Some types of suffering, like chronic pain exacerbated by a shitty repetitive .annual labor job, have never gotten much attention. I think that’s like the mundane happiness you describe.
Literature lingers on complex emotional suffering, I think, because it’s actually more interesting by virtue of being complex but understandable with effort.
It is like a mind tied in complex knots, partly connected to the structure of the world.
I think there are complex joys as well, and literature can have as much fun with those.
I think we focus on suffering because it benefits from our negativity bias, and it seems more virtuous to spend our time understanding suffering than joy.
I think a careful unwrapping of the complexity of a joyful experience, like attending a party and interacting with people in ways they individually appreciate, or the beauty and strangeness of the walk in your other post, ultimately hold just as much interest and virtue, once we don’t need to deal with so much shit.
Some types of suffering, like chronic pain exacerbated by a shitty repetitive .annual labor job, have never gotten much attention. I think that’s like the mundane happiness you describe.
Literature lingers on complex emotional suffering, I think, because it’s actually more interesting by virtue of being complex but understandable with effort.
It is like a mind tied in complex knots, partly connected to the structure of the world.
I think there are complex joys as well, and literature can have as much fun with those.
I think we focus on suffering because it benefits from our negativity bias, and it seems more virtuous to spend our time understanding suffering than joy.
I think a careful unwrapping of the complexity of a joyful experience, like attending a party and interacting with people in ways they individually appreciate, or the beauty and strangeness of the walk in your other post, ultimately hold just as much interest and virtue, once we don’t need to deal with so much shit.