Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[LuckyR]

I will definitely choose living a long life over living a day with inner peace. Who would genuinely live with inner peace knowing fully well it may be your last day on earth ?

Chinese saying I think, " There is no difference between a long life and a short life both are but a moment in time."

Kelvin,
Life is the memory of your experiences good or bad or like most, a tolerable mix.

Very true. "Short" and "long" only have a practical meaning if one is contemplating shortening one's life (artificially).

[Raymonda Onwuka 1]

It is actually preferable to live a day with inner peace than to live thousands or even millions of years without it. But then, the best option is to live thousands or millions of years with inner peace and be contended with the green grass below your feet. The grass always appear greener on the other side, yet appearances can be deceitful.

[LuckyR]

It is actually preferable to live a day with inner peace than to live thousands or even millions of years without it.

How did you come to that opinion?

[Deolifespring]

Finding inner peace in each day is more valuable than living for a thousand years without it. It's like having a treasure within reach every single day, enriching our lives with contentment and harmony. Without inner peace, even the longest life may feel hollow and restless. So, cherishing each day with inner tranquility is truly a gift worth more than any amount of time without it.

[Lagayscienza]

Who has inner peace? We are all conflicted. It's part of being human. So the rational thing to do is to take the thousand years with or without inner peace. That's if you like life enough and think you could remain interested for that long.

[Nathan Makh]

Absolutely, finding inner peace can make even a single day more fulfilling than a lifetime without it. It's all about quality over quantity, right?

[LuckyR]

Absolutely, finding inner peace can make even a single day more fulfilling than a lifetime without it. It's all about quality over quantity, right?

I don't know. I keep asking one day old infants (who are destined to die tomorrow), but they don't say much...

[Sy Borg]

If you have a choice to either live for one day feeling awesome or to live many years feeling rotten, then the former is the obvious choice. Quality over quantity, as Nathan said above. An antinatalist would consider the former to be the only acceptable option - otherwise why bother waking up from non-consciousness, only to suffer or a while before returning to endless slumbers?

However, when one is deep into one's imperfect life, one tends to prefer trucking on, unless the problems are extreme. The survival instinct plays a major role here.

Then again, what of the big picture? As a longer-lived being, you are doing more to be an architect of the future than a One-Day-Wunderkind, as did our imperfect ancestors since the dawn of life, and before. The future we are helping to build (whether we like it or not) may eventually offer a lifetime of inner peace, at least for a percentage of sapient beings.

[LuckyR]

If you have a choice to either live for one day feeling awesome or to live many years feeling rotten, then the former is the obvious choice. Quality over quantity, as Nathan said above. An antinatalist would consider the former to be the only acceptable option - otherwise why bother waking up from non-consciousness, only to suffer or a while before returning to endless slumbers?

However, when one is deep into one's imperfect life, one tends to prefer trucking on, unless the problems are extreme. The survival instinct plays a major role here.

Then again, what of the big picture? As a longer-lived being, you are doing more to be an architect of the future than a One-Day-Wunderkind, as did our imperfect ancestors since the dawn of life, and before. The future we are helping to build (whether we like it or not) may eventually offer a lifetime of inner peace, at least for a percentage of sapient beings.

An excellent example of a false choice. The average person's life is... average, by definition.

[Tri-nity]

This book was inspiring and helpful. It will help a lot of people work through hard times

[David awunor]

Hi, Count Lucanor, thank you for your reply!

It is preferable to live free and die sooner than live longer as a slave, whether a slave to other humans or a slave to addiction, money, or comfort.

Do you agree?

I do agree with this.

I hope you don't mind my quoting your post out of order. Nonetheless, I am glad you agree with that particular sentence. To me, as I meant them, all seven of the sentences in the OP starting with "it is preferable to" each mean essentially nearly the same thing. So overall I optimistically suspect you agree with my intended meaning in each of the seven sentences, even though you have some thoughtful comments and concerns regarding some of the others, which I am happy to receive and eager to address below.

It is preferable to live one day with inner peace than a thousand years without.

