This blogpost is just a draft. It's pretty much word vomit right now.
I read an blogpost titled, You Have No Idea How Much Better You Can Feel. The author, Nat Eliason, argues that you judge the quality of your experiences based solely on your past experiences, and thus, if you are living a poor experience, but have never experienced a better one, you wouldn't even be able to imagine what a better experience would look like.
It's not a new idea by any means. Plato thought that the prisoners of his cave would have no desire to leave it. And I wholeheartedly agree with it. It makes logical sense, and I have personally lived through the experience of not even knowing what I was missing on several times.
Through periodic rejection of the of comfortability and of the current routine, I have granted myself the opportunity to discover new routines, and sometimes this new routine makes me much happier. But eventually one has to settle.
Once survival is not a concern, we search for satisfaction. What is satisfying is different to each person. Reaching satisfaction does not need to be a selfish pursuit. Many find satisfaction from friendship and helping others. Some will find it internally. It doesn't really amtter what brings you satisfaction, but the point o fthe article was that you can't know what this is until you experience it. So one can never be satisfied, or even know that they're not satisfied, until they have a varied range of experiences. It is scientific, probing to find a maxima.
But when should you stop. When should you cling to what you ahve and not let go, and become comfortable. IF there could be something better out there, why would you stop yourself from finding it?
Well, because you are satisfied. There is a finite number of things, and thus there must be a thing that satisfies me the most. Logically, onve I find that thing, I would like to maintain that thing. Having a wide range of experiences necessarily means that some will be bad, and eventually I'd like to stop having bad experiences. Or to put it another way…
Everybod has a person that they want to be. An dideal to strive towards. Something. Chances are, you don't know what that person is. It's even likely that the person you think you want to be doesn't actually satisfy you. BUt that person does exist. Inherently, there is something you find romantic in that idea. And so we probe enough to hone in on that idea. because this person is
If we could find a way to probe satisfaction, we could determine an exact point where the current status quo is losing its steam, and a change must happen.
But I believe for me at least, that this idealized person I strive to be is unchanging.. I'm fairly constant myself. I wear the same clothes from high school. I don't want the same things, but I have the same reasons for wanting things. I just know more now. I have more experience. In some aspects right now, it feels like I've seen the mountaintop.
I always feel silly when writing about philosophy. My 2AM thoughts that I argued with a friend about for 30 mintues are probably not that deep. It could be summarized in a sentence after all. "Explore until you hit happiness, you'll know it when you see it". You could pick that argument apart though, so writing about it is more of an exploration of the validity of the claim.
But this question is critical. If it could be solved by a single phrase then for those who have though about it, there would be no indecision, no commitment issues, no cheating, etc. Evidently that is not the case. Evidently the answer is more difficult.
I would like to know when to settle. I'Through exploring I've come to know many things that make me truly happy. Things I've been told I should give up, but don't want to. So why should I?
I act like this isn't
I think what I feel is a fear of losing something forever. And in most cases this has to be a fallacy. Because if you were able to get it once, then you'll be able to get it again. It's as if you're afraid to leave home because you think you won't be able to find your way back. That's a silly reason to stay. People remember how to find their way back home. If they can't go back, you can rebuild the home elsewhere. There are options. Your ability is your safety net, and it grows every time you leave to acquire new experiences, and it can recreate a home anywhere, even if you can't go back. So it makes sense to try and, even if you can't go back. So it makes sense to try and something better.
The real concluding sentence is "You can go, because you know where home is".