry for every birth. Laugh for every death. Luminous beings we are. Trapped into existence. Tear after tear, the illusion will go away. Tear by tear, we will start laughing again..

Kierkegaard said that pain makes us drive our thought away from this world. And if pain gives true meaning to hapiness in the eternal, then he who is suffering will feel real joy for his pain. (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler)

Pain is an inherent integral part of the cosmos. It is connected to being itself. And so God says: There are places in the man's heart which do not yet exist. And then pain comes into the heart. So that these places can be.

"[...] in the (concentration) camp it was like this. You sit in a corner and you repeat inside yourself 'My Lord, I am but dist and ashes. O Lord, please take my soul'. And the Lord uplifts your spirits you again. In fact I would give my remaining life for ten more minutes in Dachau"

~ Nikolaj Velimirovic [source]

Think about it: Love is leading to Pain.
Sooner or later you will be separated from the person you love.
And not too many people want to go there.

But the only way to reach Resurrection is Crucifixion…

The sin of Man when he ate from the Tree of Knowledge is that he gained a false knowledge of the existence of Evil even though such thing does not exist. With “knowledge” we forgot that all we see is an illusion. Pain wants to remind us of this Truth. And the more we resist, the more we suffer…

The misfortune of existence makes us wonder.
But wonder we should not.
Ἀρκεῖ σοι ἡ χάρις μου· ἡ γὰρ δύναμίς μου ἐν ἀσθενείᾳ τελειοῦται...


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The Meaning of Pain in Our Lives
Everything Doesn't Happen For A Reason

Lucky to be Unlucky!

Why do some people face more difficulties than others in their lives?


Why don't we ever ask the opposite?

Is being lucky a good thing?


Difficulties define us.
Difficulties make us who we are.


If everything went as we wished,
then Love and Will would have no reason to be...

Thank you Google Knol! (or The value of User-review)

Every man has his own story. A story he thinks is worth telling, but which may interest noone at all. This is such a story.

I used to have many ideas and I used to write many essays on philosophical subjects on my own. However I never did publish my work or let anyone else (besides my inner circle) see it. I was happy about that and did not really think that I could ever get the chance to publish my work. My initial publish efforts was a site in Yahoo! Geocities (now closed) and I must say that the idea of being well known in the Internet had never crossed my mind nor did I pursue it actively.

And then came Google Knol. It promised to offer a brand new way of publising your ideas to the wider audience of the Internet. It promised a brand new way of user-review of articles posted and an innovative way of article rating. That was all I needed! I immediately started publishing work I had already written and the sky was the limit. I was in a frenzy and wrote new articles as soon as my fingers were rested from restless typing on the computer.

The Knol system worked well in the beginning. However a series of problems came into existence (not the place here to analyze them) and after some time, Knol finally met its innevitable fate. I am not sad that it closed, since everyone carries within himself the things that define him - no matter if they still "are" or not. I am just thrilled that I participated in the journey!

Now that Wikipedia faces problems with a PR company manipulating its content to favor its customers (!!!) [see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16084861], it is not a bad time to think again the things Knol taught us. The Wikipedia-type "blind" and "faceless" type of "encyclopedia authority" is always dangerous... Users have power. And if you give them the right to exercise it, you can build a powerful peer-reviewed system of articles online.

So Thank you Knol!
You made me into who I am!
And I will always think I write "Knols" whenever a new quality article comes out of my hands...

Philosophy Wire: iPhone application to measure happiness

Philosophy Wire: 2010-10-12 A new iPhone application that measures happiness is developed. Application may sound weird or even funny, but it shows some of the greatest doctrines of todays materialistic life: some people think that everything can be measured. How much do you "love" your iPhone? How much do you love your wife? 100? 105?

[Greek / Ελληνικά] Μια νέα εφαρμογή του iPhone μετράει την ευτυχία. Μπορεί να φαίνεται αστείο, αλλά υποδεικνύει ένα βασικό δόγμα στο οποίο πολλοί πιστεύουν: ότι όλα μπορούν να μετρηθούν. Πόσο "αγαπάς" το iPhone σου; Πόσο αγαπάς τη γυναίκα σου; 100; 105;

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