How accurate is the worldview of the pessimist?
Okay, here we go... :s
PF almost needs a category called "Debate Pessimism". Not that it's a bad thing per se, but this topic is discussed so often and without much change that it is, at least for me, nauseating to see yet another post about pessimism. I'm sorry if I'm pessimistic about the future of the topics on PF.
Optimists are often derided for their faith-like claims for humanity and the future, accused of sticking their head in the sand and being blind to reality. This is usually said by someone who considers themselves a pessimist or a "realist" (whatever the hell that means, other than implying pretentiousness).
I would like to see what people think of the pessimist worldview. Of course there are already self-proclaimed pessimists on this forum (myself included), but it certainly is not the only position held. Are we guilty of a negativity bias? Is pessimism a self-fulfilling prophecy? Do we only want to see the negative?
I think, to sum up the difference between a pessimist and a non-pessimist would be the answer to the question of: Is it better to have lived/loved/etc and lost than to have never lived/loved/etc at all? The answer for me (as a pessimist), is, no, nobody wants to lose. Loss is only transformed into a meaningful or positive thing in retrospect. This is not necessarily a bad thing if it helps you grow personally or deal with the circumstances, but it doesn't change the fact that it wasn't desirable to begin with.
So the point of this topic is to see what everyone else, outside of the little sphere of pessimism, have to say about pessimism. I want to hear your criticism and complaints about the pessimistic worldview.
PF almost needs a category called "Debate Pessimism". Not that it's a bad thing per se, but this topic is discussed so often and without much change that it is, at least for me, nauseating to see yet another post about pessimism. I'm sorry if I'm pessimistic about the future of the topics on PF.
Optimists are often derided for their faith-like claims for humanity and the future, accused of sticking their head in the sand and being blind to reality. This is usually said by someone who considers themselves a pessimist or a "realist" (whatever the hell that means, other than implying pretentiousness).
I would like to see what people think of the pessimist worldview. Of course there are already self-proclaimed pessimists on this forum (myself included), but it certainly is not the only position held. Are we guilty of a negativity bias? Is pessimism a self-fulfilling prophecy? Do we only want to see the negative?
I think, to sum up the difference between a pessimist and a non-pessimist would be the answer to the question of: Is it better to have lived/loved/etc and lost than to have never lived/loved/etc at all? The answer for me (as a pessimist), is, no, nobody wants to lose. Loss is only transformed into a meaningful or positive thing in retrospect. This is not necessarily a bad thing if it helps you grow personally or deal with the circumstances, but it doesn't change the fact that it wasn't desirable to begin with.
So the point of this topic is to see what everyone else, outside of the little sphere of pessimism, have to say about pessimism. I want to hear your criticism and complaints about the pessimistic worldview.
Comments (38)
One observation that I would make is that IN GENERAL pessimism is unfounded. Now this is entirely speaking in generalities, I understand. Bad things obviously, reliably and regularly. However, can't we say with some certainty that the world is, in general, always improving? Throughout history all the indicators of well being that you could possibly name - wealth, education, access to clean drinking water, medical advancement, life expectancy, likelihood of dying in a non-violent circumstance, gay rights, women's rights, racial equality etc. have advanced steadily upwards in a sawtooth (obviously not quite linearly in all regions, for all people, in all eras but generally speaking). Things just get better and better. Now of course, this may not be true for ever, and indeed we may be on the precipice of a saw tooth downwards before we rise again, but it seems if we take the big picture pessimism has no place.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I would say the pessimist reveals the predisposition in positing the question. The pessimist questions the negation of an intrinsic quality. While it is a reasonable question, the optimist might see the negation as an unnecessary or contingent feature of reality. The optimist goal is then at removing the contingency whereas the pessimist becomes fixated on it.
Pessimism isn't the same as "giving up" and optimism isn't the same as a "gung-ho can-do" approach.
I am pessimistic about the future. I expect climate conditions in 2100 to be quite undesirable. I expect that over-population will remain an on-going problem. I expect that the world's economies will experience considerable volatility and over-all decline. All that is pessimism, but I don't feel depressed about the future. Being nearly 70 years old helps, of course. I won't be around in 2045, let alone 2100. I am, on the other hand, optimistic about the next few years of my life. I am looking forward to continued good mental health, stable physical health, continued mobility, and new (positive) learning opportunities.
