Is this helping us or making things harder?

Because lee, steph, and emily pointed out that my question wasn't really a question and also because it kind of overlapped with joyce's, I've decided to start a new thread with an actual question.

So how about this then, Do you think that instead of making life easier and more enjoyable, we're actually just making things more complicated and harder to deal with, why? Do we become freer by being able to see more of what's going on, or is this extra knowledge an added weight to the burden we already bear? And truthfully, which would you prefer, if you could start all over again, the sweet easy world you believed in as a child, or the reality of your existence that you've come to know as you grow older?



http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/intention-manifestation/33042-what-s-your-take-universal-being-law-attraction-secret.html#post360198

http://www.powerfulintentions.org/forum/topic/new?target=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerfulintentions.org%2Fforum

Terrific Question. Very Provocative.

What if this reality doesn't have to complicated and hard.
Doesn't it all depend on perspective?
What if I choose not to view this world as cold and enigmatic.
Well, this world I know has more opportunities,
Because without pain, there's no gain,
and with opportunities come freedom,
How would a sweet, blissful world help you develop?

I know someone is going to mention it, so might as well be the one to -
Ignorance is Bliss.
Agree or Disagree?
Yay or Nay?

ooo, dilemnaa. be controlled and ignorant, or know what's going on and possible be courageous and bring about change. this totally reminds me of The Giver. but yeah, if youre ignorant, you might as well live in those communities like in The Giver, be in a "Utopia." but i have a feeling that youre bound to break out of it, or at least someone else will and that's definitely going to affect you.

some people are afraid of choice and would rather keep away from it. but if you could make your life the way you want it, is it still a burden? Emerson seemed to have these ideals but he still suggested a simple life, and Thoreau tried it out realisitically.

so while it'd be nice to to not have to worry about a complex life, but is that truly how our beings want us to live? perhaps if that ignorance will last forever, it'd appeal to me more, but why is it that we welcome challenges? we like to test our limits, which could lead to breaking out of this controlled environment and meeting harsh reality. why not take the courage to take charge of your life because you actually are very capable of doing so?

and yes, i agree with fi, awesome question. answering it requires a lot of thinking, more than i've done at the moment on it. and once again, i'm so sorry for having you have to change and alter your question at least twice >_<

Kenny wrote:So how about this then, Do you think that instead of making life easier and more enjoyable, we're actually just making things more complicated and harder to deal with, why? Do we become freer by being able to see more of what's going on, or is this extra knowledge an added weight to the burden we already bear? And truthfully, which would you prefer, if you could start all over again,

Knowledge is power, but sometimes power is difficult to control. If we aren't able to put our power to use, it does become a burden. This knowledge gives us the ability to live a happy and more complete life, it does not give us the life we desire immediately. Knowledge is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The end we desire is happiness.

Fiona wrote:Ignorance is Bliss
Agree or Disagree?
Yay or Nay?

I agree. If I could live as a child forever, then I would. Perhaps I've idealized my childhood too much though. Maybe not. But it doesn't matter, since it would be impossible to stay as a child. So I accept the hand I've been dealt and try to play this game as best as possible. I only try to that is.

yo. I love this question. ken you rock

yay. i'm so excited!!

In a sense-- this has happened to me.
From becoming aware of the ego-mind with in us, and becoming more self-aware of our reactions/ behaviors, becoming critical thinkers + along with learning about happiness (unlimited human potential, trancendence, Universal Being, spiritualtiy, the world is flat, the secret, the book of secrets, quantum shift etc)-- it seems like these ideas are drilled in our brains. we're more familiar with the concept of the mind and the Being and critical thinking because it's the first thing we've learned this year in English honors. The second part are just "suggestion" (perhaps) or a knock on our heads to be more aware of things. And, additionally, i hear it ALL THE TIME-- "this is your ego-mind speaking", or " you're just feeling like this because you're in your mind", or "this isn't satisfying the Being"... etc. People in Eng honors have used these concepts out of class and our behavior reflects how much these concepts we have planted in our lives has affected us. We use it everyday. And once we use it, we think of the things we learned later on... that short term newness doesn't satisfy or gratify our BEing etc.. So because we've absorbed all this we HAVE become critical thinkers and HAVE tried to make our lives like how OSHO, Deepak Chopra, Sri Chimnoy, Tolle, and other philosophers have suggested.

