Monday 6 February 2012

Speech: Dan Gilbert - We can synthesize our own hapiness



Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

P.S. After watching the talk (interesting experiment described at 11:00) , I recommend you should listen to this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sl0kkJ_lik

/peps

13 comments:

  1. ‎"The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another.... Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice." Adam Smith

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    1. Γεώργιος8 February 2012 at 15:14

      Πρώτα σταματάμε την εξάρτηση που μπορεί να έχουμε από οποιοδήποτε προιόν του εμπορίου και ύστερα ένας πραγματικά δυνατός άνθρωπος μπορεί να διημιουργήσει μια κατάσταση ευτυχίας για τον ίδιο και τους γύρω του ακόμα και υπό τις πιο δύσκολες συνθήκες

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    2. lol! einai asteio giati den eixa dei to diko sou reply otan egrafa to comment. :)

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  2. another example of this! :)
    http://hiddenplaygrounds.blogspot.com/2012/02/when-playing-games.html?showComment=1328713263722#c5268479574975327540

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  3. I'm not a great fan of Selingman but in this talk he divides happiness into three sub-concepts: pleasure, the good life and the meaningful life. This really makes sense for me :) http://passive-observers.blogspot.com/2011/09/speech-martin-seligman-on-positive.html

    I think this is a great talk to watch after having watched this one!

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  4. and another example is this:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciYk-UwqFKA

    od lets talk again about genes and determinism :P

    Its usually the less advantaged (according to our
    soceity's fascistic standards) the ones who usually manage to overcome the injustice imposed to them and provide unconditional acceptance to the people around them. And that makes me wonder whether conformity is also genetically imprinted od :).

    I can never come to terms with the twisted way in which modern soceities exploit our need "to belong" at the expense of our need to "know yourself", just to make us consume things that could never make us happy. Edward Bernays R.I.P. my friend. you did a great job.

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  5. A genetically imprinted sense for confrontation doesn't sound that crazy to me either.
    Its roots could be in the creation of groups/tribes, and the tendency of some individuals to lead or to follow! If everyone had extreme tendency to lead (the A-male) that probably would work out for the worst. We all have a tendency to belong, but not all of us have the same tendency to confront or to lead.

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  6. need to belong-> you should look alike and then you 'll belong-> doesnt matter who you are or what you want-> cause you 'll belong. Kai profanos o kosmos paranoei kai kataligei na ginetai hipster giati den kserei pos na adidrasei

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  7. the ones with higher tendencies to follow are the ones easier to manipulate..

    MAYBE the more you tend to follow/confront, the harder it is "resist" not belonging!

    hmm, the will power gene! Or how I like to call it: the "obi-one kenobi" gene.

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  8. I'm not sure if that thought fits here but anyway:
    They will only trigger your sense receptors that capture the surface of reality (really focused around sight) and will fire them with intense, obvious stimuli like intense colors, quick image changing, short & intense typography, high pitch sounds, intense tastes in mass food products, perfumes, etc.. Stimuli that provide instant gratification of our primitive desires in extreme levels (that nature alone can't give us). It's cool, it's intense, it DOESN'T LAST.
    The result? You need more and more instant gratification and you lose the ability to sense all the deeper stimuli that might actually provide you with ... - I don't know I'm not sure, this is where my thought ends.

    I'll come back when I've thought about it and researched more! I just can't help comparing deeps basses with high pitch sounds in terms of the mood they get you in. Now I ll just think and write. That's cool. So yeah high pitch sound make you intense, excited and jumping. Deep sounds are sad but in a nice way, they calm you. Maybe that's stupid and it's just me.
    But intense colors do the same and think of natural colors, low saturation and there, nature, calmness and relaxation come up again! don't they?
    Intense touching VS soft touching/cuddling. What's deeper? What creates more stronger feelings (stronger, not more intense)
    It can apply to intense smells, and maybe tastes?
    I think I get it. In nature it's quite rare to experience such intensity of any sense. That's why we are so tranquil in nature. All the intensity is meant to alert us in situations of danger or such (intense colors might mean poison, intense sounds might be predators, intense "touch" is passion or fighting, etc etc), so being bombarded with intensity just can't be good. I'm not sure where I am going with this.
    -pause-
    Ok, I got it. When the intensity kicks in, your brain sends signals and you are in a state of emergency/danger. That's a fact. In that state, when in nature, you're sort of in a shock, and what happens is your brain focuses on the moment and on reality. It thinks for NOW because you have to act NOW and you have to act FAST. Imagine your brain in 2012, bombarded with intense stimuli for your senses, and mostly for your sight and hearing. A blockbaster movie trailer is a perfect example! Fast, quick, intense imagery, with loud intense sounds! Don't think! Don't analyse. Just watch the damn movie!!

    So yeah. To connect all that stuff with what you guys said. When you detouch yourself from industry products (which tend to create intense moments), you can relax more, you can be tranquil. Then you can think more, you can reflect, you can analyse and you can plan. Plan according to your long-term well-being and not your short-term instant gratification of your innate desires and fears.

    When you think and reflect, your understand yourself and the world in such a deeper way. Then you can experience deeper feelings, deeper relationships and aim for deeper goals and achievement.

    A synonym of "deep" would be nice, thanks.

    ps. FUCK YOU Edward Bernays.

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  9. I promise I'll make this into a coherent text that makes sense.

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  10. WTF! its perfectly coherent dude. its so fucking accurate and I am really surprised I 've never seen it this way. Leave it as it is obviously.

    can we all please familiarize ourselfs with the notion of sharing our thoughts in the comment section when we feel that a post has touched us? Its really, really, stimulating :)

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  11. last thing: replace "pitch" with "frequency" in my wall-of-text!

    And put auto-grammar-correct on, in your brain.

    thanks

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