Realistically, there is little I can do to improve my life (which is OK the way it is). I (realistically with optimism) assess my chances of biking to the grocery store and back without getting killed as very good. But realism and pessimism both tell me that a fatal accident is possible.
Society requires a wide variety of mental types, predilections, skills, propensities, and so on to respond adequately to new and resurgent old dangers and opportunities. The ideal isn't a "balance between optimistic and pessimist"; rather, it is a dialogue and debate with objective information.
Pessimism:
1. a tendency to see the worst aspect of things or believe that the worst will happen; a lack of hope or confidence in the future
2. Philosophy a belief that this world is as bad as it could be or that evil will ultimately prevail over good.
Optimism
1 hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something
2 Philosophy the doctrine, esp. as set forth by Leibniz, that this world is the best of all possible worlds.
• the belief that good must ultimately prevail over evil in the universe.
The first point of the comparison regarding the personal feelings towards the future is psychological pessimism/optimism. A person who does not try to achieve because they may fail is a psychological pessimist, while a person who does try is a psychological optimist.
Philosophical pessimism, on the other hand, seems to be (at least to me) quite often paired with nihilism. The very lack of meaning, divine guidance, and substance behind existence is seen as a very troublesome thing, something that cannot coexist with flourishing existence. Things like the lack of any deity, the possibility for suffering and current predicament of suffering, the lack of a self despite our evolutionary intuitions, the passing of time and the irony of human history, the complete and utter lack of sympathy from the universe or god, the alienation of the human being, the tragic misstep of human evolution producing conscious beings, the hopelessness in the face of an increasing population of sentient meat tubes, the paradoxical problem of achieving sustained happiness in a societal machine powered by destructive emotions, the eventual demise of all life via entropy, etc. The pessimist asserts that there is no recovery from the loss of these values. Existence is seen, at the very least, a burden, and at the worst, a nightmare.
And while there is nothing inherently wrong with being a psychological optimist, a pessimist would think it is crazy to believe this optimism is applicable to the wider scheme of things as a philosophical position.
My immediate thought is that intelligence (reason) cannot possibly support either optimism or pessimism (considered simply as expectational dispositions). As Hume points out our convictions that the future will resemble the past are not convictions of reason, but of mere habit. (See Hume’s ‘problem of induction’).
Thinking this through further, I would say there is a general will towards optimism because the disposition of optimism is both more pleasant and more productive than that of pessimism.
It is perfectly rational to hope for whatever we wish; irrationality comes into play when we expect it. There is no opposite disposition of hoping for what we do not wish; to hope for what we do not wish is a contradiction, and to fear that what we don’t wish will come to pass is already the irrational expectation of it.
So, for me optimism (consisting not in expectation of, but in a positive hope for, the best) and pessimism are opposites only in the sense that the former is rational and the latter irrational; the former based on hope and the latter on expectation.
As an example of the kind of thing I have in mind: I don’t think it is irrational to hope for world peace and brother/sisterhood, and to work to bring about these things (if that is your passion, of course). I think it is irrational to expect that they will come about, or to expect that they will not. The fact is, we simply don’t know what humans are capable of. That is why I disagree with Gramsci’s formulation because I think optimism (positive hope) is always rational and pessimism (negative expectation) always irrational, which is the precise opposite of what Gramsci says. Remember, though that positive expectation is also always irrational for me, and negative hope is simply meaningless. Also this is not to say that it is not rational to prepare for the worst on the basis that negative outcomes are always possible.
It's not that induction isn't rational (otherwise science would be irrational), it's that there is no way of logically proving via deduction what the future will hold. Predictions aren't necessarily irrational, though.
Yes, I'm not saying that induction is itself irrational, but that any idea that the future will definitely resemble the past is. We cannot, being creatures of habit, do anything other than to expect the future to resemble the past, but we would do better to fight this irrational tendency.
But many people, myself included, want to live, and want to live despite the risk of losing, and despite having lost in some respects.
The comparison to never having lived at all, in a way, doesn't even make sense, since if I had never lived at all, I wouldn't care one way or the other.