dude. Maybe you guys have, but I don't remember doing something that has truly gratified me. Well, maybe i have, however maybe this feeling-- genuine happiness-- is long-termed, thus we don't notice it as much; it's much less evident and manifest and a lot less obvious than the instant exciting, short- term, ego-minded happiness. THat "fake happiness" has more of an edge-- has more feelings and "satisfaction" correlated. It is instantaneous and fast and we think it feels good to feel that short-term happiness. you know? we might deceive ourselves in thinking that if we apply all these techniques and concepts and tools that we've learned in Eng honors to our lives, we might have a longer lasting "fake happiness" what if we're already happy, our Being is. However, our minds are just creating more negative emotions? what if we could ignore these emotions IF we can't determine the source of our sorrow? Then we would be content. right?
Is content actually a good feeling? I mean is it THAT good??? Content is different from satisfaction.

Yeah, i think Fiona's right. People on the street, who aren't exposed to the materials that we've covered are most likely ignorant of the fact that planet is dying and how they're contributing to this destruction, unaware of the ego-mind, unaware of many things. but are they happier??? yes, ignorance is bliss

Quite frankly, I think I'm less happy this year than last year because its been more complicated due to all this stuff. However, the only reason i'm not going depressed or like crazy is because I believe in what Ms. Kay has taught us. So It's not that I'm sad. I'm just not happy and sometimes I feel kind of sick and tired of my life here, that i want something fresh. Sometimes there's too much of the mind/ Being/ universal soul/ global community/ society talk that it's hard to absorb it fully to our souls. These are broad and difficult subjects/ topics that are apparently supposed to lead us into finding happiness. In this process where I am finding happiness, is nevertheless extremely difficult. I know that these concepts are important but everything we've learned are ideas, putting them in action/facing society adn people/ contradicting many factors and different aspects of life is HARD and emotionally difficult. So yeah, Kenny-- i think it might be making (my) life more complicated and harder by trying to acheive happiness. What if happiness-- in my mind-- is just an idea. What if it's not that great of a feel? do you guys understand what i'm saying? lol i know i can be confusing.

Do you think that instead of making life easier and more enjoyable, we're actually just making things more complicated and harder to deal with, why? Do we become freer by being able to see more of what's going on, or is this extra knowledge an added weight to the burden we already bear? And truthfully, which would you prefer, if you could start all over again, the sweet easy world you believed in as a child, or the reality of your existence that you've come to know as you grow older?

Kind of reminds me of Mr. Guenther and his point that we don't REALLY want freedom and that humans need boundaries to function. But this year we kind of learned to break boundaries (an example I can think off the top of my head is freewriting, where we're given essentally no guidelines and just to let it flow) And I talk about this because we always complain about these rules and regulations. I know quite a few of us find school work hard to deal with. But I actually do think that we make things more complicated and harder to deal with instead of living easy because...no pain no gain? I don't know about everyone else, but I'm always super thrilled by the time summer rolls around, but end up being bored and feeling completely useless as the summer drags along. (Been feeling less this way these few years though, with the mounting obligations etc. Though it can be fun being idle, it is in a sense unhealthy. We were given these super cerebrums and living easy is basically sentencing it to rot. So maybe making things harder for ourselves and driving to transcend previous breakthroughs is naturally selected for or something.

People tend to look back on their childhoods and think about how great it was to be young. I do too, but I also know that as a child I would be pissed off or depressed as much as I was happy and carefree. Getting sugar-coated rations of the real world truths may have been nice, but it was also confusing. I don't think I would go back to being a kid, because pretty much all I wanted as a kid was to grow up and get answers on this confounding planet. There were some horrid truths that we all had to face, but I don't think these have really traumatized me or destroyed my general happiness. I still go through the same up and down mood phases as when I was little. Ignorance may be bliss, but it's still ignorance.

Hi guys!

Truthfully? Although I feel like I’ve definitely gained a lot more self-awareness as well as awareness of the world around me this year, I’ve also gained a lot more obligations, I guess? Along with mounts of new doors that have been opened, I’ve started to feel obligated to act on these new revelations. For example, these couple of weeks has been pretty tough for everyone – with SAT II subjects coming up and the numerous projects that we’ve been assigned. I, too, have been overwhelmed by these waves of pressure. Yet, I end up putting more pressure on myself when I try to tell my ego mind to shut up (haha. Do I sound like a lunatic? ) and me relax. I start wondering what exactly is telling my ego mind to shut up. My ego mind – because it feels “obligated” to apply the ideas that we’ve spent so much time discussing? Or is it that I’m actually starting to really USE these principles in my life? So along with “being in the knowing,” I think I’ve also gained a lot more confusion.

