Contentment & Complacency

The only thing that really matters in life is survival, everything else is a distraction.

Maybe the trouble with people is we take our distractions too seriously.

What does it mean to be appreciative, does it mean making the most of what one has?

Does making the most of what you have, mean always attempting to attain other more?

Or is it enjoying what you have already?

Is it seizing the opportunities we have to have more?

Or is it wanting little-nothing else?

Sometimes we push ourselves because we want things, but what if you don’t want much, should you push yourself to want things?

Is it possible, or rational, to want to want things you don’t want?

Or is that a form of madness, or a personality disorder?

I accept what I have in life and so I want no more other than to carry
on growing and developing as a human being right until my final day

[quote=“Gloominary”]
The only thing that really matters in life is survival, everything else is a distraction.[/quote}

Maybe … and … maybe not.

Certainly our 5 … or 6 if you prefer … senses serve a single purpose … survival.

Our senses deal with our exterior world and serve … in essence … to protect our brain.

Is there an “interior world” to being human?

Many people think so … these same people lean towards the belief that our senses have no purpose vis a vis our interior world. ergo: all the effort serious practitioners of yogi, meditation, contemplation, qi gong and so on. All their efforts are directed at suspending the senses … memory included. In reaching this point apparently their inner world becomes “visible” … figuratively speaking.

Is stature/status a survival issue?

Certainly was during the great depression where many people who only lost their financial status committed suicide.

If yes … keeping up with the Jones is a moving target … and quite a rational one … no?

Don’t know much about modern medicine … can virtually every vital organ in the body be shut down … at least temporarily … and replaced by a machine in the hospital operating room?

Can the brain be shut down completely while doctors take their screw drivers, pliers and wrenches to give it a tune up?

What about a coma … where certain brain components continue to function and the hospital provides the food supply and waste disposal. Is this survival? Seems to be a controversial issue these days.

May explain St Augustine’s claim … paraphrasing … “prosperity spawns depravity”

There’s a time for growth, and a time for sustainability.
We don’t always need to be growing in every way, some growth is more necessary than others.
Sometimes taking a step forward in one way is taking one back in another.

[quote=“pilgrim_tom”]

For me, the brain and the mind are one.
I don’t think of the mind as being caused by the brain, or a byproduct/epiphenomenon of the brain, the mind is the mind/brain apprehending or perceiving itself directly, introspectively, the brain is the brain/mind apprehending, perceiving itself, and other brain/minds indirectly, via the five senses.
Two phenomenon, one thing, just like a waterfall appears different to our eyes, ears and other senses, but it’s all basically the same thing.
The brain can appear to cause changes in the mind, but the mind can also appear to cause changes in the brain, because they’re one.
Neither is the cause of the other, for every change that happens in one, an equal and corresponding change in the other and vice versa, or at least, that is how it appears to me, based on my experience and research.

While I’m open to spirituality, I’m not a very spiritual person, and am very skeptical of there being a part of ourselves which is not at risk of being destroyed, or can’t be destroyed in what we would call physical or material ways.

Now not everything we do seems to have a survival purpose, some things, like nipples on men, or song and dance, may have little-no survival purpose, and some things we do, like taking meth, or hang gliding, may even be dangerous, and some of these things and behaviors are partly-fully genetic, or inherited upon conception.
Thou detrimental, they nonetheless get passed down from one generation to the next, and some of these things, thou detrimental, may still be of some importance to us, we like doing them.
It’s not that these non-survival things shouldn’t be important to us, just that survival things should take precedence.
After all, we can derive a great deal of satisfaction just from attaining the necessities of life, for ourselves and those whoever else we care for.
That’s really what’s important to us, and will ultimately give us the most satisfaction and pleasure, for the vast majority of people, places and times really.
The rest is not by/large inessential.
Also, you can forgo inessential things and do essential, survival things, but you can’t do inessential things if you’re dead, or in poor health, so survival and being in good physical and mental health ought to take precedence.

The problem with people I think is we take what’s most important for granted, and we get caught up in trivial pursuits, begin thinking of such things as what’s of real importance, neglecting necessities in the process, and that’s why we, as individuals and a species are getting sicker, in my estimation, and why we’ll die.
It’s not that we should care only about survival and being in good health, just there’s a hierarchy, and in some cases, many cases, man has got it backwards.

Gloominary,

How are you open to spirituality?

at the risk of sounding ‘pesky’ … perhaps your intuition telling you man has got it backwards points to the better way.

Spirituality being at the top of the hierarchy … primary … all else subordinates to spirit.

Some wealth and status is needed, tenable, and enjoyable, but some is superfluous, and not at all worth risking life and limb over.
It’s not that any particular thing that people pursue is worthless, just the excess of things, the excess needs to be trimmed, or relegated to its proper place.

Is working 60 hours a week so you can afford to live in a mansion you’re mostly away from not a kind of sickness?
Does an individual or a small family really need dozens of rooms?
Will they even enjoy having them all that much?
Will they use them?
Statistics suggest while the middle class is somewhat happier than the dirt poor, averagely, the upper class isn’t any happier, or healthier for that matter than the middle class, so why’re some people always trying to be richer, then, sometimes at the expense of society, the environment, or their own well being?
Envy?
A distortion of values?
Furthermore, while the middle classes of wealthy countries like Canada or Norway may be somewhat happier than poor classes of wealthy countries, studies seem to suggest the middle classes of most countries, rich ones like the aforementioned and relatively poor ones like India and China, tend to differ little in terms of happiness.

So the middle class is where it’s at or at least to regard yourself as middle class which a lot of poor people do.

What’s the median income for the middle class these days and is that based on a partnership, a couple?

Sometimes I research stuff on the paranormal, I’m open to the possibility of such things, for me everything is possible, but I have yet to come to any definite conclusions about them, and it’s most important to figure out how we ought to live in this world, and deal with the everyday, the things which’re more consistent, predictable, and within our power to affect.

I think in the states it’s something like 50000, that’s just going off the top of my head.

That’s median household income, which I think includes singles and couples.

There’s hardly a middle class anymore anyway, but that’s a topic for another thread, plenty of threads where people talk about the rich screwing the poor, and they are in some ways, but I’d rather talk about alternative values and asceticism, minimalism.

Yea it’s more a state of mind, I’m middle class, I have a job, a roof over my head and descent food on my table, I eat better than Warren Buffet, the guys a junk food junkie admittedly, I manage to cook every night, steak and potatoes, vegetables, and I make minimum wage.

Spirituality is secondary, what matters is survival and living comfortably, and that we’re content with that, and then spirituality and speculation come after, and we ought not to sacrifice our real needs on this earth for our spirituality very much, if at all.