Sometimes it is easier......................

..........to simply cut-and-paste, than it is to figure out what to excerpt:

 If we exclude misanthropes, most people today can – without excessive simplification – be divided into two distinct camps: the Awestruck and the Awws. The Awestruck are unceasingly amazed at the modern world. They are enormously grateful for the countless amenities and benefits of life in the modern global economy. They are aware that nearly all of our ancestors not only did without the comfort and convenience of the likes of air-conditioning, automobiles, air travel, aspirin, automatic dishwashers, telephony, recorded music, and laptop computers and smartphones connected 24/7/365 by wi-fi to the Web, the Awestruck also realize that most of our ancestors did without access to antibiotics, artificial lighting, indoor plumbing, the ability to bathe daily, and even regular supplies of food.

The Awws, in contrast, are either ignorant of how most of our ancestors lived, or they believe that our ancestors’ experiences are irrelevant for assessing the state of the world today. Unlike the Awestruck, the Awws do not compare the state of the world today to that of the actual past. Instead, the Awws compare the state of the world today to fictions conjured by their imaginations. They compare today’s reality to what they imagine to be a Perfect World. The Awws then notice an undeniable reality: As marvelous as today’s world is, it’s not perfect. It could be marvelouser. Imperfections abound.

Upon noticing these imperfections the Awws, in their dismay, moan “Awww.” No matter how much higher standards of living for nearly everyone in today’s market-oriented economies are, living standards could be even higher. The costs of obtaining, maintaining, and further raising these living standards could be even lower. The ‘distribution’ of the abundance of goods and services could be more equal. And were there fewer disagreeable aesthetics of industrial, commercial society – what with its factories and mines and pipelines and strip malls and light pollution and telemarketers and vulgar websites – persons with finely polished sensibilities would indeed suffer fewer irritations.

-Don Boudreaux, from this post

Re-framing the pursuit of happiness.........

     The biological pursuit of happiness is also the number one cause of crime in the world. . . .

It is far from certain that humankind should invest so much effort into the biological pursuit of happiness.  Some would argue that happiness simply isn't important enough, and that it is misguided to regard individual satisfaction as the highest aim of human society.  Others may agree that happiness is indeed the supreme good, yet would take issue with the biological definition of happiness as the experience of pleasant sensation.
     Some 2,300 years ago Epicurus warned his disciples that immoderate pursuit of pleasure is likely to make them miserable rather than happy.  A couple of centuries earlier Buddha had made an even more radical claim, teaching that the pursuit of pleasant sensations is in fact the very root of suffering.  Such sensations are just ephemeral and meaningless vibrations.  Even when we experience them we don't react to them with contentment; rather, we just crave more.  Hence no matter how many blissful or exciting sensations I may experience, they will never satisfy me.

-Yuval Noah Harari,  Homo Deus:  A Brief History of Tomorrow

Demands....................

Insatiable.......................................

Zen Bagel............................................

via

Empty praise...............................

via

As a parent, there have been more than a few times that I wished I had another "mulligan".......

"A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can."
-John Stuart Mill,   from The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

Hard....................................

"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up."
-Babe Ruth

Never satisfied...................

courtesy of