I wouldn't describe myself as a pessimist, although I can be, and have been, pessimistic at times, and in certain respects.
But not expecting things is setting one up for either disappointment or tragedy.
But, generally, fighting the aforementioned tendency is not sensible advice, in my view. Besides being ineffectual, it would make life chaotic and impractical.
I am not advocating that one should not be aware of possible outcomes and should be concerned with being prepared for them to varying degrees proportionate to their significance, on the contrary.
What I am advocating is struggling against the tendency to simply assume that things will be thus and so, because they have been thus and so in the past.
I think the fact that people seem to be having difficulty understanding what it is that I am advocating is testament to the hold the habitual has on our thoughts.
As a psychological disposition, it is usually thought of in terms of someone who "views the glass as half empty," a thoroughly overused and annoying phrase. It's also incoherent, as emptiness cannot be divided. Viewing it as half full is the only semantically precise way of viewing it. Of course, this isn't to say the optimist is right! It also refers to someone who might be depressed, unfriendly, overly cynical, mean spirited, disposed to complain about everything, or someone who likes to entertain quasi-nihilistic notions about the nature of morality and human beings.
All of this describes a certain personage, not a defensible position. Pessimism as a philosophical position can be variously defined as the view 1) that life and the world ought not to be, 2) that human beings are by nature irresistibly prone to acting out of pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth, to name the seven deadly sins, but also out of delusion and ignorance, willful or otherwise, and 3) that there is no such thing as progress in human history, and hence, that virtue cannot be taught.
Whether it is sensible to say the glass is half empty or half full would seem to depend on the prior state of the glass. Was it full, and subsequently drained, or was it empty and subsequently filled?
Selectively reading only encouraging, or depressing, news reports can reinforce the optimistic/pessimistic view of things -- in both cases unreasonably.
It has been known for a long time that people who depend on local television news for their view of the world tend to be pessimistic and fearful. Why? Because "If it bleeds, it leads" and "Bad news is more interesting than good news".
Bad news, bad news! The stock market is down 10%. The sky is falling? Not necessarily. If one has some cash, this is the ideal time to buy good stocks -- buy cheap, sell dear. But the plunge in prices is more interesting than gradual change, so it gets breathless headline coverage.
The pessimist wants confirmation that their view makes sense to others. "You see this too?" they ask, but gets little consensus or attention. The optimists will then turn philosophical pessimism into someone with a pessimistic psychological disposition, as Thorongil explains earlier. There is no consensus, so the pessimist, being the minority view, must be wrong. Whether philosophical pessimism is brought on by a certain pessimistic disposition, or through thorough analysis, the fact is, most people will not agree with the pessimists' evaluation, and thus, whether it is true or not true, will be discarded. Being that philosophical pessimism is not prone to empirical evidence- the only thing that people take as real evidence, it will not be overly embraced.
You have Benatar's asymmetry which is a sort of pessimism. However, this assumes that it is good to prevent bad, and not bad to prevent good for something that does not exist yet. I think this is sound, but others might not.
You have Schopenhauer's argument that want and desire create suffering as this leads to strife in the challenges of life, strife in existential boredom, and strife in relationships to other people and our surroundings. However, people will simply deny they experience this. Whether they lie (to themselves or others) to make a point or not, they can at least publicly denounce that they feel any of this strife.
You have someone like a Hartmann, who predict that we will eventually run out of optimistic ideas in science, progress, religion, society, etc. and then realize a sort of ennui of life and die out. But this is far in the future, in completely depresses most people to even think that this will happen.
So there you have it- the pessimists will just be called wimps and be recommended 1) positive psychological thinking (make meaning out of meaninglessness) 2) anti-depressants 3) keep it to yourself and just deal with it 4) suicide.
@Bitter Crank @darthbarracuda @Sapientia
I'm reluctant to view pessimism as a disposition but rather a predisposition. A disposition, to me, conjures an image of pessimism as a psychiatric condition and will treat it with anti-depressants or other therapies. A predisposition is the inherent character of the individual and can manifest as a pessimistic or optimistic disposition in given circumstances, but tending more towards pessimism. A pessimistic predisposition is more likely persuaded by pessimistic arguments and will see the merit in the pessimistic philosophical position.
