Discussion»Questions»Human Behavior» Am I over-generalizing?: Some of the people are alright some of the time but not all of the people all of the time?
One of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths was The Truth of Suffering. It states that sickness, old age and death can happen to us all and are sources of distress.
A modern way of interpreting this is to say "life necessarily contains dissatisfactions".
Freud defined these as the frustrations of unfulfilled drives or primal instincts.
Maslow described them as a hierarchy of needs, starting with the physical (air, water, food, safety, shelter, procreation), moving through the emotional (belonging, respect, trust, love etc), to the intellectual and finally the spiritual (meaning, purpose, creativity, maturity, self-fulfillment, enlightenment). As children we feel happy when these needs are fulfilled; as adults, when we achieve them for ourselves and others. We feel discontent or unhappy when we cannot fulfill them. Anxiety, fear, doubt, jealousy, envy, vindictive glee, sadism, callousness, anger, sadness, grief, greed, shame, remorse and depression are all different just kinds of unhappiness or suffering.
Sensations, feelings and emotions can also be viewed as a spectrum, from so subtle as to be hard to recognise, to so intense as to be overwhelming. How much we pay attention to something has a powerful effect on the level of perceived intensity - but so also does how we think about or interpret it. For instance, a physical pain becomes far worse if we worry that it might be septicemia, cancer, or something life-threatening. We experience a pain as far (at least 50%) less intense if we think it is non-harmful, temporary and will heal of its own accord.
So everybody experiences suffering and dissatisfactions in their life. But there is huge variation in how people deal with it. Some learn to become habitually anxious or angry, inadvertently making their suffering far worse. Some learn how to merely observe, meet the need, relish the calm and enjoy the myriad moments of happiness in the here and now. These latter tend to meet the problems of life with far less stress.
This post was edited by inky at June 29, 2023 8:17 PM MDT
Adding before I take a nap and add more when fresh that one may radicalize to a cause because of missing childhood fulfillment or horrifying yet abuse by a relative in young years and form a permanent psychosis and operating emotionally find analytical things anathema? You could have a persecution complex which is bad for you or belief in a non-reality which can lead others who adhere down into total anarchy of self. Suffering you can't see with many because all the scars are on the inside that could manifest and drag you down. Killers were not born evil they had a clean slate. Altruism is questionable. Have you glean anything to respond to? Meh? That we all can be dangerously off and as Frank Zappa said we are not all wrapped tight? Huh?
This post was edited by CosmicWunderkind at June 29, 2023 7:38 PM MDT
inky 