Eudaimonia is new to me

[happy2bretired]

I ran across this term today while just snooping around the internet. I hardly ever start threads, because you guys are so much smarter than I am. I would never be able to defend myself in a spirited discussion. I love reading everyone's answers and opinions and I try to absorb as much as I can, from those of you that know so much more than I do. Please forgive me, if this has already been discussed. I haven't been reading the forum as much within the last month or so.

In writing this thread, I hope I can learn some things about what you think. I haven't even read all of this yet...there is so much. But, I hope you can take some time and read a little of this web page. I probably won't "discuss" much, but I hope, at least you can think/discuss and I'll "listen".

https://eand.co/the-principles-ae48beb232f1


Quote from link:
"Every age has a challenge. Here’s today’s. Crafting a new — perhaps a radically new — paradigm of human organization, that values, represents, respects, celebrates, elevates, and expands life. Life is an impossibly big word, because it is such a strange and striking and impossible thing. Yet when you and I say “life”, we don’t mean some kind of actuarial probability table, the one-dimensional way the economic paradigm values things, but life in all its fragility, messiness, emergence, contradiction, complexity. Life in that sense, as self-realization, is more and more what’s minimized by the economic paradigm of human organization, so that it can maximize income. That’s what a broken paradigm means, and because it is the problem inside all the problems, that is what needs to be fixed, reversed, upended, turned around, with a better one. So how can we —"

 

[VanWinkle]

I ran across this term today while just snooping around the internet. I hardly ever start threads, because you guys are so much smarter than I am. I would never be able to defend myself in a spirited discussion. I love reading everyone's answers and opinions and I try to absorb as much as I can, from those of you that know so much more than I do. Please forgive me, if this has already been discussed. I haven't been reading the forum as much within the last month or so.

In writing this thread, I hope I can learn some things about what you think. I haven't even read all of this yet...there is so much. But, I hope you can take some time and read a little of this web page. I probably won't "discuss" much, but I hope, at least you can think/discuss and I'll "listen".

https://eand.co/the-principles-ae48beb232f1

Quote from link:
"Every age has a challenge. Here’s today’s. Crafting a new — perhaps a radically new — paradigm of human organization, that values, represents, respects, celebrates, elevates, and expands life. Life is an impossibly big word, because it is such a strange and striking and impossible thing. Yet when you and I say “life”, we don’t mean some kind of actuarial probability table, the one-dimensional way the economic paradigm values things, but life in all its fragility, messiness, emergence, contradiction, complexity. Life in that sense, as self-realization, is more and more what’s minimized by the economic paradigm of human organization, so that it can maximize income. That’s what a broken paradigm means, and because it is the problem inside all the problems, that is what needs to be fixed, reversed, upended, turned around, with a better one. So how can we —"

I couldn't finish the 4th paragraph without getting sleepy, and there was nothing new there that had not already been printed. Every generation has their own outlook on life and happiness. Maybe I'm just not intelligent enough to appreciate the point of view. I still think it can be summed up with one short sentence, "The world is what you make it!"

 

[Rianne]

Eudaimonia, nice word, I just don't know how to pronounce it.

 

[aja8888]

Eudaimonia, nice word, I just don't know how to pronounce it.

Sounds like a new disease....maybe a doc can prescribe something for it?

 

[W2R]

Never heard of it!

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia

I'm not sure there is anything new in it, since the article goes on and on about ancients such as Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, and their viewpoints. But eudaimonia sure qualifies as one of those $100 words that we sometimes use here on the forum.

 

[Rianne]

Never heard of it!

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaimonia

I'm not sure there is anything new in it, but it sure qualifies as one of those $100 words that we sometimes use here on the forum.

OMG are those your puppies? My heart just jumped out of my chest!

 

[W2R]

OMG are those your puppies? My heart just jumped out of my chest!

Those puppies are from Google images! I don't have any pets, not even a potted plant, because I am not ready for the responsibilities right now.

And yes, they are ADORABLE, aren't they? I just love switching my avatar around because there are so many neat things to use as an avatar and I get bored with the same one all the time.