I'm also reluctant to see the pessimist as having negative evolutionary value. The pessimist is useful in a society to point out the flaws from which the optimist can make changes or improve conditions. They work in tandem, so there is value in being a pessimist, even if the pessimist cannot see it. As long as the pessimist isn't harming others, have at it.
I recall reading somewhere that depressed people may actually be more in touch with reality than their non-depressed counterparts. Perhaps ignorance is bliss, after all...
I had never heard of de Botton, but I must admit that his performance in this debate doesn't inspire me to seek out any of his works. I had some mild respect for Gladwell (if only as a writer, if not a thinker), but that respect dipped a couple of notches after this mess. The most I can say for the con side is that Gladwell is right to be skeptical of Pinker's claim that global warming is solely an economic problem (there are also scientific, political, cultural, and even religious aspects to addressing and solving the problem).
I find it interesting that, in certain intellectual quarters, cries of "scientism" form a shrill, unbroken, klaxon, but here de Botton (a humanities scholar) is only too happy to disregard data in what is clearly a data-driven topic, instead making pointless, repeated references to fictional characters as part of his nonsensical arguments against the pro side (at one point, he accuses Pinker and Ridley of being unable to cure the depression of the fictional Anna Karenina, and so fooey for their side). Can I therefore accuse de Botton's ilk of "humanitiesism", i.e. the humanities sticking its nose into scientific (i.e. data-driven) questions? In de Botton's defense, he is coming from the humanities, and not the social or natural sciences, and so was relying on what he knew. Be that as it may, he didn't have to be quite such a dick about it.
http://munkdebates.com/livestream
There is that, but I think the pessimistic position goes much deeper. It's concerned with the nature of being a conscious animal, not that material progress occurs. It is good that there is progress in those areas you listed, as it generally decreases suffering and opens up opportunities for better experiences, but it doesn't get to the heart of the matter. Which is that we're born human, and thus will suffer. And more than that, we realize it and reflect on it. We're aware, when we're honest with ourselves, what all life has to offer in the various forms of restlessness, boredom, disappointment, disillusionment, frustration, annoyance, alienation, pain, etc.
So progress in technology, science, governments, economic policies and so on won't change the fact that we are all born conscious meat with the various limitations and flaws that it has to offer our existence.
I acknowledge and accept some of what you point out, but I doubt that I arrive at the same conclusion as you do. I acknowledge and accept the fact that life has negative experiences, more for some than others, the fact that life is not as easy for some than others, and the fact that life has to be dealt with in certain ways that are not preferable by some. I could also accept that want and desire create some degree of suffering, as it leads to strife in the challenges of life, strife in existential boredom, and strife in relationships to other people and our surroundings.
I don't deny these things; and I'll readily admit that I've personally experienced them at times. I view these things as things to be accepted and overcome or set aside. I think that my outlook is stoical.
[I]Prima facie[/I], I don't agree that it is good to prevent bad, and not bad to prevent good for something that does not exist yet. But I'm not familiar with the argument for that.
I don't dismiss pessimists as wimps; I very much understand and relate to where they're coming from in many respects. But I do think that the recommendations that you mentioned* could be beneficial.
*1) positive psychological thinking (make meaning out of meaninglessness) 2) anti-depressants 3) keep it to yourself and just deal with it 4) suicide.
Its what can cause the smallest molehill to grow into a giant mountain of bullshit overnight and either come crashing down on you all at once or vanish inexplicably in the light of day. Feynman described the process of modern science documenting this phenomenon as attempting to prove all our theories are wrong just as fast as we can. The cartoon characters of Tom and Jerry illustrate this principle by chasing one another in circles until you can't even tell if they are just running for fun. The identity of anything and everything goes down the nearest cartoon rabbit hole or toilet of your personal preference. Sometimes crap rolling downhill can suddenly transform into poetry in motion and back again so rapidly that it makes 90% of this game half-mental which, of course, means that Murphy really was an optimist according to the standards of modern science.
How deep is the dichotomy here? Not too deep.
