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Two main flavors of contentment. The "I showed them" smugness vs thankful gratitude. The former emphasizes the "I" that did the thing while the latter is grateful because "they" did the thing. (e.g. teacher or parent's pride)

Neither is better than the other but the former requires the constant re-creation and activation of "I" while the latter is perpetual. There's no way to constantly maintain contentment when it always requires an "I".

An "I" driven contentment engine spends most of its time trying to reach contentment, when the "I" can say "I did THIS" While this can make the eventual contentment feel more intense, it's intensity is only relative. actual intensity is the same as the gratitude kind.

A "they" driven contentment engine on the other hand only requires awareness. It doesn't requires physical exertion on the body and doesn't require the mind to put together an identity. It just requires a simple awareness.

This awareness muscle is often deactivated much like muscles in the back are deactivated when sitting for too long over years. These muscles seem weak, especially in relation to the overcompensating larger ones, but they're usually the ones that can do the job eternally w/o pain.

The deactivation of the awareness muscle happens with trauma. E.g. the kind of scene that a child runs and hides from; or cries to overload the input senses, obscuring the traumatic scene.

Awareness can only be dampened or turned in another direction. It can be turned off since then it would no longer be awareness. The coping mechanisms from these traumas create blind spots in an awareness field just like muscle deactivation.

A common awareness blindspot is boredom. Awareness is kept at a constantly low amplitude. Much like visiting manhattan, dampening yourself down to prevent being overwhelmed, and being unable to release when back in the countryside. Everything feels 'boring' relative to the city.