i continue to think that you are completely wrong about happiness fwiw
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wrong in goal (we shouldnāt aim to be happy), mechanism (not trying to be happy is the key to being happy), or both?
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i think people very visibly and very obviously want things other than happiness and that fixating on happiness is a philosophical mistake, but admittedly it depends a lot on the precise referent of āhappinessā
i think a thing people def want is to *not be chronically unhappy*
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i think another very common pattern that e.g. romeo stevens has talked about is people using unhappiness as a stick to get themselves to do things, e.g. āiām not allowed to be happy until i finish all my work,ā and that it would be better for such patterns to not be there
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i think this for reasons that donāt ground out in happiness per se. when people allow themselves to be happy more human flourishing happens. but happiness as such is not the point, imo
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honestly i canāt tell if we actually disagree or where we do because each word only poorly describes the underlying thing, and when I only have like 70% confidence in every word error compounds quickly
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you might have a better idea of where we disagree than I do, and if so Iād appreciate if you could clarify it, but I also get if that just sounds like a lot of work
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the reference to CT helped clarify your position, i think i get what you mean now and i am very confused about core states myself but iāll repeat that i think āhappinessā is a confusing word to refer to core states and i would personally use a different one
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any suggestions? I donāt mean happiness as most people mean it, but itās easy to communicate and tbh I separately think if they chase āhappinessā and study it seriously for years theyāll arrive at core states type stuff pretty quickly
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you could try the core states words - i donāt remember most of them but āoneness,ā maybe āpeace,ā they mostly feel more woo tho
for me ācontentmentā gets a lot closer than āhappinessā but it might feel too weak
actually āpeaceā is not bad but would produce other confusions
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the real lesson is that words should be illegal
Iāve just been going for contentment or emotional well-being.
And I to second QC, Nick. Iād seen enough of your tweets and writing to get that happiness for you = emotional well-being/contentment/a quality of internal state for me but I can see how it could be easily confused
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