BUT. I think that this confusion may be worth it. This is probably the “pain” part to the phrase “no pain, no gain.” The pain of being lost – of not knowing what to do. In the world of opportunities, we are more prone to losing ourselves along the way. A wrong turn in the jungle might lead us towards a cave full of ravenous tigers, while a right one would lead us towards the path of success. So I guess that even though ignorance IS bliss, I would prefer knowing about all the “truths” of the world. Ignorance allows for temporary relief – relief from the somewhat cruel properties of human nature. Yet, if I were never exposed to this material before, I imagine that my life would probably be as boring as watching grass grow. Knowing all this mind and being information, I’ve not only acquired a better understanding of other people, but also myself.

So I guess what I’m saying is that as confusing as trying to apply these ideas may be, it is worth it. I would rather be bemused than used.

Hey kenn,

Great question. After i read your question, i thought, isn't everything easier if we just go out hunting for deer, or picking berries just merely for survival on this interval of our lives, like 70 or 80 years. We have school work to gain knowledge, yet, in the end, we have education to give us a greater chance to survive in our society, in our world today. Hunting and gathering was a way to survive on earth before. Both ways having their own complications.

Yet, whats the definition of complication? Complicated gives a negative connotation as busy, confusing, unable to resolve type of feeling, yet, is complication good for us? are complications pushing us to drive forward? Are complications there to set apart those who really want something to those that do not?

Depending on who you are, one might make things really complicated for themselves and others might like to keep them simple. IN the end, i suggest both ways are generated out of good intentions. For example, many people like to take 3249234 honor courses in combination with 3290348 AP courses. I reckon all these courses in one year is sort of complictated to deal with. All the workload, all the tests to study for, all the pressure in may. Yet, these people many times have their intentions sprouting from getting a better GPA to get in a better school, or just a simple interest to learn more and experience more. This, good intentions which lead to good results often take hard work in between, thus, i reckon this situation to be a good complication. Wouldnt you agree?

ALthought there are good intentions, many times people are oblivious of making themselves miserable by overloading their luggages. Many students discover the AP their taking isnt even close to their dream, or even close to what they are interested in. Many students face to fact that they signed up to too many community services and therefore back out.

Here is an example covering both sides of the story. Hence, yes to your question and yes, and no to "complications" negative connotation. You feel me?

JTizzel

I dunno, knowledge is a double edged sword. As Lee said, it is difficult to control power from knowledge. I can think of so many ways that knowledge can screw us up to the point of death.

But everything is an experience, right? Learning something is an experience. Knowing that you are being left out of something is an experience, too. I think it's not that being knowledgeable is preferable or not, it's just part of the 'life' experience we are all talking about.

Think about it. Say, you are told that tomorrow a person in blue shirt is going to kill...uh...your friend, and you believe it....somehow. Now is this knowledge a burden? It very well may be, as it could make you do everything you could to save your friend, maybe even become paranoid of everyone in blue. It could also be a valuable piece of information, as you can get the time to prepare for his/her death. You might even get to know him/her the best on that last day he's on Earth. Whatever it is, it is an experience. It is something you take in whole, something you do not take partially. You may deny that, but the experience is still there.

As with what Oracle said in The Matrix, "Ohhh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it [vase] if I hadn't said anything?" This pulls in the constant appearance of the Oracle inside ancient Greek epics. Like Oedipus. What the Oracle said made his father abandon his son, who in the end did kill his father. In this case, that little bit of information caused it to become true. That little bit of information may be the causation of all the tragedy.

But, let's weigh something on the other side of the balance, knowledge is often what we use to provide a solid foundation for more thinking and information. The more we learn, the more we're 'prepared' to react to certain things. Besides, can you think of something that can bother you forever in your life? Is the knowledge like an application on a computer, constantly draining your brain's resources? I dunno. I'll admit some knowledge bothered me, but the feeling subsides around a week, tops. I've yet to encounter some piece of information I'd prefer to be ignorant of.

