Science, Religion, Politics and in the pursuit of truth – HappyPsychotic

Way back when I was in high school, I remember my world religions teacher teaching us (the class) about Zen Buddhism and actually, he told us that was his “religion” (if it can be called that). The only point that stuck with me was that he told how ideally, a Zen Buddhist person would never hold on to any grudge or anything. Someone in the class even asked what he would do if somebody murdered his son and he said that he would be angry, but that he would try to accept it and move on with life. I laughed to myself when I heard that and though he was stupid. I don’t think he’s stupid anymore.

I find this ad to be very annoying due to its misleading nature. But of course, it is not alone in the world of advertisement.

I’ve created 3 categories to differentiate the ways I see people try to sell things 1) Obvious 2) Diversionary and 3) Secretive/Accidental. I’ll list a few examples of each and we’ll decide what we like best.

If you are born rich, you aren’t content because you want to get out to “the real world” and be a regular person. If you are born poor, you constantly strive to be rich thinking that will bring contentment. If you are a genius you think that you over-analyze everything and are unable to simply be content like people with average intelligence. If you aren’t very bright, you believe that the cause of your discontent is because you just aren’t smart enough to do the right things. If you are destined to inherit your parents’ business (whatever it is), you don’t want it because it’s too boring (and probably too easy), while if your parents have nothing for you to inherit, that is also bothersome.

I just finished reading the book “The Book of Calamities: Five Questions About Suffering and Its Meaning” by Peter Trachtenberg and I have come up with 3 main categories to describe suffering.

I was taught from an early age that it’s a great thing to be thankful. Whether I was thanking God or thanking a person, this was a “good thing” to do. By reminding myself of all the good stuff in my life (including things we often take for granted like health, clean water, shelter etc.) I would often feel happy and content.