Stability Or Happiness?
Stability is considered some positive thing and it’s often associated with security. Because when your life is consistently okay (and expected to be), you don’t need to worry about tomorrow.
Trying new things, however, is risky sometimes, because it breaks the stability. But, when your life is stable (in a good way) then you are provided with everything you need, have a stable income and life goes in its own way more-or-less in pre-determined way. Very often this (stable) life leads to routine life, where every new day resembles the one that passed. Boring.
It doesn’t even matter whether you are rich or not. Having repeatedly the same experiences desensitize your reward system.
Because, any pleasure that we experience has the same effect as drugs: you should either upgrade the dose or it won’t touch you as strong as it used to. Brain obtains resilience and crave for something new. Be it a food, sex partner or even your favorite game. From time to time we want differences.
I always buy high-quality expensive sausages. Sometimes, I deliberately buy the cheaper ones just for having different experience, because eating the same thing doesn’t excite me anymore. The taste of the cheap sausages gives me a great pleasure which I forgot to feel consuming the same premium sausage for a long period.
You are probably going to like the new hairstyle of your wife, if she doesn’t change it for a long period of time. Not because the new style is better than the previous one, but just because it’s new. That’s not a coincidence that couples often cheat: we need the new experiences.
Hedonic Treadmill
The word “hēdonē” means “pleasure” in greek. That’s where “Hedonism” came from. But what is the “Hedonic Treadmill”?
According to Wikipedia:
The hedonic treadmill is the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
No matter how high or low quality life you live, soon or later you get used to it. Probably, you’d be happier than Bill Gates found you 100$ on the street. That’s because the positive unexpected event would put your level of happiness up on the “hedonic treadmill”, meanwhile Bill’s remains still. For the new surge of dopamine the stability needs to be broken. Of course, sometimes this leads to the negative effects (that’s why stability is so praised — it’s secure). But that’s life. Nothing is guaranteed to be great…
Jack, Rose, Caledon — who is happier?
Now let me explain to you why stability and happiness coexist in a little bit difficult way. I think everybody remembers a scene from Titanic, where Jack dances with Rose lost in happiness, while Caledon discusses politics and economics with his pals.
Might be, he enjoys the conversation, who knows? But from the perspective of average man we can intuitively feel that it’s boring and Jack has more fun and happier than him. That’s what the purpose of the scene anyways.
Director would like to show to audience the contrast between two lifestyles: stable and boring life or spontaneous and happy life.
Although Jack has nothing, financially speaking, he is happy. To the question “Do you find that sort of rootless existence appealing? ” he replied:
“Well, yes, ma’am, I do…I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen or, who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people.”
For the contrast I also share Caledon’s quote:
Real man makes his own luck.
When you have spontaneous life not knowing about the upcoming events — it makes you thrill and excite. Every day is a potential new opportunity. There could be a lot of surprises, that you’re not aware of beforehand. You’d be a lot happier than Bill Gates if you randomly found 1K$ on the street. Because, you didn’t expect that.
When you make your own luck, however — you know (you expected that) you’re millionaire. Soon you get used to this fact and it stops to excite you. The passive and stable life usually doesn’t bring a lot of emotions. Meanwhile, spontaneity provides you with the wide spectrum of different emotions (negative ones included) regularly.
Cats
Me and my wife have a charming daughter — Tommy. I’d thought she was a male when I adopted her, that’s why we named her — Tommy. Tommy has a stable and safe life: she’s vaccinated, well-fed, has loving owners, warm place to sleep, nobody would kick or bite her and no car could potentially hit her etc. But she’s also spayed, doesn’t have sexual life and can’t go outside. She doesn’t have friends either (landlord would be mad).
Meanwhile, a stray kitten in the yard is dirty, hungry and ill. Sometimes he is freezing at winter. He is a potential victim of street dogs, vehicles or even maniacs.
But yet, he is free. He enjoys the grass, sex with other cats, play-time with friends and new places where he can easily move to. He satisfies his hunting instincts by catching the birds, meanwhile Tommy only stares at them from the window…
He can potentially have a lot of new experiences living the unstable life in comparison with boring lifestyle of Tommy. (I try to compensate it with toys, passing time together etc.)
“Bobby Fisher hated chess”
Here is the snippet from the interview of the legendary chess master Robert Fisher:
Interviewer: Why do you hate Chess? Being the be… probably, possibly, the best Chess player ever?
Bobby: Because I know what Chess is all about! It’s all about memorization. It’s all about pre-arrangement…
Interviewer: But creativity?
Bobby: Creativity is lower down on the list…
Of course, it’s understandable for Fisher to hate Chess. What makes you happy is the process, creativity, randomness, not stability. You have a sense of satisfaction when you find the best move on the chessboard by intuition, randomly. When you memorize all the possible moves (of course not literally) and mechanically play just for winning the title — it’s a game without spirit.
When you are novice and don’t know much of the theory, the sudden discovery of the appropriate move makes you more happy than expected victory of Fisher. In fact, it’s satisfying to self-reveal new moves rather memorize them beforehand.
I remember playing MK 4 on PC being a child. I couldn’t beat Goro. Every time I came to that level I was failing to pass it. Then I found (randomly, by the way) a combo move for Raiden which makes him “to fly” horizontally toward the opponent and hit him.
It worked. I just kept using that move over and over again. I began to win. But it was absolutely boring. I was just mechanically pressing the buttons. It wasn’t the real fight, it was a loop of the same scene. Although, I’d won the fight, I didn’t really feel like a true winner.
These examples also show us that we are not only focused to result, but to the process also. We don’t just want to win, but enjoy the process of battle.
Imagine, you are playing online tournament of FIFA and every opponent leaves the game technically making you winner — you take the Cup, but is it satisfying? You are the Champion without battle. Yes, the result is that you are winner. But do you really enjoy this?
Sergey Mavrodi, founder of MMM once told:
“I love fishing a lot. I could have hired the professional trainer for upgrading my skills, but I hadn’t. Because, that’s the only thing that makes me really happy.”
Yes, knowing the technics of fishing would make him a real fisherman. But not the happy one.
Science
Science provides us stability, because it is relied on patterns, regularity. Water is always transformed to ice at 0°C as it always boils at 100°C. No exceptions. No matter how much you repeat these experiments (with the same conditions) — the result always will be same.
Science is great and fun. Every time you “make a science” you discover something. It’s very interesting to understand how the magician made some trick, but after knowing the secret it stops to excite you.
The same thing with science and the world around you. It’s super interesting to have a knowledge about everything. But just be cautious: You will be mesmerized while learning, not after.
With science — there are no “miracles” anymore. Everything is pre-determined. Like, you’re already know the ending of a movie and nothing unexpected could happen. Would it be interesting to watch such a movie?
Arthur C. Clarke approached it from different perspective, saying:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
When you look at the world exceptionally through the glasses of science, the world becomes to you “the ordinary planet with some evolved primates” or any feeling that you feel “plain chemical reactions in our brain, which is made of bunch of atoms”.
Deterministically knowing what to do and how to do doesn’t really tease your senses. Stability is safe, but boring. You are never bored with spontaneity, though. Life is more colorful, when you don’t know much.
That’s why it is said
Ignorance is bliss.
P.S
Don’t forget to read the related article “What is happiness? How to be happy?”.
