"Everything's Amazing, Nobody's Happy"

By | February 16, 2009
6 Comments

Cheer up!

Of course I’m not ready to go back to pack animals just to appreciate what we had.

  • Cypherl

    This guys is so right. I especially like how we get such a sense of entitlement. We have had wifi on airplanes for a few months but if it beaks people say, oh this is bullshit. 50 years from now my grand kids will say “this sucks” I only have access to 50 million dollars worth of 2009 computing. Bullshit

  • MDarling

    I think the attitude is more cultural and generational. I live in another country for awhile- my neighbors were happy to have heat. Now- the heat worked (badly but safely) every day I was there. (two years) But they were always grateful for it.

    That I installed a shower in my indoor bathtub was considered the height of opulence. And not one day passed without one of my neighbors failed to greet me by asking about my shower.

  • Martin

    Well, being happy with the way things are sounds like a nice way to stop progress. Never being content with the status quo for long has always been part of the human condition. And it is one reason why we are where we are today.

    So I don’t see any real problem with that.

  • https://blog.speculist.com Phil Bowermaster

    Excellent point, Martin. Maybe it isn’t so much a question of being happy with the way things are as being satisfied with the way things are. It’s our lack of satisfaction with how the world works that drives progress. So I can be very happy to live in a world that has air transportation (even though the chairs don’t lean back very well) and still not satisfied since we don’t yet have a space elevator. I think a desire for happiness has played a huge role in moving us from the cave to the Airbus. We never get to the Land of Satisfaction.

    Utopias, like the future itself, always lie ahead — except for the relative kind. We can stop once in a while and appreciate how far we’ve come. And be happy about it!

    And then we move on

  • Tony

    I don’t know that it’s our lack of satisfaction as much as our laziness that drives progress. How many times have you said, “There must be an easier way to do this.”

  • http://www.iseefelix.com Donald

    That was so awesome and refreshing especially since it’s Monday morning:)