Eudiamonia or the Good Life
published: May 31st, 2008
Eudaimonia or The Good Life
image: ts1230
Part of the extraordinary mechanics of the human mind is its ability to transcend its current situation and either endure or persist anyway. You may think this refers to people finding themselves in a war torn region of Africa. You may think it refers to Jews in the Holocaust but it does not. It refers to all of us at all times.
Studies carried out among the brightest and the best have found that young people, bright achievers at university, find themselves overwhelmed by the expectations put upon them. They find themselves almost paralysed by the stress of modern living and its high achievement ethos. In point of fact, they find themselves as far removed from happiness as it is possible to be.
Chemical dependence and suicide levels have skyrocketed in our age and we have a major problem. We have, in esence, given rise to a world that people can’t cope with the complexity and structure of. The pressure to be and do something that may be alien to our intrinsic nature is massive and we see a generation emerging for whom celebrity and the extravagances presented within the mass media are almost assumed to be automatic entitlements.
Fine if you are one of those who actually reaches this mythical nirvana at the apex of material and cultural abundance. The difficulty arises when you are not among this illusory elite and are lacking the cognizance to give your perceived ‘failure’ a context. If you are raised on a diet of soap opera, ‘reality’ TV, celebrity magazines and a media that shoves the accoutrement of this meaningless world in your face and thereby shapes your mind, expectations and cognition you have a big problem.
It’s like the old adage about winners and losers. You set twenty kids up to run the egg and spoon race at school when they’re five years old and you have created the dynamic for nineteen losers and one winner. Statistically that’s not so good because that means that you have created fertile soil for all sorts of things to grow in that will play out in later life. I’m not against competition, it is within the natural order of things, but I am against creating false perceptions of what life is actually about and then releasing people into that model like so many lab rats.
We don’t know what the eventual outcome of this bizarre celebrity based culture will be but the indications are that it is not for the best nor will it, to juxtapose utilitarianism, create the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people.
What are you left with? There are the simple things that have underpinned the circumstances governing our lives for time immemorial. What the Greeks called Eudaimonia or the Good Life. The idea of right thought and right action bringing about the best outcomes. As an individual you will serve a master, whether it is adherence to celebrity nonsense or indeed Eudaimonia, your thoughts and actions will be subliminally directed by those things you have allowed yourself to fall under the spell of.
Mostly your formative years will have placed you in no option scenarios whereby you will have eaten whatever was served up before you. Now you are a more discerning individual your dietary options have refined and you may be more selective. The Good Life is there to be had, whether you can find your way to it is a matter that is in your hands.
I believe that by the law of attraction you will get what you are looking for, we all do. The art is to know what it is you are looking for. If you are a seeker of wisdom then wisdom will come to you, if you desire celebrity then it will come to you. The real skill in living a life is to have the wit to perceive the eventual outcomes of what it is that you choose to serve and what its ultimate payment to you will be. Equally you must bear in mind the charge it will exact from you before giving its bounty up.