There is an excellent post by Daniel Gilbert at New York Times that discusses uncertainty and how it makes us unhappy-
- Who do you think will be more worried and unhappy- someone who knows he will get a shock every time the switch gets connected, or some one who knows it might happen or not?
- Who do you think will be more worried and unhappy- someone whose colostomy is final (colostomy is where stuff gets out of your abdomen through a tube) or someone whose is probably reversible?
- Who do you think will be more worried and unhappy- someone who has done genetic testing for Huntington's Disease and is sure he will get it (it means progressively worsening condition of uncontrolled movements, emotional instability, and loss of intellectual faculties till it is all over) or some one who does not know what his risk is?
Yes, uncertainty is what makes us miserable...
Daniel Gilbert is an excellent writer, and he makes this observation:
"...we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.,"
And at the beginning of the post I found this inspiring passage:
"Seventy-six years ago, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took to the inaugural dais and reminded a nation that its recent troubles "concern, thank God, only material things." In the midst of the Depression, he urged Americans to remember that "happiness lies not in the mere possession of money" and to recognize "the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success."
""The only thing we have to fear," he claimed, "is fear itself.""
Ringing words.
The post is about American economy and how people who, though better off, are more unhappy than the Americans who lived a hundred years ago. He puts it down to this existing climate of uncertainty. As Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".
It is fear that you have to fear. Financial crisis is half psychological.
ReplyDeleteWe cannot abandon the quest for material, yet we need to keep a distance from it in order to avoid the side effects of materialism.
Yes, balajhi, with this I agree.
ReplyDeleteBut the point is that it seem likely that the cause of our unhappiness is uncertainty, not poverty. It has always bothered me that beggars and people who live in platform smile, whereas middle-class people look worried. Not everyone, but some.
May be this is to do with the fact that people who live in the platforms are reconciled to their fate, whereas the middle-class man wants 'more' without knowing whether or where that is coming from.
True. Middle class hardly leads a contented life whereas the poor and those on the platform do not aspire for material comforts beyond their means. But the uncertainty, in this case, for middle class exists due to its own aspirations.
ReplyDeleteYes, but can we have aspiration without the uncertainty, the worrying about it?
ReplyDeleteThat would feel great.