Post: #1

The more I study human psychology and philosophy, the more and more I see where happiness and unhappiness comes from; I'm not totally finished studying things but here is what I see so far and how it relates to dating, careers, family, and life in general:

(The main problem is that the majority of advice people here today is consequential or just 'cause/effect'; most people seem to live by trial and error and eventually descover things which do work, but not the reason "why" they work, which is what I've always wanted to understand.
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First off, all human interactions are in some form or another economic interactions (many people on the forum probably already understand this).

Humans are born with an innate instinctive knowledge of this (e.x. per evolutionary psychology), but not a logical knowledge; e.x. most people for example know just based on common sense that they "want" to date/marry/have kids/have more money, but they don't logically understand "why".

However what humans really want from a biological perspective is simply not to be in debt or be indebted to. (Men especially fear being in debt the most, while women especially fear being indebted to).

People therefore tend to fluctuate between either being too greedy (e.x. wanting more than they are actually entitled to) or being too needy (e.x. having to depend on others due to inability or unwillingness to meet their obligations) - this renders the typical alpha/beta, nice guy/jerk dichotomies somewhat obsolete.

-In general however society frowns more on needy men than greedy men

(e.x. dependent behavior such as the milquetoast who lives for his wife's approval is viewed as "needy", while the jerk who gets women pregnant but abandons the kids is viewed as greedy, but still frowned upon slightly less).

And society likewise frowns more on greedy women than needy women

This is of course why promiscuous women are viewed as worse than promiscuous men, other things associated with greed in women are aggression, obesity (e.x. gluttony), and even old age is subconsciously associated with "greed" or having too much (since age is associated with seniority or authority, which is likewise why overbearing female authorities are frowned upon moreso than overbearing male authorities).

(This is also why we tend to fear associating with people we don't respect or trust as individuals, even if our logical mind knows no "harm" will come from it, our subconscious mind views any type of relationship as an investment)

(Whether logically true 100% of the time or not, our animal instinct still perceives this guilt through association; while men can have relationships with older women in which they are still "in charge", many feel uncomfortable with it since the older person is immediately perceived as "senior"; therefore a younger man/older woman relationship is immediately perceived as a debtor/debtee relationship, and therefore publicly may reflect poorly on his social "credit" regardless of whether it's "true" or not).

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Most misery in the world is caused less by the specific things one has, but accumulation of social "debt", this doesn't just include economic debt but even our interactions with others; while being rich for example isn't a bad thing, being debt free is more important than having a lot of "things"; because the man who makes $90,000 per year but spends $100,000 paying his mortagage, car payments, etc is really renting other people's items, while the man who makes $60,000 per year but has paid everything off owns everything he possesses.

People are also by animal nature collectivist-minded or "social animals" for better or worse. While in modern societies we have formally established individual and civil rights, our "animal" instinct still has the mind of a hunter-gatherer which lived in a small, communitarian tribe in which there was very little modern notion of private property. We therefore tend to feel we're "indebted" by and "indebted" to every person we meet on a daily basis on a subconscious level.

(e.x. When we see the young entrepreneur driving around in his Ferrari with his hot model girlfriend, our subconscious instinct feels a little envious because it thinks "we should have it" just because he has it in order to make things "fair", even though our intellectual mind respects that every individual should have a right to his own property and acquisitions).

This explains power relations somewhat as far as pecking orders go: e.x. why men who are too soft get bullied, since they behave like a debtor, and therefore the subconscious mind of the bully kicks in and treats him like a debetee (e.x. even though an act of bullying or teasing isn't literally "taking" or "gaining" something from him, the subconscious mind associates being able to "control" him as him fulfilling some obligation to you).

This also explains where a huge percentage of mental illnesses arise from, as our collectivist instinctive mind tends to associate certain types of behaviors not just with the individual, but with everyone "like" the individual; e.x. a person who was abused by their parents may therefore associate all "authority" figures (e.x. police, bosses), e.x. with the abuser.