Blah, tired and tired tonight.

Kenny wrote:
So how about this then, Do you think that instead of making life easier and more enjoyable, we're actually just making things more complicated and harder to deal with, why? Do we become freer by being able to see more of what's going on, or is this extra knowledge an added weight to the burden we already bear? And truthfully, which would you prefer, if you could start all over again, the sweet easy world you believed in as a child, or the reality of your existence that you've come to know as you grow older?

Such an interesting topic.

As Phil said, knowledge isn't perfect.

But I think knowledge, while it may weigh us down, does not burden us to the point where we can't function. Experience burdens us, and the impact is always not as large as until you have personally felt something before.

Knowledge, in a way, is freedom bound in the sense of words, thoughts, and many other forms of beliefs and theories. As Emerson wrote in one of his short essays Fate(I think,) knowledge is the power to control Fate. Are we burdened by it? Responsibility will become ours - our guilt will nag us for the rest of our lives if we knew that something bad was going to happen to someone, and we didn't do something about it. But knowledge gives us room to act, and that is power in itself.

I think having knowledge is a kind of freedom. Sometimes, I think after what we're learned in English, I feel like we're somewhere close to the top of the world - we know some things that other people have, never in their entire lives, fathomed could be possible. "You're holding the keys to the kingdom," as Tea Cake says. We're able to do whatever we want, however we want to do it. While we may be trapped in society and knowing it, there is always the understanding that we can break out of it. Whether or not you want to is another matter all to itself.

Would I return to my childhood days? I would want to do that, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice my knowledge for an innocent perspective of life. While the beautiful, unstained mentality of a child is worth wishing for, I think what we all know now has, as many said, changed their lives. The excitement of learning this is what I don't want to lose. If I had to stay a child forever, I would lose this sense of excitement for what we know, of what we potentially can know. The exhilaration is always in the change, the bend of the road, not in always walking in a straight line.

And since I haven't seen even a tiny portion of the world yet, I suppose I would like to grow up - adventure is in its best when shared with others who enjoy it.

This still doesn't seem to be a whole lot different from a general exchange of personal ideas, but it has a lot of potential for discussion, so no matter.

Think of it like a ladder. The floor is primitive-albeit oblivious-life, and the higher the ladder goes the more advanced we become (basically, spiral dynamics in the form of a ladder). Now we are happy on the ground, because we have stable footing. Yet the idea of moving higher is also enticing, so we begin to climb.

As we climb, we grow uneasy. The height scares us, and it feels a lot more unstable as compared to the solid, sturdy ground floor. Our hands are unable to grab the next bar of the ladder, and we are lost in mid air-insecure and unhappy.

Then, after some time, we find the next bar, and start to pull ourselves upwards. At this point, we are used to the height, and with proper footing and balance having found the next bar, we advance upwards. As we move upwards, we enjoy a new sight from above, one that we were unaware of on the ground floor.

At the primitive level, we are content, because we are oblivious. But sooner or later, we start to discover things that seem more interesting then what we already have (we discover a ladder), and it is in pursuit of these things that we forfeit all our bliss that we had in the primitive level. As we chase after new things, we gain new knowledge.
But we are not yet used to all this knowledge. We are uncomfortable, since we spent all our time on the sturdy ground. There is an overwhelming sense of insecurity we gain as our arms flail helplessly in the air, struggling to find out how to advance. And then, we grab the next bar. We start to climb, and eventually learn to balance properly on the ladder. With this comfort established, we can enjoy the new sights that we originally set out to see.
=================
Basically, knowledge is "harmful in trace amounts, beneficial in large amounts." As we lack proper knowledge to deal with things that we have discovered, it is like an incomplete circle. But as we gain more knowledge, we eventually complete the circle, and become comfortable with it.

A ladder has separate bars, and grabbing anything in between results in nothing but grabbing air (lack of knowledge). Only with a firm grasp on the next bar (adequate amount of knowledge) do we feel secure enough to pull ourselves higher.

I realize this is a fairly abstract explanation, yet I believe that this may be a lot easier to understand as compared to a lengthy description.

Genius metaphor hen, but you kind of have to wonder about the people who just keep moving up. People who aren't afriad of heights or instability, like Sri Chinmoy and the guiness world record holder of the most world records. They transcend themselves like there is no tomorrow. And these are the people who have that inner peace and stuff that everyone else tries to achieve, yet they seem superhuman in their ability to be unaffected by being at these great heights. Are these people just a class of their own?

