On the flip side, if no one was anxious and everyone was perfectly enjoying the present, it could be that no one would ever bother to even invent the wheel.

On the flip side's flip side, if people weren't so anxious about carving their life out, it could be that we'd have plenty more Edison's and da Vinci's inventing great things for the fun of it.

On the flip side's flip side's flip side, if people weren't anxious about making money and building a future all those fun ideas might not have gotten monopolized for use

I bet the person who invented the wheel did it whilst idling one sunny day.

I highly doubt a single person created the wheel out of nothing. The idea of a circle is part of our innate biology we are hard wired to recognize or create circular shapes.

Most likely several people tried to create the wheel and ideas on what to do with a circular shape were thought of, some cross pollination from physics resulted in it being used for transportation.

So I’d argue it was not done on a sunny day but mostly as an obsession just like most every other game changing idea

The wheel is trivial and obviously anyone could come up with the idea. The reason wheels weren't used universally from the dawn of time is that axels had to be invented first. In order to invent a cart that can support enough weight to be more useful than a donkey, you first need to invent metallurgy.

The simplest form of a wheel is a wooden log. The prototypes were readily available and supplied by nature.

Now to make an actual wheel, with spokes and mostly 'hollow' inside and to put it on an axle - would have required better tools, so the wheel was probably created/invented quite naturally alongside the advances in metallurgy.

The wheel is a natural invention. Just let something (not necessarily very round) roll off a snowy hill, and see what happens.

The wheel isn't the hard part. The hard part is the axle bearings.

It just came to him one day as he was stuck in traffic.

They may have gotten the idea while idling, but it still took work to design and test prototypes. This would obviously be more true for the many more advanced inventions that have come since.

> On the flip side, if no one was anxious and everyone was perfectly enjoying the present, it could be that no one would ever bother to even invent the wheel.

I don't think the idea is that people should stop investing in the future but that they should enjoy the path to get there as well.

The idea that you should just be unhappy but it will all be worth it once X happens is not good for your well being. Life can be hard and even stressful but that doesn't preclude you from being happy or fulfilled. For example, if you are working your butt off, you can feel happy that you did so.

I started piano at 20 years old which is really old compared to most serious pianists. I practice 4 hours a day despite working full time. I know that it is entirely possible I will never reach the level as the greatest pianists but I try anyway. I think the fact that I am not depending on being great to be happy makes it easier for me to keep going because each week I feel improvement and I know I worked hard and that makes me happy.

"I am not depending on being great to be happy" - spot on!

In our society, I fear that our fear is not that no one would bother to invent the wheel, but rather that no one will buy our automatically-renewing annual subscription to the wheel.

I think there can be a balance. Even compared to when I grew up in the 70s everything seems more accelerated now to the point of overwhelming. I think we can have progress without going crazy.

Exactly.

I've done a bit of Buddhist study my self and it wasn't for me. It was as if it was telling me to sit still and just relax. Well, I'm keen on relaxing and such, but there's also problems to be solved.

So enjoy the present, be in the moment, but don't neglect the future (or your health) as if it's not going to come.

> Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

> After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

-- Zen Proverb

That’s a bit rich coming from Tenzin Gyatso — a man who lived in utter opulence as the leader of an elite priest-class and ruled over serfs who would be tortured if they didn’t do as they were told.

Can you provide some source?

>Until 1959, when China cracked down on Tibetan rebels and the Dalai Lama fled to northern India, around 98% of the population was enslaved in serfdom. Drepung monastery, on the outskirts of Lhasa, was one of the world's largest landowners with 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. High-ranking lamas and secular landowners imposed crippling taxes, forced boys into monastic slavery and pilfered most of the country's wealth – torturing disobedient serfs by gouging out their eyes or severing their hamstrings.

Sauce: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-...

This was just the first google result for 'dalai lama slaves' (no quotes). The West wants to think that Tibet is the the good guy, since China is _obviously_ the bad guy, but it turns out that history doesn't have good guys and bad guys; it has humans, and humans at the top of large-scale traditional hierarchies tend to be cruel to humans at the bottom of those hierarchies. So it goes.

Here's one of the comments from the guardian under that article:

buddhabuddha 12 Feb 2009 2:55

0 1 As Cheese Commando pointed out in the very first comment in this string, Sorrel Neiss did indeed used to work for China Daily in Beijing -- China's English language Pravda.

Ho hum though -- plurality of opinion and all that: we wouldn't want to sink to Beijing's level and censor her, right? (We can correct her though on those waaaay wayward notions of China's hospitals in Tibet, etc.)

As the Dalai Lama himself concedes, Tibet was indeed quite a dark and savage place; many other places in Asia, Africa and Europe were also dark and savage at the same time -- including of course China.

Indeed, the Dalai Lama was on the point of instituting a series of social and governmental reforms in Tibet -- who knows if they would or wouldn't have worked -- when the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded.

Just so's ya know.

Pretty sure the Tibet was invaded before the Dalai Lama even had a chance to show what sort of ruler he would have been. The only people who speak negatively of him are Chinese.

Yeah, but according to the Dalai Lama, he's the same guy as his predecessors.

Does that mean he'll keep getting wiser as he lives more lives?

Sure.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html

do you know if he ever addressed this part of the country's history publicly?

Not to my knowledge, but then I know very little about this topic.

I like that quote, but at least according to wikiquote it may be misattributed - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tenzin_Gyatso,_14th_Dalai_Lama...

I didn’t know that, even so it perfectly summarizes some people lives.

Many people strive to achieve which leads to a greater satisfaction than anything else. Of course it all sounds bad when you completely take away accomplishments and fulfilment.