 

[happy2bretired]

I don't know how to pronounce it either.

I read the next tab after "The Story", just called "Eudaimonics". Here are a couple quotes from that tab and my thoughts.

I was on Facebook for several years, until I wasn't. I left and I do feel better overall, but I still miss seeing my son-in-laws's family in Brazil. I don't like Facebook's current business model/economics/ethics.
"Social media has great economics: Facebook and Twitter and so on maximize incomes and earn fortunes. But it’s eudaimonics are profoundly unsuccessful: it makes people unhappy, unfulfilled, and more distant — and it’s a vector for misinformation and mistrust that’s eating away at the fabric of democracy."

I live in Nebraska and have felt Oklahoma's earthquakes. I'm probably the only person in Nebraska that has earthquake insurance. Water is another example for me. We have a large aquifer here in Nebraska and they want to run pipeline close to it.
"Fracking has wonderful economics. Gas is extracted cheap, stored efficiently, and distributed at low cost, and so prices have fallen. But it has terrible eudaimonics. It causes long-term, irreversible, net negative changes in natural capital: it poisons water tables and sparks earthquakes."

Economics is important...but I think this is a worthwhile method of balancing the past and the future. I'm thinking about my kids and my grandchild. I have never been one to go backwards.
"By prioritizing economics over eudaimonics, we’ve created an age where human organizations seems to going backwards in many ways, riven, fractured, stuck, stagnant — a natural consequence of a paradigm whose sole end is maximizing near term economic gains at any price, instead of elevating and expanding life’s possibility in the first place. So when I talk about paradigmatic change, it’s that imbalance that need correcting."

 

[Midpack]

One of my buddies used the word abstruse the other night, we all laughed and told him he’d made up the word. Until we Googled...

abstruse adjective
ab·struse | \əb-ˈstrüs, ab-\
Definition of abstruse
formal
: difficult to comprehend : RECONDITE
the abstruse calculations of mathematicians
abstruse concepts/ideas/theories

 

[HFWR]

Sounds like a new disease....maybe a doc can prescribe something for it?

Medical marijuana...

 

[aja8888]

Medical marijuana...

Sign me up!

 

[Amethyst]

OMG I've been using abstruse since I was a teenager. It's a wonder I had any dates, huh?

My Mother loved words and concepts, and passed it on to us kids. She was cheated out of a college education by the Depression and her father's death.

One of my buddies used the word abstruse the other night, we all laughed and told him he’d made up the word. Until we Googled...

 

[happy2bretired]

Well, I looked it up in the dictionary and it's in Wikipedia too.

eudaemonism | yo͞oˈdēməˌnizəm | (also eudemonism)
noun
a system of ethics that bases moral value on the likelihood that good actions will produce happiness.
DERIVATIVES
eudaemonist noun
eudaemonistic | -ˌdēməˈnistik | adjective
ORIGIN
early 19th century: from Greek eudaimonismos ‘system of happiness’, from eudaimōn ‘happy’, from eu ‘well’ + daimōn ‘guardian spirit’.

Looks like Midpack and me are going Greek.
I'm editing tho because this definition ends in a ISM...I don't like most ISMs. I prefer Eudaimonics.

 

[MRG]

Medical marijuana...

Sounds like a side effect of.

Honestly I was going to say it meant "my cannabis is better than yours is".

I actually enjoy a good group rediscovery of old ideas. I'm glad this resonates with some.

 

[happy2bretired]

Medical marijuana...

I like that. Interstate 80 and the Colorado border...maybe some day we can get Medical marijuana. Just think of the tolls we could collect for everyone declaring it, as they zoom thru.

 

[RunningBum]

"Paradigm" used 4 times in that partial paragraph quote. I feel I'm back in one of those megacorp culture presentations. Did not click on the link.

 

[happy2bretired]

"Paradigm" used 4 times in that partial paragraph quote. I feel I'm back in one of those megacorp culture presentations. Did not click on the link.

Party pooper.

 

[RunningBum]

Sorry! At least I didn't call it a disease!

 

[redduck]

I ran across this term today while just snooping around the internet. I hardly ever start threads, because you guys are so much smarter than I am.

