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Comment by pdamoc | Hacker News Reader

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pdamoc·

Pleasure is not the right goal. Homeostasis, balance, equanimity, peace are much better.

Learn to appreciate beauty. Learn to create beauty. Learn how to get better at both.

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> Pleasure is not the right goal. Homeostasis, balance, equanimity, peace are much better.

Along with these, sustainability. Imagine finding balance and peace, but seeing clearly that the tools and techniques used to get and stay there are temporary. Pretty unsettling. We have to get there in ways that are long lasting and unlikely to change radically.

Caring about sustainability makes people especially miserable. Perhaps underscoring the point that pleasure is not the right goal...

I think it depends what kind of sustainability.. The sustainability of a state of being is probably a worthwhile goal..

The ecological kind, misery path for sure.. Until entropy can be reversed at least.

Appreciating and creating beauty isn't contingent on peace. Often art comes from a place of passion. I think freedom from emotional turmoil in the general sense would be enjoyed by everyone, I can agree in that capacity. However, that list of synonyms is rather ambiguous and to me elicits an imperative for impassivity, antithetical to striving towards anything. I guess it's a valid path if that suits your nature, but I'm getting more out of the human experience by evoking passions.

Favorited your comment. Not sure what the article is about (reading HN comments only atm), but this comment is an article on its own.

Thanks for stating it so clearly

These are good. Possibly the strongest competition with happiness is satisfaction. Happiness itself all on its own tends to be stupid and boring.

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