This also explains where addictions and bad relationships come from; our mind naturally expects relationships to last indefinitely (even though this is logically unrealistic); therefore it often feels that ending a bad relationship is a form of "betrayal".

"Relationship" in the above sense also includes activities we engage in, such as smoking; our mind subconsciously associates us with "other smokers" (or people we know in real life who smoke); and therefore perceives "quitting smoking" as abandoning a relationship with other smokers. Therefore learning to end relationships on good terms may be the secret to giving up addictions and dysfunctional habits as well.

(All of the above is why ideologies such as communism and socialism are not "progressive", as they're actually advocating that we take a step "backward" and view everyone as a member of one big tribe, rather than as individuals with natural rights).

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Most evil to others and the self boils down therefore to false senses of entitlement; in fact the first murder in the Bible was due to Cain believing he was entitled to his brother's possessions.

(My understanding is that the average criminal to the worst people on the planet share a similar mentality, they believe that they in some way or another have been done wrong by society at large, and are therefore entitled to take whatever they want from society by force in order to make things "even"; Hitler for example blamed the Jews, while Marx blamed the capitalist, and both mentalities lead to deaths of millions of people).

(Self destruction likewise occurs when a person feels they're entitled not to fulfil their own obligations because they're a victim; e.x. the alcoholic on the street may feel he's a "victim" of addiction beyond his control, so while he may be unhappy he feels "content" with it since he has tricked himself into believing his hardship relieves him of self-responsibility).

The "good news" here however is that nature seems to have a natural repercussion for bad behavior, because our minds naturally tend to expect others to behave like we do. We can therefore only "trick" ourselves so long into believing our false entitlements.

(e.x. Nazi scientist Joseph Mengele killed many innocent people, his mind therefore subconsciously felt he was in a debt that he would eventually have to repay to humanity at large, and though he escaped prosecution, those who knew him claimed he spend the rest of his life in paranoia, constantly looking over his shoulder for example).

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While there is definitely a lot more to be looked into, so far my essential conclusions are this:

1. Everyone's main goal in life should be to have a "balanced social budget", the specifics of how they get there (e.x. career, etc) are less important than simply being balanced and "free" of debt, socially or otherwise.

2. While no one can "never" depend on others completely (e.x. even a company CEO is indebted to the shareholders and board of directors), doing everything one can to right one's wrongs and keep their social debts balanced is important; if one either depends too much on others or takes too much from others, we essentially create a social "imbalance", accumulating social debt just as one with a bad credit score has accumulated financial debt; and we tend to become more cynical of others as well, fearing they will treat us the same way in regards to our entitlements and obligations.

3. What "we have" is less important to us than whether or not we think we "are owed it"; a person who doesn't own a Lamborghini would be fine without one, but a person who does own Lamborghini will be furious if it is stolen; even if both people are now in the exact same boat materially; it's therefore less about the object than the sense of ownership or desert.

Therefore it's definitely important for everyone to honestly question everything they "really want" in life, and find out the reasons why - because short of possibly the bare necessities of survival like food and water, everything we think we should have is something we think we are "entitled to".

(Having unrealistic demands of the self or wanting things "just because" someone else we know has them can therefore be a source of unhappiness, thinking more about what it is we're actually doing in our live to earn the things we want and taking pride in them more important.

Letting go of grudges, whether against bad parents, rivals or others we believe have done us wrong, and simply "forgiving" others in our lives of debt which we either can't collect or isn't worth collecting, e.x. some have held severe grudges for years on end and killed people out of petty insults, getting a feeling of "debt relief" but throwing their life away in the process; and likewise the more 'petty debts' we forgive of others, the more we likewise expect forgiveness of others rather than retribution on behalf of the wrongs we've done.

Post: #2

For a completely different viewpoint on happiness and human behavior, check out "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Todd Gilbert.

This book changed my life, and the way I think about happiness.

Post: #3

This was a great read Dantes. Thank you for delivering an other perspective regarding the meaning of life.