Jun
6
“Twenty-three hundred years ago Aristotle concluded that, more than anything else, men and women seek happiness. While happiness itself is sought for its own sake, every other goal - health, beauty, money, or power - is valued only because we expect that it will make us happy. Much has changed since Aristotle’s time. Our understanding of the worlds of stars and atoms has expanded beyond belief. The gods of the Greeks were like helpless children compared to humankind today and the powers we now wield. And yet on this most important issue very little has changed in the intervening centuries. We do not understand what happiness is any better than Aristotle did, and as for learning how to attain that blessed condition, one could argue that we have made no progress at all.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (via thebronzemedal).
It’s interesting how little of humanity’s psychological experience has changed over history; it’s why literature from all eras remains perfectly intelligible to us: the advent of this or that technology or governmental system or economic scheme has done nothing to change the human heart.
(via mills)
I beg to differ dear sir. The suffering of others, amplified by by the media we have chosen to consume, has either numbed us into submission, or emboldened us to make a difference.
I dare say our hearts have deepened, broadened, and opened to possibilities dreamt not even by the gods of antiquity.