Hedonic Adaptation. Sounds fancy. Sounds like some ivory tower elitist bullshit. Now that I've appealed to my FOX News demographic; on with whatever the fuck this blog is.
Hedonic Adaptation is proposed by some as being the single most important and influential factor fucking with our happiness. If I was scholarly I'd go find some sources, but as a chronic moderate achiever, I'll pass and just assume what I'm saying isn't bullshit. To be fair, I'm being as honest as I am capable but I've had a few drinks.
If you're reading this, you have access to the internet. You have a piece of machinery completely beyond your ability to recreate or fully understand. This machine is capable of sending your thoughts thousands of miles, in seconding, to potentially billions of people. This machine basically allows you to be telepathic. The network this machine is a part of encompasses not only the world, but the air space that coats this rock, even extending into space, where thousands of other machines circle around this planet at hundreds, maybe thousands of miles a second. These machines absorbing, bouncing, and redirecting energy we can't see with our unassisted body. For this connectivity, Kings would have sent tens of thousands of men to their death if even the slightest hope existed that they could obtain it. These machines inspire no awe in us.
Hedonic Adaptation.
We believe we are good at predicting how happy or sad a future event will make us. Science says?!...Nope. (Insert sources I'll give to anyone interested). We're not. Hedonic Adaptation asserts that each person has a unique baseline of happiness. This is influenced by genes and a host of mostly adjustable mental factors. You could win the lottery, in 6 months you'll be back to baseline. You could become paralyzed by a spine crushing car accident, 6 months later--baseline. Therefore happiness will never be achieved by obtaining anything material.
This force drives american culture. Capitalism fucking feasts on the 300 million plus flesh sacs who embody this mentality.
I'm laughing. Its ironic. I decided I'd write on this topic last night. I was excited. I believed it'd be fun and fulfilling Here I am writing...and its not fun nor fulfilling because I feel like I'm failing to capture the gravitas of the topic and its impact on our happiness. I'm a victim of the fucking thing I'm writing about. I'm not too upset. I seem to have a high positive baseline. I could be completely delusional and be in a state of utter depression with wall after wall of cognitive dissonance and not know it.
Thats the funniest thing, the things I've learned most from college is that we don't know shit. This isn't some high schooler regurgitation of Socrates in an attempt to sound deep. No. Our memories suck. One of my professors makes a living explaining to jurys how eyewitness testimony isn't accurate enough to convict. Scientists have repeatedly put fabricated memories into participants minds, and these people truly believe these stories happened to them. If you let that sink in, a few logical steps and your at a scary place. Then there is the whole philosophical matter on what can you know, how can you know, and how do you know you know. Blah blah blah (this is what I think whenever I bring up philosophy to almost anyone :c )
I'm rambling.
Hemingway said something about drinking and writing.
He's a greater man than I cause I'm butchering this shit.
Stop being uninspired.
Stop watching TV.
Create something.