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Comfort Doesn't Equal Happiness (Snap Out of it)
19 Plays11 days ago
In this episode, Wes riffs on why “my life” might just be an ego story, why comfort doesn’t actually make us happier, and how seeing life as one big unfolding plot can change the way we relate to pain, inconvenience, and our own thoughts.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Philosophy Funny' and Dream Discussion
00:00:01
Speaker
What's up philosophy friends welcome back to philosophy funny the podcast with deep talks and dumb jokes It is 6 a.m. On a Saturday But I had to get in front of my computer and press record because my wheels are turning and when the wheels are turning there's no stopping them and I the way this happened I I literally I woke up from a dream where someone sent me ah
00:00:32
Speaker
a Text that was like I'm so excited for your live stream that's starting in one minute And i was like what and I had no idea about it and then i opened the link they sent me and it's just like 20 Of my friends waiting for me to do like a live episode That I had not prepared for at all and like my little cousins were on there So I couldn't make the jokes I wanted to make it was a nightmare But I decided and it was also my birthday and I knew it was my birthday But I don't know how I knew it was my birthday But I digress I rest my case Guys forget about it
00:01:10
Speaker
And i was gonna start I was just gonna go for it because that's just kind of who I am and the thing that's been on my mind this week is the illusion of separation.
Exploring Buddhist Philosophy: Illusion of Separation
00:01:27
Speaker
I just wanted to do a light topic this week. But the illusion of separation is something that's talked about in Buddhism and I think Christianity.
00:01:40
Speaker
But let's just focus on Buddhism because Buddhism is the most simple to me. And they say that like, the illusion of separation is what creates suffering and actually life is just one is just one and to that everyone's like what like this speaker is quite separate for me that's why I can throw it up and down um
00:02:11
Speaker
And like even like this part of my body feels separate from this part of my body. But if you zoom out. ah
00:02:21
Speaker
Um, and that's kind of what I'm getting at. And the example I'd like to start with is the concept of like my life.
00:02:33
Speaker
I feel like when people are doing bunny ears, they do like my life, but you should really wait until what you're saying is over to end the quotation. So it would be like m my life.
00:02:48
Speaker
I'm also a little sick, but the show goes on. No pain, no gain, which we'll get to later.
The Ego and Unified View of Life
00:02:57
Speaker
Okay, so my name is Wes and i think most people think about their lives a lot.
00:03:06
Speaker
So it's like I was doing this in my dream, so I'll just go with it. So like say this circle Can you even see it is my life Wes's life and then say this is my brother's life my mom's life my friend's life my other friend's life and Imagine if I did this for every person on the planet
00:03:32
Speaker
It would be like a pretty big circle of many circles and what if we just not like what if but like i really don't think these like mini circles exist i think there's just life and i think that we think of my life because of like the ego in your mind it's a survival instinct hu And me personally, I'm pretty tired of worrying about my life. I'm pretty tired of worrying about Wes.
00:04:07
Speaker
I wish I could just live and whatever happens happens. But I can't because my old noggin that's saying like that girl hates you. Um,
00:04:22
Speaker
And yeah, I don't know if we can really override this function, but I think remembering this stuff can be helpful. um So even like this saying this is my sweatshirt like i filled out an online form.
00:04:40
Speaker
This guy took some of my money, which isn't even like paper anymore. It's digital that someone else is just keeping track of like we've created this whole society.
Ownership and Attachment: The Sweatshirt Analogy
00:04:52
Speaker
Me personally, I'm not a big fan of it. Um,
00:05:00
Speaker
Let's get back to the example of my sweatshirt You could call this my sweatshirt or you could call this a sweatshirt um And here's the difference say i go out into society which sucks and Someone's carrying a soda Walking down the street the opposite way of me and at the exact time That they're passing me they trip and they throw their soda all over me And this is a super special type of soda where the stain will never come out I'd be so i honestly
00:05:40
Speaker
I'm so woke and enlightened that I don't think I'd be that pissed but Picture it was you picture. It was so unwoke and unenlightened you um Like no if this is like my favorite hoodie if someone if I if it got ruined, I'd be pretty pissed But that's because I think of it as my hoodie if I just think of it as a hoodie I've been wearing I have no attachment to that.
00:06:08
Speaker
And that's something the Buddhists are real keen on is attachment. And I think ownership creates attachment. Like everybody has my house and my lawn.