"

Two points:

1. Unless you can get someone to put the article in spreadsheet form, it's not going to generate much serious discussion on this forum.

2. From the responses so far, I think you can put to rest your concerns that the people on this forum are so much smarter than you are.

 

[happy2bretired]

Two points:

1. Unless you can get someone to put the article in spreadsheet form, it's not going to generate much serious discussion on this forum.

Well...spreadsheet no. But, after reading all this information, I am very glad that I'm retired. When I was still working everything was quantified with data. This method uses other means to measure outcomes, not just economic outcomes, but more of a whole, complete concept.

This is way beyond my comprehension, it's just another subject that caught my eye. I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last year or so.

Don't laugh...I'm trying...the Mu,Pu stuff is weird, but, remember, this web site is a "think tank" organization.This is a sample.

Britain’s NHS — the world’s first and still best public healthcare system — is high-Mu. I don’t have to think much: I walk to the doctor’s office, he sees me, we chat. It’s also a high-Ziran system: without it, my life would be suddenly transformed for the worse — life expectancy would probably fall, like it is in the US. It’s a high-Sunyata system, too: it helps people lose their little selves towards a greater purpose, health. And it’s a high-Arete system: I can use the system in many ways to become better at doing, whether losing weight, quitting smoking, and so on. So the NHS is a deeply eudaimonic system, that helps people live better lives. Because it’s high in Mu, Ziran, and Sunyata, it expands the boundaries of potential eudaimonia that can be realized. Does that mean it’s perfect? Of course not. What it is is vastly better at realizing human potential.

Mu is one of the fundamental precepts of the great philosophy called Zen, often translated as “no-mind”: not thinking can paradoxically brings us fuller lives than thinking.

Ziran is the subtle Taoist notion of “a thing becoming itself”, or natural self-transformation.

Sunyata is the Buddhist notion that selves have no inherent existence. Sounds impossible. Let’s think about it for a moment. Your most eudaimonic moments — full of happiness, joy, meaning, and so on — are where “you” stop existing.

Arete is the ancient Greek word for virtue, used in a very different way than we do today: virtue as a lived, everyday experience, not something we theorize about.

 

[VanWinkle]

Well...spreadsheet no. But, after reading all this information, I am very glad that I'm retired. When I was still working everything was quantified with data. This method uses other means to measure outcomes, not just economic outcomes, but more of a whole, complete concept.

This is way beyond my comprehension, it's just another subject that caught my eye. I've been doing a lot of thinking over the last year or so.

Don't laugh...I'm trying...the Mu,Pu stuff is weird, but, remember, this web site is a "think tank" organization.This is a sample.

I used to get paid to think..... I don't get paid or think any more.

VW

 

[happy2bretired]

I used to get paid to think..... I don't get paid or think any more.



VW

Well I’m not doing too hot in the thinking’s department that’s for sure. Too complicated for me.

I do like the idea of a more balanced decision making process. Seems like some of the new forward thinking companies we have now, just don’t care about anything except money.

Oh well who cares.

 

[audreyh1]

It’s all Greek to me!

 

[imoldernu]

Just now,looking at this...
For the past month, have been digging in to Taoism and syncing to passive acceptance.

Getting into the Pu's and Mu's of the article is going to take a little time, but I'm sympathetic to and interested in the concept of humanism. No formal "credit based " education in Philosophy, but took sit-in classes whenever I could. For many years, I looked to communes as THE answer to my ideal world. Even the Jim Jones worst case was not enough to change my personal idealism.

Practically, we go nowhere from here. An alice in Wonderland dream... and yet, here and there, finding tepid souls, who dare to hope and dream.

Patching together the finer parts of the world's philosophies, can't be wrong, even if not practical. From "Me" to "Us" is a wide gap, but after all, wasn't that the step that separated man from beast?

And so: time for a look back at the best parts of the philosophies mentioned in the articles.

Thanks for posting...

 

[Red Badger]

Eudaimonia?

Ammonia is used in many synthetic fertilizers. Maybe Eudaimonia is a hybrid of the natural and synthetic stuff?