The pessimist's view of the world is not more accurate than the optimist's. Take global warming: The pessimist and optimist both see the 400 ppm CO2 level which we are now in, the advance towards 2.0º+ centigrade temperature rise, hotter weather, more rain, more floods, more unpredictability, etc. The difference is in the way they respond. The optimist will assume that solutions will be found, or beneficial adaptations will occur; but some inconvenient truths will be overlooked by the optimist. The pessimist will assume that species will die before they adapt, and that solutions will not be fielded soon enough. The pessimist also overlooks a few inconvenient truths (just not the same ones).
If they live next to each other on the coast, they will both elevate their houses -- because they both have been flooded. The pessimist will raise his house maybe a foot higher than the optimist. The optimist is going to assume that the next big storm won't happen for maybe 10 years -- by then he'll probably be living in Idaho. The pessimist expects another big storm next year. Neither of them knows with certainty what will happen in the next 10 years. There may not be another big storm in 15 years, the next storm may kill them both, or something in between.
Clearly, it is better to have loved and won. That it is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all is the unhappy losing lover's compensation. Most of us both win and lose at love and much else. I'd say it is better to have had very interesting experiences that didn't always work out than not to have had interesting experiences at all.
Better to have had "interesting experiences" is not going to fly when one is 13 and has just been totally humiliated in front of one's friends and enemies. One might, at that point, think it better to kill one's self to prevent a repeat of such experiences. Fortunately, pain fades and we live to be humiliated again.
Presiding over our experiences--positive, negative, and neutral--is our Interior Narrator (IN) who provides the running commentary on what happens. Basic tendencies guide the IN. Are we risk-takers or risk aversive? Are we very responsible or are we kind of irresponsible? Are we prone to see the worst in outcomes, or the best? I don't think we choose these basic tendencies--they are given. In their extreme form, they can be crippling or fatal. For instance, very responsible, risk aversive, best outcome-types won't try an unfamiliar food. On the other hand, risk-tolerant, best-outcome, nobody to whom they are responsible (other than NASA) types are the type you want to send to Mars.
I will quote myself from earlier in this thread:
The optimist has to contend with the idea that disturbing the "peacefulness of nonexistence" (TOTALLY A METAPHOR PEOPLE! NOT A METAPHYSICAL STANCE- AN EXPRESSION) is justified for the flux of life itself. The fact that life has negative experiences, more for some than others. The fact that life is not as easy for some than others. The fact that life has to be dealt with in certain ways that are not preferable by some. Optimism is default Darwinism. Those who have dispositions, willpower, social, physical, and mental preferences for what already exists, and likes the system survive and thrive. Those that don't die off, possibly complain a little, commit suicide and are drowned out.
The pessimist wants confirmation that their view makes sense to others. "You see this too?" they ask, but gets little consensus or attention. The optimists will then turn philosophical pessimism into someone with a pessimistic psychological disposition, as Thorongil explains earlier. There is no consensus, so the pessimist, being the minority view, must be wrong. Whether philosophical pessimism is brought on by a certain pessimistic disposition, or through thorough analysis, the fact is, most people will not agree with the pessimists' evaluation, and thus, whether it is true or not true, will be discarded. Being that philosophical pessimism is not prone to empirical evidence- the only thing that people take as real evidence, it will not be overly embraced.
You have Benatar's asymmetry which is a sort of pessimism. However, this assumes that it is good to prevent bad, and not bad to prevent good for something that does not exist yet. I think this is sound, but others might not.
You have Schopenhauer's argument that want and desire create suffering as this leads to strife in the challenges of life, strife in existential boredom, and strife in relationships to other people and our surroundings. However, people will simply deny they experience this. Whether they lie (to themselves or others) to make a point or not, they can at least publicly denounce that they feel any of this strife.
You have someone like a Hartmann, who predict that we will eventually run out of optimistic ideas in science, progress, religion, society, etc. and then realize a sort of ennui of life and die out. But this is far in the future, in completely depresses most people to even think that this will happen.
So there you have it- the pessimists will just be called wimps and be recommended 1) positive psychological thinking (make meaning out of meaninglessness) 2) anti-depressants 3) keep it to yourself and just deal with it 4) suicide.
And my disposition is optimism. Sometimes to a point where I call myself an "irrational optimist."