00:06:25
Speaker
I just like criticize how people use funny quotes and then I'm doing the same thing. Excuse me.
00:06:39
Speaker
So how did we get into this mess? Well, I think it was kind of the natural progression of things.
From Hunter-Gatherers to Modern Convenience
00:06:47
Speaker
um
00:06:50
Speaker
We were hunter gatherers. gatherers And then after a while, we figured out that we could grow food instead of catching it all the time. And that was just, that set us apart.
00:07:04
Speaker
Just like these exposable thumbs. Also, we created fire. So fire with fire. And in my mind, my mind's going like, this is so stupid. But roll with me.
00:07:18
Speaker
So we could grow food and we had fire so we could like keep ourselves warm and we could grow our own food and with all the time that we saved not catching our own food and growing it then we just took over the whole fucking world and now we can get like Nutella and baby wipes shipped to our house because it was just we couldn't live with the inconvenience of having to go to the store And that is my next point.
00:07:49
Speaker
We are really living in a society where it seems like our end goal is convenience. hu And we're literally heading towards like how life is in Wally.
00:08:07
Speaker
And to me, it doesn't seem like we've gotten any happier. And what does that tell you? The big aha moment that I had in my dream was that comfort doesn't equal happiness.
00:08:25
Speaker
And what do we do with this realization? i don't know. It seems we're pretty down. We're pretty far down the path of just trying to make our lives more and more convenient
00:08:39
Speaker
to be honest, I don't really see it stopping anytime soon.
Comfort vs. Happiness: Societal Reflections
00:08:43
Speaker
i don't think everyone in the world is going to listen to philosophy and be like, Oh, you heard the man.
00:08:51
Speaker
um
00:08:53
Speaker
But I think it's just the realization of like, if comfort doesn't equal happiness,
00:08:59
Speaker
then what's the opposite of that? um Discomfort doesn't equal unhappiness. What? I'll say that again. Discomfort doesn't equal unhappiness.
00:09:14
Speaker
And I think it's very like, I think that's how we're wired is to seek pleasure and avoid
00:09:23
Speaker
avoid pain But I feel like humans ever since we figured out that we could grow our on food, man. It's like we're transcending consciousness.
00:09:36
Speaker
I mean, trans transcending our like biological instincts, like someone was saying,
00:09:46
Speaker
monogamy doesn't really make sense. Like we are biologically biologically wired to just like spread our seed. If you know what I mean? Um, um and yet a part of us is overriding that that and saying no love is more important.
00:10:07
Speaker
And maybe this is another way we have to override our biological wiring.
00:10:18
Speaker
It's also like if pain, so we just kind of mapped out that discomfort doesn't equal unhappiness. And I feel like the goal of everyone's, my life is for it to be perfect.
00:10:35
Speaker
And in that idea of perfection, there's no pain.
00:10:39
Speaker
But if there's no pain, i don't think, there would be any happiness because we're clearly or at least not any more happiness because we're clearly going down the road of trying to get more convenient and more convenient
00:10:56
Speaker
and yes things have gone a hell of a lot more convenient but we haven't gotten a hell of a lot happier
00:11:04
Speaker
It's really so funny that WALL-E, what year did WALL-E come out?
00:11:09
Speaker
What year did WALL-E come out?
00:11:12
Speaker
Fuck you, Siri. This is so inconvenient.
00:11:20
Speaker
What year did WALL-E come
WALL-E and Society's Convenience Trajectory
00:11:22
Speaker
WALL-E came out in 2008 and it's so funny how it like predicted the future and we're just like not gonna do anything to stop it. We're just gonna go towards it anyway.
00:11:35
Speaker
Even though the future in that looked god-awful, except for WALL-E. He comes across as a hero. um But if you go back to my previous point,
00:11:47
Speaker
If you stop thinking about it as my life and my sweatshirt, it kind of makes it less personal. The only reason I'd be worried if this hoodie was ruined is because I consider it mine.
00:12:00
Speaker
Well, what if your life was ruined and you didn't consider it mine? And what I mean by that is if you can just see oh life as one big like show or movie or story unfolding and stop thinking about your little point of view, your little baby point of view.
00:12:23
Speaker
It's amazing. Like something smaller than like the tip of this pen exploded into the whole universe.
00:12:36
Speaker
And then i think what happened?
00:12:41
Speaker
Oh yeah, and then there were stars. I don't know where the stars came from. In the beginning, there was no light, and God gave us light.