I'm a bit confused: if I have a lifespan of exactly 1,000 years and one day of those years I live with inner peace, it is automatically understood that the rest, that is, 999 years and 364 days, I'm without inner peace. I get it that one good day is better than none, but what happens if that one day is right at the beginning of the 1,000 years period. Not much of a difference in how bad things turn out.

Perhaps we can conclude that 2 days of inner peace and 999 years and 363 days of discontent/unpeace would be roughly twice as desirable as only one day in a thousand years, roughly speaking.

But I think most of the value of realizing the preference--if one shares it--does not require getting in the weeds mathematically. That is, assuming that most of the value comes from realizing through the illustrative example that no amount of discontent longevity is worth giving up one iota of inner peace. In other words, according to my subjective preferences, any time spent living with inner peace is preferable to increasing longevity by getting time with inner peace. In other words, death-avoidance has no inherent value that can match the value of inner peace (a.k.a. contentment). In yet other words, even the slightest time spent with inner peace is infinitely more valuable than any amount of death-avoidance or longevity.

Notwithstanding that I could have a lifespan beyond those 1,000 years, which would make the one day among the 1,000, a day of less relative value.

I agree.

However, the comparison I had in mind was living one day with inner peace, and then dying, versus living 1,000 years without even a single day of inner peace, and then dying.

It is preferable to be content than comfortable.

Many times comfort is a condition for our contentment.

I disagree if you are using the words, namely contentment, in the same way I use the words, which is not something I expect or require.

I use the term contentment as interchangeable with inner peace.

However, I would agree with what you say if you are using the word "contentment" to mean something like 'emotional highs' or 'fleeting above average happiness', such as the rush an alcoholic gets when taking a drink, the rush a sex addict gets when having a sexual affair, or the multiple days of exceptional temporary excitement someone experiences after winning the lottery.

I agree that those kind of fleeting emotional highs are associated with comfort and are the kind of things I have in mind when speaking of comfort.

It is preferable to be embrace discomfort than to be a comfort addict.

That's disputable. Can the "comfortable addiction" to potable water...

Sorry, I wasn't more clear: I meant addiction to comfort not comfortable addiction.

It is preferable to unconditionally love the grass beneath your feet than to always see the grass on the other side as greener, greener meaning more worthy of love or more conducive to true content inner peace (e.g. "once I make a million dollars, then I will finally be happy"; "once I reach my goal weight, then I will finally be content").

It is a good thing to be humble and grateful for what you have, but ambitions are not necessarily bad.

I agree. That's why I use the word preferable. It's also preferable to me to save one human than save one non-human animal life, but both have value to me, even if one may be infinitely more valuable. Needless to say, when presented with two good choices, one can have a preference. I don't personally believe in evil, so I don't believe in the concept of the lesser of two evils, but I do believe in the concept of choosing the greater of two goods.

To your wise point, I suspect having and chasing goals may at least in certain circumstances be required for inner peace (a.k.a. contentment). For example, when I am suffering discomfort on the treadmill, I do so because it brings me inner peace, such that I am content while suffering discomfort on the treadmill, not just after but during. Achieving the long-term goal is not a necessary means to contentment (such that I couldn't be content until after the goal is eventually complete in the future), but rather the act of working towards the goal brings me inner peace in itself.

Once I reach that goal, I will set new ones. In that way, there is always more grass to seek. Inner peace (a.k.a. contentment) is about enjoying the endless journey itself, not something obtained by reaching a destination.

Perhaps the greater irony is that even if I do not achieve the goal, I will still (in theory) be content during the goal-chasing and during the later failure. For instance, as long as I play the cards the best I can, I will still be content and in a way consider myself a winner even if I lose the poker game.

(That is all in theory. This guy Scott that I call me is actually just human, and very far from perfectly implementing these ideas in practice. So, in practice, it is all much fuzzier and messier, and as a human I am a hypocrite in all sorts of ways.)