Pessimism in Philosophy means a belief that this world is as bad as it could be or that evil will ultimately prevail over good.
and
Optimism in Philosophy means the doctrine, especially as set forth by Leibniz, that this world is the best of all possible worlds and the belief that good must ultimately prevail over evil in the universe.[
Then I find I have to place myself just to the left of center, and give a slight edge to pessimism, as defined here.
I don't think the Philosophical maps onto the Psychological too well because the philosophical definition is more severe than what I would call psychological optimism and pessimism. Those are more changeable, mixed, and moderate, and they are significantly affected by events in people's lives.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It may be a big mistake on my part, but I would think that two philosophers evaluating the philosophical differences between the terms, pessimism and optimism, would have a moderately interesting, not terribly charged discussion. I would think it would be like discussing free will and determinism. It shouldn't involved fatalities. But then, perhaps philosophers aren't all that philosophical when doing philosophy.
When we talk about "dispositions, willpower, social, physical, and mental preferences" we are talking about psychological optimism and pessimism. Our preferences are spread out, depending on the topic, and how we operate our "dispositions, willpowers, social, physical, and mental preferences" is diced up and jumbled. Personal history, relationships, hormones, neurotransmitters, et al have variable influence. The optimist in X setting today might be the pessimist in Y setting tomorrow, and might change his mind about the whole thing after a good meal, a few drinks, and some sex.
Who "survives and thrives or dies off; who complains a lot or a little; who commits suicide or murder; and who is heard or drowned out etc."--- may not be philosophical at all. In many cases, it's group dynamics. Groups often draw together and squeeze out the dissenters. Or the group forces out those who aren't considered socially distinguished enough. Or the drinkers drive out the abstainers, the straights drive out the gays, and the vegetarians drive out the carnivores. Optimism and pessimism do not apply, just as they do not apply to willpower, physical capacity, or mental endowment.
Like I said, I'd give an edge to evil prevailing over good, and I don't think this is the best of all possible worlds. (It's just the world we have.) The world works the way it does (for better and for worse) by many unrelated mechanisms, Optimism and Pessimism notwithstanding.
I have experienced a lot of sturm and drang in my life, lots of strife and conflict. I admit it. My main regret is that I was not more successful in directing sturm, drang, strife, and conflict to the self-satisfied sons of bitches with whom it belonged. Unfortunately, a lot of it ended up on my head, a la boomerang.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The world will end with either a bang or a whimper. I guess ennui is the whimper. Plausible. I'm not sure of running out of optimism, but I think we will (at some point in the future) find ourselves at an impasse where our problems are met with no new, and successful scientific and social solutions. There is no guarantee that a fix for every problem will always be found.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It is true that "depression" is over diagnosed by doctors and is the easiest description to apply to people who don't seem to be "perky" or "resilient" enough. "Well, he or she is depressed." "He got fired and had a bout of depression." "She had a baby and is depressed." "The canary died and now the cat is depressed." "Their mother died and the family is depressed." "The dog hasn't been on a walk for a week and is depressed." "He's broke and sick and is depressed." That people might be experiencing anger, grief, fear, dread, boredom, worries, physical sickness and pain, and so forth is most easily covered by rounding it all down to "depression". If one complains too much one is a whiner, a trouble maker, or is having a pity party. Suck it up. Etc.
But these aren't pessimists. Optimists and pessimists alike have experiences which leave them in extreme states of emotional upheaval, which they are expected (by themselves and/or others) to keep a lid on. We don't like it when people emote too much because it destabilizes the shaky social structure. If the shaky social structure should fall apart, then WE would have to deal with unpleasant realities, and wouldn't that be awful. People are afraid of change.
So, let me close with an annoyingly optimistic quip: Therapy means change, not adjustment.
The first kind can subsequently be shown to be right or wrong. For instance they may be convinced that a war between China and the US is inevitable within the next fifty years. If no such war occurs, they will have been wrong.
The second kind can be neither right nor wrong, accurate or inaccurate, as feelings are primary and not subject to judgements of correctness.
I suspect there's a strong correlation between the two types in personalities, but I like to think of the two contrary combinations
I can't say I know many people of either type, but I'm sure they exist. There's a memorable character of the first type - 'the cheerful pessimist' - in some novel I've read, but the name of the character and the novel is eluding me.