HEy wow, I'm a bit surprised with the variety of responses. Seems like opinions on this aren't as evenly distributed as I thought they'd be, and I'm more than satisfied with what you guys wrote, really great stuff.

So on one side we have Fiona, Joyce, Steph C, Vicky, Phil, Joanne, and Henning who say that they prefer the truth, and another side with Lee, Steph H, and JT who prefer innocence(NOT IGNORANCE). It's anyone's guess how this is going to turn out. Classical battle with a 3 vs 7, or will we reach a compromise?

ALl of you have great points and I'm trying to work all of them into one plausible possible answer. But this question was as much for personal insight as it was for discussion material.

Lately I've been getting tired of thinking and analyzing and searching. I've been getting sick of the never ending search for my place in this world, of having to bear responsibility for my actions. Yet, I remember that I'd always wanted this freedom, I'd always wanted to be able to think for myself. And this is the irony I get, after going through so much and learning enough to be able to make my own choices, I find that I hate this freedom, I hate the responsibility that comes along with it and the pain too that comes with knowing about the bad that goes on in our world. I just want to keep life it simple, I just wish everything could live and let live. That's what I've been thinking, on and off, for the past 5 years, ever since my ability to think abstractly started to develop, ever since I really started learning about the world we live in. At times, I'd withdraw from this kind of thinking, and attempt to once again see the wonder and good I saw as a child, but eventually I'd always crash back into the mire of reality. And even after ms. kay's teachings, which only gave me a few months of respite from that despair, despite the conviction with which she taught us, the doubt wormed it's way back in. And so that sense of tiredness and hopelessness came back once again, I lost the image of who I thought I was, and more terribly I lost another hope of escaping from this cycle. But now, something lee told me before, coupled with all of your responses, I realize that perhaps I've simply been trying too hard, Perhaps like the message hunter in poetry, I am digging too deep for meaning, trying too hard to live life. In fact, I'm actually quite positive of that thought by now, hm, I think I'll need another day to organize what all of you have been saying and compress it into a nice little bundle of ideas. Sorry for the abrupt ending, but that little revelation took quite a bit out of me, I actually spent 3 hours typing and retyping to get to that so yeah xD, guess it's time to hit the sack.
Again, great stuff you guys got, cheers. Night.

Kenny wrote:
But this question was as much for personal insight as it was for discussion material.

amen, same goes for my thread.

as for your last paragraph, i know how you feel. i get the feeling every not and then too, which is why i love your question so much.

jia yoh

I havent really read all the posts above, so ill blindly post.

Intelligence as joanne says is like freedom, but as the intellect grows, and yet we are still trapped in our own bodies, the physical world, problems start to appear. And even if the problems dont pop up and find you, your hungry intellect will probably find more problems. Just like this forum, everyone is discussing, and the mods keep on posting questions. Its all really fun at the beginning, but then it starts to get tiresome. Negative situations also appear, and through all the analyzing and use of memory for intellectual information in the back of the mind, our brains start to fizzle. When the brain fizzles our ego mind will probably kick into action, its his/her floor now baby... Taking for example, Ms Kay, spiritual, reiki, wisdom, and so on..(sorry for the kissass) but then although shes been teaching the control of ego, she still explodes sometimes, her mum, SAT Subject tests, the damn chinese thinking, gan, she explodes loads. Its like some dynamie hidden in some deep valley, canal, ready to explode anytime.

Now look at Bradley, not saying that he has a lot of wisdom and shit, but he scavenged for 10 years in NEHS, hes learned common sense by now. But then I know that bradley knows that hes got a lot of dirty crap going on in his mind. His way of communicating can be really gay, direct, annoying, bothering, and always very hypocritical. Everyday Bradley goes through learning from a bunch of subjects, and its gruesome work, getting hammered by English class is every more grotesque. Although Bradley might not seem to get seriously pissed everyday, but sometimes he finds himself on the brink of erupting whenever, john chen smears water on his face, liao slapping his cheeks, Daniel crushing him with his 100kg way beyond pregnant belly, getting owned by michael, crap, 想到就生氣. These are all trivial stuff that happens everyday to the men in 10B, but bradley sometimes cant control his anger. The intellect that the mind has to deal with everyday is power draining, and when fatigue comes the demon inside comes out. Sry for FReewrite.

