Fortunate Ignorance

[Deepwater6]

When I was very young I would see places like the Virgin Islands on TV and think why was I so unfortunate to be born here in Pennslyvania? Why couldn't I have been the lucky one to be born in a paradise like that instead of someone who had? Of course as I got older I came to appreciate my surroundings alot more and after visiting saw the down side of paradise once away from the tourist areas.

 

I still consider how happy I am compared to others though. Does someone going to work in the morning in some far reaching Alaskan town with high unemployment, gray skies, and rampant alcholism feel the same way a person getting up every morning to work at Disney World down in Florida does? Of course many studies have shown that humans around brighter skies are usually happier. If that's the case and armed with that information why don't we all live in Florida or the Virgin Islands?

 

I see some fortunate people with fantastic luck and sometimes hard work get real far in life compared to others. I never won the lottery once let alone 2-3 times like you hear on the radio, whichever toll both line I get in you can be assured it's going to be the slowest moving one. any grocery store line I choose has an elderly person who must pay with exact change once they remember where they put there change. Obviously I'm not the brightest bulb in this forum, usually the one asking questions instead of giving answers. I'm OK with my luck and my mental capacities though. I wouldn't want to be the one who has all the answers. Part of my happiness is learning new things.

 

So it goes back and forth in my mind, yes it's the slowest line, but there are places on Earth where humans are fighting over bags of rice right now.

Yes I wish I was wiser and work at it when I can, but it is what it is. As I head toward the 50yr old mark my perspective seems alot more accepting than it used to be. Maybe I've finally accepted the fact that although I took that college night class in math twice and passed it both times I still don't fully understand it, but that's OK.

 

The older I get the more my perspective seems to be shifting from an ignorant "why couldn't I have..." to a " you can't possible appreciate how fortunate you are" So it doesn't really matter if you live Alaska or Florida it comes down to perspective. There are people that are on top of the world and those ready to commit suicide, but it all comes down to their perspective on their current situation. So the question we should be asking each other isn't "how are you" it should be "what's your perspective"? Does anyone agree with that?

[phillip1882]

So the question we should be asking each other isn't "how are you" it should be "what's your perspective"? Does anyone agree with that?

 

certainly. it would be nice if life were rosy and cheerful, but it can't be that way all the time.

i think it comes down to the joke, "you can't have it all, where would you put it?"

we want to be happy, but its hard to make ourselves so. i think relationships determine happiness more than anything else.

if you're with good, cheerful people, you tend to develop a similar attitude.

[Eclogite]

There are people that are on top of the world and those ready to commit suicide, but it all comes down to their perspective on their current situation. So the question we should be asking each other isn't "how are you" it should be "what's your perspective"? Does anyone agree with that?

I think you have very elegantly expressed an accurate view of things. I believe you intend the question as an imagined one: were we actually to ask people "what's your perspective" it would be thought of as preaching - at least by those who needed a change of perspective.

 

Compare the life of someone today on minimum wage in Europe with a landowner in the middle ages. The landowner might have a few thousamd acres and scores of families under his dominion, but the range of goods and services and the like available and affordable for today's worker, coupled with the security and health care make it very easy to decide which would be the prefered lifestyle.

[Turtle]

...The older I get the more my perspective seems to be shifting from an ignorant "why couldn't I have..." to a " you can't possible appreciate how fortunate you are" So it doesn't really matter if you live Alaska or Florida it comes down to perspective. There are people that are on top of the world and those ready to commit suicide, but it all comes down to their perspective on their current situation. So the question we should be asking each other isn't "how are you" it should be "what's your perspective"? Does anyone agree with that?

 

i have a couple perspectives that leapt to mind from your inquiry.

 

from shakespeare's hamlet

 

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;

To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there's the rub:

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause – there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. Soft you now,

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

...

 

from shakespeare's henry iv. part ii, 1597

 

...

How many thousand of my poorest subjects

Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,

Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee

And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,

And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile

In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch

A watch-case or a common 'larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains

In cradle of the rude imperious surge

And in the visitation of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them

With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,

That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,

Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

...