00:12:52
Speaker
in the form of star see this is what i'm saying like no pain no gain and that's why i'm pushing on through the pain so y'all can see what i'm saying oh but seriously i'm dying
00:13:11
Speaker
and the well well
00:13:14
Speaker
And though it'd be great if you guys could think about my coughing as funny and not inconvenient. And maybe it's just a little exposure therapy for you guys to practice and realize that convenience doesn't need necessarily equal happiness. That maybe you'll look forward to my bits of...
00:13:35
Speaker
wittiness and wisdom even more when you have to sit through my coughing. So how about that?
Human Evolution and Transcending Biological Limits
00:13:42
Speaker
So in the beginning, there was no light and God gave us light and it was stars and then the stars exploded and created the elements that then like condensed and gave us planets.
00:13:55
Speaker
And i think there's a heavy emphasis on I think here and then
00:14:03
Speaker
Fast forward million years, there was like tiny organisms growing like he was like, he was thinking about my life too. And then those grew up and eventually we had dinosaurs.
00:14:14
Speaker
and And then depending on what you believe, either a flood came or a meteor came and knocked out and maybe the floods just metaphorical and it's talking about the same meteor.
00:14:29
Speaker
And it wiped out all the darn dinosaurs.
00:14:34
Speaker
And then maybe it was just Noah on his ark. I actually started reading to the Bible, and this is about the point I got to So I don't know anything else how the biblic call the the biblical side of things views it.
00:14:49
Speaker
I also was talking about how with my supervisor about how Christianity and Judaism are pretty much like the same thing, just like...
00:15:01
Speaker
Christianity includes one book that the um the jew Jewish people don't um buy into. And then I also heard Islam is pretty similar. And it's like, why are we fighting?
00:15:16
Speaker
It's a similar book. Why can't we just appreciate it? Um... And then in the beginning there was no animals and then God gave us dinosaurs and then took away the dinosaurs and then gave us humans. And now we're here.
00:15:30
Speaker
And we started from like animals. And some people don't agree with that, but... I think I do. um We literally started as like monkeys and then we evolved.
00:15:47
Speaker
I think we got like the thumbs. We created fire and figured out how to make our own food and then it was over. It was wraps. We took over it as bit. And we're transcending.
00:16:01
Speaker
our animal this were transcending our biological wiring that's amazing. That's an amazing story and right now America.
00:16:14
Speaker
It's it feels like scarier times than we've than I've ever encountered in my short 20. twenty Well my 23 years on the planet. But that's just when I'm thinking about me.
00:16:28
Speaker
And to that ice I hear the question and yells had. It's like how can I not take myself personally when that's my whole experience.
00:16:42
Speaker
Like if I get. My leg cut off I feel that pain.
00:16:49
Speaker
Into that I'd say.
00:16:51
Speaker
one I didn't say it was fucking easy. um And that's a joke, but it's not. Like, i acknowledge I think this is something everyone struggles with. It's probably a realization ah many people haven't even had.
00:17:07
Speaker
I'm just so ahead of the times and woke and enlightened. And number two is that maybe in that moment, that's when it's most important to remember this.
00:17:19
Speaker
Like, say... you get too close to a train and your leg gets cut off. Instead of thinking about like, my life is ruined, what about all the things that I wanted?
00:17:37
Speaker
Just think like, isn't this leg coming off like crazy for the plot?
00:17:44
Speaker
And I know that's hard to do, but like, do you want to be happy or do you want to sit around feeling sorry for yourself that your leg is gone?
00:17:56
Speaker
oh
00:18:01
Speaker
And I feel like I um i too. and sounds like so noble and like, like I'm talking in the 1900s. I too am caught up in the in the notion of trying to make my life perfect.
00:18:20
Speaker
And maybe the solution is remembering that it's not your life. Maybe it already is perfect.
00:18:28
Speaker
Because the only reason it's really not perfect oh is because you have problems and because you have to go through pain.
00:18:39
Speaker
But as we just went over
00:18:46
Speaker
as we just went over pain isn't making you any unhappier.
00:18:52
Speaker
And also, well, I'll finish that point. So getting rid of it wouldn't make you any happier. So that can't be the goal, or at least it shouldn't be in my mind. And also...
00:19:05
Speaker
And also it's not your life. It's just life.
