欲望是你为不快乐而签订的契约
欲望是你为不快乐而签订的契约
Naval:
欲望是你为不快乐而签订的契约，直到你得到你想要的东西。你变得不安是因为你渴望某物。然后你非常努力地去获取它，在此期间一直很痛苦。最后，当你得到它时，你又回到了拥有它之前的状态。这并不意味着你达到了某种永久的幸福巅峰状态。
没有任何单一事物能让你永远快乐
人们抱有一种错觉，认为存在某种东西能让他们永远快乐和满足。没有任何单一事物能做到这一点。
开悟是另一回事。它似乎是一个永久的解决方案；但我们暂时不会探讨这个。我们只是在谈论常识性的幸福。
幸福是一个理解和自我发现的过程
没有任何单一的永久解决方案能带来幸福。相反，实现幸福需要一个理解和自我发现的过程。这是一个训练自己看清某些真理的过程。
如果获取事物能让我们永久快乐，那么穴居人应该是悲惨的，而我们都应该欣喜若狂。然而，人均净幸福并没有上升，甚至可能在下滑。现代性可能比过去带来更多的不快乐。
所以幸福就是回到当下无所缺失的状态。
Desire Is a Contract You Make to Be Unhappy
Naval:
Desire’s a contract you make to be unhappy until you get what you want. You become disturbed because you want something. Then you work really hard to get it and are miserable in the meantime. Finally, when you get it, you revert to the state you were in before you had it. It’s not like you achieve some peak level of bliss that you stay on forever.
No single thing will make you happy forever
People hold onto a delusion that there’s something out there that will make them happy and fulfilled forever. No single thing can do that.
Enlightenment is something different. It seems to be a permanent solution; but we’re not going to explore that just yet. We’re just talking about common sense happiness.
Happiness is a process of understanding and self-discovery
There’s no single permanent solution to happiness. Rather, achieving happiness requires a process of understanding and self-discovery. It is a process of training yourself to see certain truths.
If obtaining things made us permanently happy, then the cavemen would have been miserable, and we would all be deliriously happy. Yet, net happiness per person is not going up and might even be going down. Modernity probably brings more unhappiness than the past.
So happiness is returning to the state where nothing is missing in this moment.