He sat tight and strapped in, this was the Happiness Machine;
Everything he ever longed, wished, and hoped for, brought to him through wires to every one of his branching nerves. He experienced everything that was ever denied to him.
About five minutes later the machine stopped working, and he got out confused and miserable. Both known and unkown to him, the machine never stopped working, and he's never left the machine.
The title and general idea is stolen from "The Happiness Machine" by Ray Bradbury.
Is this, in general, a post about the idea that perfection eventually bores you out?
Or rather, I suppose it could also be about how our desires are really shallow and materialistic. When we start getting the objects we desire, we start moving on to bigger and newer desires. Eventually, if a machine could give us everything we desired, we'd have it all and remain unsatisfied and condused because while we all search for material posessions, it's really the spiritual answers that we should perhaps seek to find?
I suppose it's whatever you think would happen when strapped into your happiness machine.
My belief, which I tried to state in my quotation is that we would become bored with perfection. How wonderful is something when you don't have something to compare it to? A sunset isn't marvelous if you saw it every moment of everyday. It's marvelous because it happens every so often, and only really beautiful at certain vantages. It's not too far off to suggest that we only see beauty because we see so much ugly.
The man strapped in the machine saw so much ugly he retreated to the machine. After seeing so much beauty he became blind to it (bored you could say), he introduced the ugly so he could see the beauty again.
That's definitely true.
Oftemtimes, I've thought about this or along these lines...
What if I had something extra-ordinary for such a long time that it became ordinary?
I'm pretty sure that if everyone had a diamond ring and if copper was rarer, we'd have to pay more for a copper ring than a diamond ring.
It's kinda similar with perfection. If we achieved perfection in something, it'd become common for us, and we move on to the next imperfection. I believe imperfection is what keeps us going in life... it provides a challenge and a reality check.
a happiness machine makes life mundain. suffering is the only way to be happy. its the case of polar opposites. without one, you can't have the other. without pain, pleasure is normality.
He never did leave the machine. He just imagined himself leaving, and the happiness machine was forever on. It would be sadly humerous and enlightening to walk in on someone in the machine, and saw what he saw, was nothing different if you were remove the screen from his eyes.
We could all be cheezy enough to say that everyone of us has always been in a "Happiness Machine". We are the only things that determine our happiness afterall.
Add religion to the mix if you like. Heaven would be great example of anouther "Happiness Machine", and if such a place exists...Would it be anything different from the life were living right now? If heaven was what we made it, our happiness, it's reasonable to assume the same process would occur. We'd all die to experience that eternal bliss promised though our good deeds, only to live anouther life of the similiar pattern.
Otherwise, i'd imagine the poor souls in heaven are just really REALLY bored.
| UlrikeSE wrote: |
| Otherwise, i'd imagine the poor souls in heaven are just really REALLY bored. |
This is the one part about philosophy that I am yet to perfect. I've already given myself satisfactory answers about Life, Death, God and rebirth. I just need to define "Heaven" and I'll have a philosophy that's perfect to/for me. Maybe you can help me define it. | tidruG wrote: |
| UlrikeSE wrote: | | Otherwise, i'd imagine the poor souls in heaven are just really REALLY bored. |
This is the one part about philosophy that I am yet to perfect. I've already given myself satisfactory answers about Life, Death, God and rebirth. I just need to define "Heaven" and I'll have a philosophy that's perfect to/for me. Maybe you can help me define it. |
for me it is eternal rest. no longer having to think, no longer having to be... just a final exhale of life and nothing more.Not thinking, against the instinct of a life full of it, would have to happen from an external force. This is assuming the rules still apply in heaven, and since i've never been I couldn't tell you what the food tastes like. You'd basically be forfitting your free-will back to god, regurgetating the "apple".