Well, let's see what we have against the individual:
1) Individual people's wills and group's will.. Constant jockeying for power plays on when, what, where, hows, social status, social recognition, approval, respect
2) Impersonal wills... Institutions whose management and bottom-line dictate when, what, where.. ranging from oppressive dictatorships to the grind of organizational bureaucracies in liberal democracies.
3) Cultural necessities.. clean-up, maintain, tidy, consume, hygiene
4) Existential boundaries...boredom/ennui, loneliness, generalized anxiety, guilt
5) Survival boundaries..hunger, health, warmth
6) Being exposed to stressful/annoying/harmful environments and people
7) Accidents, natural disasters, nature's indifference (e.g. bear attacks, hurricanes, storms, earthquakes, etc.).
8) Diseases, illness, disabilities, including mental health issues (neurosis/psychosis/phobias/psychosomaticism/anxiety disorders/personality disorders/mood disorders)..
9) Bad/regretful decisions
10) Unfortunate circumstances
11) After-the-fact justifications that everything is either a learning experience or a tragic-comedy.
12) The good things are never as good as they seem
13) How fleeting happy things are once you experience them
14) How easy it is for novelty to wear off
15) The constant need for more experiences, including austerity experiences that are supposed to minimize excess wants (meditation, barebones living, "slumming it").
16) How easy it is to have negative human interaction, even after positive human interaction
17) Craving and striving for more entertainment and "flow" experiences
18) Instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice.
19) Any hostile, bitter, stressful, spiteful, resentful, disappointing experiences with interperonal relationships with close friends/family, acquaintances, and strangers
20) The classic (overused) examples of war and famine
21) The grass is always greener syndrome that makes one feel restless and never satisfied
22) The need for some to find solace in subduing natural emotions in philosophies that mitigate emotional responses (i.e. Stoicism) and generally having to retreat to some program of habit-breaking (therapy, positive psychology exercises, visualizations, meditations, retreats, self-help, etc. etc.)
The flux from the sturm and drang, why should it be? The Human Project, why continue it? Variations on themes of happiness and self-actualization seem to me a thin veneer for "I ain't got shit..". People screw and create new people out of cultural necessity in "traditional" cultures and people don't know what to do with themselves so they figure children are the answer in modern cultures. So unquestioned cultural ques and lack of existential reflection bring about a situation where new people are created which, if research is correct, bring about measurably less happy parents anyways.
Hartmann may have been onto something too regarding the future. As technology makes it so there are less jobs people actually need to do, perhaps some of those things listed become diminished while the existential boundaries become more pronounced.. Perhaps the end game is the culmination of the ennui of existence itself as we get tired of each other and our own existential condition. Granted, you do not need to buy into 19th century notions of "the Absolute", or "Unconscious" for this to make sense.
[quote=Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard Von Hartmann article from IEP website]
Human life labors under three illusions: (1) that happiness is possible in this life, which came to an end with the Roman Empire; (2) that life will be crowned with happiness in another world, which science is rapidly dissipating; (3) that happy social well-being, although postponed, can at last be realized on earth, a dream which will also ultimately be dissolved. Man's only hope lies in "final redemption from the misery of volition and existence into the painlessness of non-being and non-willing." No mortal may quit the task of life, but each must do his part to hasten the time when in the major portion of the human race the activity of the Unconscious shall be ruled by intelligence, and this stage reached, in the simultaneous action of many persons volition will resolve upon its own non-continuance, and thus idea and will be once more reunited in the Absolute.[/quote]
The project of life makes no sense when looked at as a whole. You have to focus on micro-goals and all the benchmarks on the way.. Getting lost in goals and flow are ways to distract the brain from realizing that the project as a whole is just one day going into the next, navigating the cultural avenues of survival and finding ways to entertain our brains.. Boredom, angst ennui, and especially instrumentality, are what we get when we see the bigger picture. It is like a syntax error but on the existential level.
I think it's the other way round.
How so?
- Theodor Adorno
The drive to seek entertainment unknowingly stems from the realization of that "bigger picture," which leads to angst.