闲人

We have been taught that if we work hard we will succeed. The unspoken, though often assumed part of that statement is that if we don't succeed, we have not worked hard enough. Yet with any population, there is an average, and standards will be set to that average. Those above it will be revered or persecuted; those below will be seen as failures or be helped if they are lucky. If everyone performs better there will simply be a new average, new standards, new expectations.

Thus, some "fail" simply because their best is not enough. There is no condescension in this statement; there is however something unusual about a society that sees people who have not met certain arbitrary standards as failures.

Our obsession with competition also leads us to always try and seek the "best" choices. Yet... it seems impossible to make an absolute "best" choice. My judgments are based on my conditions at a given moment; it may not apply to others, it may even not apply to myself under different conditions. Maybe a better choice could be made if there was more information, a different state of mind, different emotions. This may lead to better outcomes. Yet all we can do is make the best judgment we can based on what we have, even when what we have is not the best.

Perhaps freedom lies in not wanting to be elsewhere. Not in the sense that "This is great, there's nowhere else I'd rather be", but simply the acknowledgment that you are where you are at the present moment, and nothing can change that. Change does happen, but can only be attained at another moment or at the end of a series of moments; at this particular moment, what you have is what you have. No amount of wanting change at this precise moment can create change at this precise moment.

If we look at suffering, it is precisely that, the wanting right now what is not possible right now. If we expand precise moments to a general sense of now, if we can change something we don't like we'll change it and we don't need to suffer the unpleasantness of the thing. It is only when it can't be changed, or can't be changed right now that we feel suffering. Yet what causes suffering is not the unchangeability of the situation, but rather the wanting of impossible change.

所谓的繁荣是怎么一个繁荣法？

以前的人无可否认比较贫穷。但同时，贫穷的极限是一个“零”而已。现代一般人的经济是逆水行舟，虽然比较富裕，但这个富裕要一直被维持，一旦停止收入就会很快的陷入窘境。不知道谁发明了人类可以拥有和买卖土地，但繁荣的现代没有这种制度也会造成混乱。繁荣也造成了一般人无法，或从未学习，从大自然中寻找食物。外面的水也脏得我们不敢喝。最基本的居处，食物，饮水都变得需要购买，我们的状况变得少于零。

累了，就休息。但这种很基本的事情，在“少于零”的世界中有时很难实现。

这里亦复如是。痴者的痴见。

There is this phrase, "You're living in your own little world", sometimes used rather condescendingly. But the thing is, everyone lives in their own world. Most of the time, there is an overlap, or we assume there is an overlap, or we hang out with people who we have a considerable amount of overlap with, and this creates an illusion that how we see the world is universal, objective, and right. Maybe there is a universal, objective and right way to see the world; what I question is one's ability to see that.

There is an arrangement of atoms, or whatever units you choose, that exist. I can't throw at brick at you that somehow does not exist in your world. But the way in which we interpret these molecules are a construct. We construct our world in the ways we were taught since we were young. My senses tell me the flat white A4 sized sheet is a piece of paper, paper is used for certain things, so on so forth. And most people will know that, or at least can be convinced, that it is a sheet of paper. There is an overlap, we know that we are talking about the same thing because we have constructed this portion of our own little worlds in similar ways.

Things get messy when it comes to questions of right and wrong, good and evil. We learn our values from our parents, elders, heroes, media, peers. Pick a little bit from this because this person makes this value sound like it makes sense. Pick a little from that because if I believe otherwise I'll be less popular. Pick a little from this because that's the only way I've been taught to think about this issue. Pick a little from that because of enjoyable or painful experiences. Construct construct construct. Believing that what we know is right is right, while all it is is just a construct, created based on our experiences. And when there's conflict, we don't realize that it's because we've inevitably, through our unique experiences, created different worlds for ourselves. Instead, we believe that we live in the same world, and the other in not seeing things in the same way because their blind, or stupid, or crazy. Even if we have the same source material we might have different conclusions, let alone the fact that all of us have different source material that we've created our world from.

"You're living in your own little world". Yes, but aren't we all?