Book Recommendations for Self-Awareness
00:19:12
Speaker
And I know that's hard to kind of wrap your head around, but maybe we should start trying because it's like
00:19:20
Speaker
Okay, so this if there's like any required reading for this podcast, it would be the untethered soul by Michael Singer. And if you're feeling really ambitious, the sequel living untethered by Michael Singer. um And that book.
00:19:41
Speaker
It doesn't explicitly say that in that book, but That was the book that really showed me that you are not your thoughts And you're not even the one that comes up with your thoughts You're just the observer of them and it's like you they don't you don't actually see them But you're just like the awareness of your thoughts like
00:20:07
Speaker
You know when you're driving down the road this happened to me more in high school um than it does now. But everyone, I think, has had those like OCD or like impulsive thoughts where it's like, what if you drove off the road right now? Like you didn't come up with that thought. You just became aware of it.
00:20:27
Speaker
And i know that it seems different with your other thoughts, but at least when I was reading that book, he made a very, very good point that it's not any different.
00:20:40
Speaker
And that voice in your head like your thoughts like run your whole life your whole life.
00:20:47
Speaker
And those aren't you you're just aware of them. And you get so caught up in them that you think it's your life.
00:20:57
Speaker
And you live accordingly. which leads to some unhappiness, but also like what would the world even look like if we in this book he says like you're just the awareness of your thoughts emotions and like your body and the your outer world and your outer world experience it's like how are we how the hell are we gonna move forward and live accordingly with that realization Michael singer you ever think of that um
00:21:34
Speaker
And maybe that's, there's this song on Spotify called Dream by Alan Watts. It's not even really a song. It's like some fun music in the background to an Alan
Alan Watts' Analogy: Life as a Dream or Game
00:21:46
Speaker
Watts speech. And he was like a philosopher.
00:21:49
Speaker
And he says essentially like, what if... oh
00:21:54
Speaker
What if life was like a dream or like think of it as like a dream or a video game or a movie that's so good, that's so like perfectly designed that you forget it's a video game or a movie.
00:22:09
Speaker
I don't think y'all need to hear that again, but I'm to say it again for me. What if life is like a video game or movie that's designed so well that you forget you're playing?
00:22:21
Speaker
Like i it's kind of a weird way to think of things, but I truly believe that I'm kind of just like a sim in the greater picture.
00:22:34
Speaker
And everyone's so caught up in like, what am I going to do with my sim? Should I take him to the gym? Should I let him watch TV? He's had a hard week.
00:22:43
Speaker
And everyone's so focused on that. But if you zoom out, it's just like this unbelievable creation.
Perspective Shift: Embracing Life's Wonders
00:22:51
Speaker
And maybe remembering that is the only... and Or maybe it's the best way for your life to be perfect. Stop taking everything so personally like you're an evolved monkey on a floating space rock.
00:23:06
Speaker
That's like only alive because the star happens to be perfectly distant from you.
00:23:13
Speaker
And that star is just one of a billion stars like that's amazing. Stop worrying about like how your business report is going to go on Friday.
00:23:26
Speaker
Like even if you get fired that changes fucking nothing in the grand scheme of things. This is amazing regardless.
00:23:38
Speaker
Like you're this hand is made of literally like elements that were created when stars exploded.
00:23:48
Speaker
I've spent my whole life wondering what's the meaning of life.
00:23:54
Speaker
And maybe the answer is what kind of fucking question is that? Like life is amazing. Why are you asking why?
00:24:03
Speaker
And I think the reason we ask why is because of the pain and suffering we go through.
00:24:11
Speaker
And in my life, there's been a lot of it in my life. yeah Sorry, if you're just listening, I was doing like the bunny or like the quotations thing.
00:24:23
Speaker
But none of this would be possible without pain and it's not making you any more unhappy. So can you just accept it as part of your life. And realize that it's not about you and it's amazing.
Conclusion and Closing Humor
00:24:39
Speaker
Which is something I'm still struggling to do myself, but
00:24:45
Speaker
I don't know how long I've been recording for, but I'm feeling done. um Thank you for everyone who listened. Please like, like, subscribe, or you can like rate it five stars on Spotify. i think that's where most people listen, but rate it five stars, follow it, like it, tell your mom about it.
00:25:06
Speaker
Tell your mom, the guy who's recording it's really cute and has some really witty and wise things to say. And that it's been three years since dad died and she should really get out there and maybe this guy's a good option. um Yeah, thank you for listening. I love y'all.
00:25:24
Speaker
Peace.