Droning point: Innocence ftw.

Hey guys!

Ken-- i think i have an idea of how you feel. i feel, from what you've just described, somewhat the same. Seriously, i just hate. i hate a lot of things. It might not seem like i hate so much, or maybe it does, but i hate a lot. i don't know what i hate. but i hate a lot. I'm not sure of the sources of my problems but i have a lot. I think a big part of my problem is just analyzing and evaluating and interpreting things too much, being too, much too, on top of things. Sometimes i feel really proud that I've caught something (example: i become aware that I'm in my mind and i should calm down and shift more towards the Being), but now it's just that I'm critically thinking about everything-- everything that's happening in our world and in our lives. Things I'm starting to find out, just like you've said Kenny has been harsh and difficult and mind-blowing and extremely overwhelming. Steph, unlike you, it has impacted the status of my general happiness, which really really sux.

This is helping me-- this is helping me see the truth, it's just that looking and searching for the truth is tiring, and sometimes i just want to live a simple happy life. And that when i find out the truth, it ends up being really disappointing. When i see people living such ignorant and superficial lives, it really gets to me. I want to tie them to a chair and show them what LIFE REALLY IS. But at the end i think that it's their own life, and that's the way they want it-- ignorance IS BLISS, but it's still ignorance. right steph.

Also-- i would like to question whether "success" and "contentment" is what we really want.
cuz if you think about it, today, we really want success. we want to be successfull individuals. but when we reach this success, will we be content? success may seem like it's all we need in this world, but will we be happy? I guess the question is that which success are you aiming for? the ideal successful individual the elite or the society admire? or the success where you've accomplished YOUR goals and you're living up to your OWN standards, doing something where your essence feels right. and also, are we aware enough of it? like the Puritans, they had to be very self-aware of acheiving grace-- Since grace was their primary goal, like success is ours, so they had to have noticed the grace in their lives. Just like the story we read, by a Puritan but i forgot who... i think it was about the house that caught on fire. The person was sad at first but he/she realized that it was grace that he/she has attained.

To answer Eph's questions:
I think seeking success and contentment is kind of like the idea of competing with other people. It can be a fun and stimulating process, but what really matters is living in a way that makes you happy or in the competition case, transcending your self. So we pretty much all want happiness, and we think of successes as indicators of happiness. For example, we might consider a 4.0 gpa a success, and when we fail to achieve success we might feel like a miserable lump of crap. But if we delve deeper into this idea of happiness, we could say that the 4.0gpa --> happiness, however, it is not the ONLY thing that brings happiness, nor should failing to get a 4.0 mean misery. People are looking for happiness, but on the way get trapped by "failures." We forget the overall goal of having what we think is a good life and the millions of other paths to this happiness.

It has to be pointed out that this is much easier said than done, probably as a result of all the social/culural conditioning we all grew up immersed in. Even being aware that a good gpa is not that only thing that constitutes a good life in the future, it is potentially very HARD to come off the values that have been hardwired into our heads and to just accept "misery" (which does not actually have to be misery depending on how you see it and deal with it) Finally, I think that the individual perception of happiness and fulfillment must be determined by the self and values must be set as we are aware and trying to detach from prior conditioning.

yo steph! thanks dude i really needed that lol, and quite frankly, what you said literally applies to all of us here. Thanks for pointing that out. now i feel better, since it came from someone with a high ashhh gpa:) <3 youuu

So what is exactly happiness then? going back to Kenny's question-- do you guys think that being better critical thinkers and being apart of the conscious humanity-- self-aware, connected to the soul-- will lead to happiness? or will it lead us to truth, which may not necessarily be a very happy thing...

Hey kenn
I just figured, after reading a few posts prior to this one, your question can might as well be translated as: Which one constitutes contentment, Complexity? or Simplicity?

No matter what kind of life you live, what kind of sport you play, how complex your mind is, how poorly you perform on a test, how you pissed a teacher off and so on, its the mindset, its the perspective, its the way one looks a something determines how one feels about it. One might think I am digressing here but inspiration tells me im on the right track. Ken, you supplied that you have been in search for youself throughout all these years, well guess what, your still living, your still alive, your still in the present. Live in the present, find your way in the present, and be in the present. YOU ARE HERE. YOU ARE READING THIS POST, Reading OTHER PEOPLES POST. ACT. Today is DAY 1.