The whole idea of progress, of moving forward to better states of your existence, implies the engine of unfulfilled desires and ambitions. A natural, healthy sense of envy, is required for this. My brother, who is now a famous local cartoonist, used to show his drawing skills very early in childhood. I wanted so much to imitate his success with other kids, so I eventually kind of followed his footsteps and learned to draw fairly well myself. I don't think this was a bad kind of envy and negatively affecting my inner peace.

[Emphasis added.]

Yes, I generally agree. That's a good example of how desire, ambition, and endless work can be compatible with inner peace.

The philosopher Albert Camus famously wrote, "one must imagine Sisyphus happy."

I think chasing greener grass can be compatible with inner peace (a.k.a. contentment). In fact, in certain circumstances and senses, it--meaning the act of chasing greener grass like a dog chasing a ball--could be a necessary condition for inner peace for someone in a life at a time.



***

It is preferable to live free and die sooner than live longer as a slave, whether a slave to other humans or a slave to addiction, money, or comfort.

Do you agree?

I do agree with this.

A great many people who were actually slaves disagreed. They continued on as slaves instead of risking their lives by rebelling or making a run for it.

Hi, Ecurb, thank you for your reply!

If we judge people by their behavior under the (presumably false) assumption they are not hypocrites, meaning their ideals match their behaviors, then I think it is safe to conclude that the vast majority of humans who have ever lived do no share any of the seven preferences I stated in the OP, neither in practice nor in claimed conceptualization.

In that way, inner peace may not be common. Similarly, desperate death-avoidance may be common. Discontentment may be common.

It seems to me that preferring to live free and die sooner instead of living longer as a slave is mere posturing.

I can agree if you inject the word usually in between the word is and the words mere posturing.

But surely there are also many examples of courage and of people living up to Emiliano Zapata's claim, "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"

Such courage may be the minority, but that is far different than being non-existence. Some very courageously disobedient criminals are named in the topic, Who is your favorite criminal from history?

To your point, in my other topic Man Is Not Fit to Govern Man, I wrote, "I can tell you what I will or would do, and only time and happenstance will tell if my answer is honest and true... When I am given the choice to commit murder for a Nazi to prove my loyalty, and thereby live another day, or have myself and my whole family murdered by the Nazis as punishment for my peaceful civil disobedience, I must choose whether I will murder one to save multiple including myself or die as a defiant free stubborn peaceful man. Live as a murderer or die? If that choice is presented to me, I choose death, or at least I hope to have the courage and self-discipline (a.k.a. spiritual freedom) to honor the promise."

To repeat, only time and happenstance will tell.

If I fail to honesty adhere to the preferences in the OP, countless others have already stuck to the behavior diet and proven it is possible for a human to be courageous, brave, and spiritually free (a.k.a. self-disciplined). Even if I fail, others have already succeeded, and surely many more will succeed.



****

It all depends on what the individual considers worse than death. It's a matter of measuring pain, physical or mental,

Hi, Tegularius, thank you for your reply as well!

For you, it may be merely a matter of pain and pain-avoidance. If so, you wouldn't be alone. Many humans do seem to be driven primarily by comfort/pleasure seeking and by extension pain/discomfort avoidance.

For me and some people, contentment is preferable to comfort. I often embrace discomfort and pain. For instance, I love the pain of working out hard in the gym, or when my wife plucks my facial hair. There are much less painful and quicker ways to shape up my beard line, but I let her pluck it because I enjoy the pain. I see it like a spiritual practice, similar to what I do for my muscular strength in the gym, but for my mind instead. I occasionally like to beat up my body and ego a little bit to help underline the fact that I am not it, and its pain is not mine. It keeps it in line. Like many wise people have said, the mind (and body) makes a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. Sometimes I give it the carrot; sometimes I give it the stick, if not just to make sure we both remember I--the spirit--am the boss.

But as you wisely say, it all depends on what the individual considers. It depends on one's personal subjective preferences. I would rather contently choose to embrace discomfort and tons of pain with inner peace rather than avoid pain or discomfort by sacrificing inner peace. Other people prefer to choice pain-avoidance and/or increased longevity to inner peace.

I would go for a thousand years without inner peace,


What is the joy in longetivity without inner peace