I think this is the secret to living well. Find the humor, find the positives, be jolly even in difficult circumstances because life is short, so why not laugh as much as possible? https://moviewise.substack.com/p/facing-lifes-difficulties
Going to a medical test center in America is insightful. Old folks who drive alone to get tests they know the results to, to take prescription drugs they know don't work. Tax money and or insurance is supporting this right?
I don’t mean just monetarily. Doing the best you can ethically, morally, etc.
I realize some of that is subjective - but “don’t let perfect get in the way of good”.
I just want to mention that in Williams original narratives he is far from being sarcastic/playing wits or suggesting life meaninglessness. Instead, it is in the sense of indifference (neither positive nor negative).
If you plan to read his novels, I suggest reading both Stoner and Augustus and explore their interlacing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_S%C3%B8ren_Kierk...
Observation destroyed that deist clockwork universe. There's no comedy in the catastrophic death of 100,000 people, in one man starving in the midst of plenty. We can do better, we can care for and feed and respect one another, as well as the worms. That's meaning we're empowered to create. Not for laughs but smiles. However humble, that is by far the more interesting experiment. And then when our moving finger moves on, no 'Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line.'
I think it was all related to the 2016 US election which is when those 4chan chaos magicians joined forces to elect ‘orange Pepe bad’ to troll normies.
Thanks a lot.
Something vaguely similar happened to me: I suffered from a very strong cronic IBS-C for 20 years, since my University time. Around January 2022, I found a real cure for this 20 year long ailment (a very specific probiotic strain). I spent a couple of weeks really living amazingly, as I haven't lived in 20 years.
Then, on February I got the Astra Zeneca booster COVID vaccine, and as a result, I got long COVID symptoms and a stroke (Transient ischemic attack), and now I'm on aspirin for the rest of my life, and feeling like shit.
Aaah the universe has a nasty sense of humor indeed.
The tragic phase is a result of not living up to the unrealistic expectations one has, and the comedic phase is a result of dealing with those tragic emotions.
But what his area? If it's living a successful, balanced life like himself, then his person problems are relevant to his self-help franchise.
Basing judgment on the source of an idea isn't a perfect tool for navigating life. If someone is telling you lots of true things but in a way to compromise you, or to sell you something, or to get you to join a cult, then who that person is provides valuable context.
If you want a system, Peterson has a ready-made and inoffensive set of rules to play off of. It has a built in technique to improve on the rules that doesn't compromise your ability to think about new material (whereas scientology or other religious systems cripple you deliberately.) Identifying a collection of true things is the point, and then looking for good faith operators willing to share their model of successful behavior.
Robbins is a typical self help guy, and the value is there, but to me it's been most useful as a baseline against which to measure other systems. Robbins represents the line of hucksterism for me, where if you're playing with those ideas and presentation techniques you might not be legitimate. I think he's mostly just over that line on the side of authentic, but he often falls short.
Robbins is a sex predator.
Not role models, not teachers.
Poison the milk, poison the ghee.
Ah, the sudden school vs the gradual school. The debate lingers (see siblings).
The man of middle years, who has lived the future that he once dreamed, sees life as a tragedy; for he has learned that his power, however great, will not prevail against those forces of accident and nature to which he gives the names of gods, and has learned that he is mortal.
But the man of age, if he plays his assigned role properly, must see life as a comedy. For his triumphs and his failures merge, and one is no more the occasion for pride or shame than the other; and he is neither the hero who proves himself against those forces, nor the protagonist who is destroyed by them.
- John Williams in Augustus