Make a choice. Do you want to live a simple life or live a complicated one or even a combination of both? Whatever choice you make, your right.

Let us look beyond education as a tool to make money, let us jump out of the mindset that we lived in boundaries, let us jump out of this cage that limits and blocks our way towards contentment as an individual. Look guys, essencially we only live once. Choose the life that would make us content. Yet we have to be decisive. Know whats the truth and whats faulty. Know whats right and what wrong and what would really lead us to true happiness or total failure. Live that life man. It is not road that directs the seeker, it is the seeker who directs the road.

Simplicity or Complexity? That would be the question to ask yourself.

KENNY dude remember i asked you this question one time during class? yeah your welcome hhaha jk

ok anyways, truth time.
i would rather stay as a child when i could do what ever i wanted and be happy. now after growing and developing, it is so much harder to be content, everything we see can always be better, there is always someone or something better than us. When we were kids, damn we could have fun doing anything, even just by being able to stay up past 9 o clock. i know i sound like so unintellectual and all that just by wanting to take the easy way out, but thats justhow i feel heh. However, after learning all this, i do feel like there is some meaning to my life, no matter how difficult it is. the difference between the two is that when youre a child and havent learned all this, you could be happy so easily, but you wouldn't be wanting more and striving towards your full potential. In contrast, after learning all this, even though one's life may be more complicated and confusing and difficult, one is striving for that unlimited potential.

hm...fi kinda changed my thinking (when we were kinda talking about this at school the other day)
if there were a way to ensure that EVERYONE, not just i, would be kept innocent, i think i might prefer that. as kat says above, we were more easily satisfied back in those days (though some of us mightve wanted to hurry up and grow up to do the "grown up" stuff, but dont we always look back and wish we could go back to then? though this would be after being exposed to the complex part of life, which is then contradicting myself. or something) ANYHOW. if there were a way that we'd forever stay innocent, sure. but how that can be achieved, i dont know. didnt work for communities like The Giver. something always seems to go wrong (complete absolute generalization here)

so yeah i guess sometimes it's just that we're fed up with all this complicated stuff so we wish to go back to being simple

but yeah, i've always wondered why we complicated our lives. though i guess that's part of evolution? we get more and more complex?

THis forum is complicating my life.

Hi guys!

ok i just got a new insight after reading Tizzle's post. It's all about our perspective-- so generally, we're literally choosing to be complex or simple. We choose. It's our choice.. this goes back to the discussion of boundaries- how we choose to have them, not wanting to live freely with responsibility. So if we're in a difficult and complex situation, we can panic and get nervous (like what i often do) or just change our perspectives. Cuz It's actually US making it so complicated. Yes, it's easier said than done, but like Ms. Kay said, yesyesyes, we actually can switch the "mind" right off. We can turn it off just like that. Then again it's part of our potential but from what i've discovered, we have a lot of potential-- we just don't realize it or we let obstacles (the mind) get in the way of using that potential.

To kathy's comment: yeah. I miss being a kid. But like when we were kids, we weren't aware how good life was. We didn't fully understand how life could get so difficult and twisted. We didn't understand because we didn't experience it yet. I guess this goes back to the saying of how we don't appreciate something until it's gone. When i was a kid, i wanted to grow up and wear high-heels and be able to do all the things that i couldn't do-- like stay up all night and eat as much candy as possible, and spend money without getting permission from mom first etc. Humans are like that-- and frankly, it's because we have a mind. We don't walk on the earth being in tuned with our soul and sensual with our physical world. If we were, then we'd be content. Reaching contentment takes effort and it takes experience. Eventually, we will become wise and learn from our experience then, depending on the indiidual, will we decide on what our purpose of life is, or the meaning for our existence. I think Guenther is right-- the purpose of life is to find out our own purpose of life.

But-- sadly, we're only human. I don't think it's possible to be content (for life) without going through the tough times first-- like getting rid of societal conditions and transcending etc. It's a tough process, no doubt about that.

Hey guys!

I think this quote that from Angela's little book is actually pretty self-explanatory and really encapsulates what has been discussed in Kenneth's thread:

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time."