But if you look at it other way, then pointing out unpleasant facts about other people’s condition (that don’t apply to us) is equivalent to pointing out good facts about our condition, which should make us feel better, as it leaves us in a better world than we started out in.
That’s exactly the kind of thinking the world needs less of, and the kind that I was trying to warn readers against in the parent comment. Why? Just why would a worse world for someone else make for a better world for you, if that someone is not your mortal enemy? It just makes for a worse world, period.
The point isn’t that you’re taking pleasure in their misfortune, it’s that you’re taking pleasure in your own fortune. “I’m so lucky for having X.” If you don’t do that, then any improvements in your standard of living or situation in general will end up having no impact on your happiness, since you just get used to them and take them for granted and don’t even realize that you would have a million reasons to be happy. And then (in the most extreme case) you’ll end up feeling miserable because of something completely trivial, because you’re ignoring everything that could make you happy and the only things that can have any impact on your state of mind are negative ones.
And then (in the most extreme case) you’ll end up feeling miserable because of something completely trivial, because you’re ignoring everything that could make you happy and the only things that can have any impact on your state of mind are negative ones.
Someone commented above about the instrumental value of crying and feeling bad, and you’re actually pointing out the case where crying and feeling bad fail at being instrumental. Basically, I’m for whatever attitude that gets you to stop crying and start fixing some problem, and if resetting your baseline helps, it’s fair game! It definitely works for me in some cases.
I think this quote is trying to argue against the attitude that problems that are minor compared to other problems don’t deserve any attention at all. That everyone without shoes should just wrench themselves into happiness and go around being grateful, rather than acknowledging that they keep stepping on snails and pointy things, which sucks, and making productive steps toward acquiring shoes.
I remember reading something about plastic surgeons getting kind of looked down upon because they’re not proper heroic doctors that handle real medical problems.
… I think I see where you’re coming from—by realizing we’re not at the far end of the unhappiness scale (since we have a counterexample to that), we should calibrate our feelings about our situation accordingly, yes?
It’s still not the way I view things; I’d like to say I prefer judging these things according to an absolute standard, but it’s likely that that would be less true for me than I want it to be. To the extent that it doesn’t hold true for me, I think it’s better to take into consideration better states as well as worse ones. Saying, “at least I don’t have it as bad as X” just doesn’t feel enough; everybody who doesn’t have it as bad as X could say it, and people in this category can vary widely in their levels of satisfaction, the more so the worse X has it. It’s more complete to say “Yes, but I don’t have it as good as Y either” or, better yet, “I have it better/worse than my need requires”.
by realizing we’re not at the far end of the unhappiness scale (since we have a counterexample to that), we should calibrate our feelings about our situation accordingly, yes?
Yes, yes, but now you are going into far more depth than the original quote. The idea behind the quote seems to have been (at least as I read it): “Be happy that you have feet, having feet is not something you should take for granted.” The quote says nothing more than that. (Well, not quite. The point it makes is not only meant to be reserved for feet specifically, but rather seems to be meant as a comment on anything people take for granted.)
But if you look at it other way, then pointing out unpleasant facts about other people’s condition (that don’t apply to us) is equivalent to pointing out good facts about our condition, which should make us feel better, as it leaves us in a better world than we started out in.
That’s exactly the kind of thinking the world needs less of, and the kind that I was trying to warn readers against in the parent comment. Why? Just why would a worse world for someone else make for a better world for you, if that someone is not your mortal enemy? It just makes for a worse world, period.
The point isn’t that you’re taking pleasure in their misfortune, it’s that you’re taking pleasure in your own fortune. “I’m so lucky for having X.” If you don’t do that, then any improvements in your standard of living or situation in general will end up having no impact on your happiness, since you just get used to them and take them for granted and don’t even realize that you would have a million reasons to be happy. And then (in the most extreme case) you’ll end up feeling miserable because of something completely trivial, because you’re ignoring everything that could make you happy and the only things that can have any impact on your state of mind are negative ones.
Someone commented above about the instrumental value of crying and feeling bad, and you’re actually pointing out the case where crying and feeling bad fail at being instrumental. Basically, I’m for whatever attitude that gets you to stop crying and start fixing some problem, and if resetting your baseline helps, it’s fair game! It definitely works for me in some cases.
I think this quote is trying to argue against the attitude that problems that are minor compared to other problems don’t deserve any attention at all. That everyone without shoes should just wrench themselves into happiness and go around being grateful, rather than acknowledging that they keep stepping on snails and pointy things, which sucks, and making productive steps toward acquiring shoes.
I remember reading something about plastic surgeons getting kind of looked down upon because they’re not proper heroic doctors that handle real medical problems.
… I think I see where you’re coming from—by realizing we’re not at the far end of the unhappiness scale (since we have a counterexample to that), we should calibrate our feelings about our situation accordingly, yes?
It’s still not the way I view things; I’d like to say I prefer judging these things according to an absolute standard, but it’s likely that that would be less true for me than I want it to be. To the extent that it doesn’t hold true for me, I think it’s better to take into consideration better states as well as worse ones. Saying, “at least I don’t have it as bad as X” just doesn’t feel enough; everybody who doesn’t have it as bad as X could say it, and people in this category can vary widely in their levels of satisfaction, the more so the worse X has it. It’s more complete to say “Yes, but I don’t have it as good as Y either” or, better yet, “I have it better/worse than my need requires”.
Yes, pretty much.
Yes, yes, but now you are going into far more depth than the original quote. The idea behind the quote seems to have been (at least as I read it): “Be happy that you have feet, having feet is not something you should take for granted.” The quote says nothing more than that. (Well, not quite. The point it makes is not only meant to be reserved for feet specifically, but rather seems to be meant as a comment on anything people take for granted.)