Is misery just the default state right now? is anyone still actually happy?

[Darkover]

Is being miserable, alone, hopeless, depressed and anxious just the default state at this point? Are people even actually genuinely living happy lives anymore?

all I read and hear is saying how miserable the modern world is, how everything is corrupt, profit driven and soulless. Mental health is getting worse, loneliness is an epidemic, people are seemingly unhappy in their lives and jobs, everything is getting more expensive, and so on. the future just looks bleak

 

[Forever Sleep]

I'm not sure really. I don't interact much with the outside world- it tends to make me feel even weirder. I think the majority of people are under a lot of stress. Most people probably don't earn enough to comfortably live on without working all the hours under the sun and then- they're too tired to enjoy it. That's the experience of most 'normal' people I know.

My Dad thinks it's his age that is making him so cynical but I think in general, people are more dissatisfied now. Whether it is because our lives are harder is debatable. In certain ways, we have it easier than previous generations. I think we are just more aware of all the corruption these days. I think cover ups were more effective in the past.

 

[sad_rock]

most people i know live to work. that is all to life now. in order to afford living, you must earn by working. sad that to exist in this beautiful planet it comes woth a cost. also the future isnt that great by the end of this century as climate is going downhill.

 

[アホペンギン]

It depends on their personal situations, like financial situations, working situations, etc. Most people from what I can tell are quite miserable but I assume that's because I surround myself by likeminded people; miserable people.

But, I'm sure a lot of people in this society are quite miserable, especially when they reach the age where they gain autonomy, a sense of moraliyu and ethics, etc. By then, the mind develops enough so that you've really become aware of what's going on in the current society and consequently, misery is soon to come.

And once you reach the age of starting to work... stressful hours to barely make a living... You've reached rock bottom and I'm several people have reached this point once, if not many times in their lives, unbeknownst to many people due to the fact that we're expected to keep up and comply with some of the societal norms; one must portray themselves as a generally happy person, despite all of their troubles.

It is understandable for one to be unhappy with their lives, in this society where is the potential to feel any happiness? Those who claim that they're very happy with their lives and expect others to be the same, deeming their problems as negligible despite the fact that they aren't, are delusional and oblivious to their surroundings.

 

[Deleted member 65988]

Most people probably don't earn enough to comfortably live on without working all the hours under the sun and then- they're too tired to enjoy it. That's the experience of most 'normal' people I know.

And yes, I understand people say money doesn't buy happiness but it sure does make life easier enough to enjoy more things (distractions)about it but they can't because financially they are in a tough spot and many never really do get out of it.

one must portray themselves as a generally happy person, despite all of their troubles.

And you must grateful for the problems you have because it can always be worse, so be happy that you don't have it as bad as someone else does.

 

[WAITING TO DIE]

The majority of people are wage - slaves who exist to survive as opposed to actually living any kind of quality life.
I bet a large majority of them are depressed and are suicidal deep down yet are too afraid to admit it.
They don't call it the rat race for nothing.

 

[FuneralCry]

I see happiness as being irrational in this reality, I don't even believe in the idea of it, it's very delusional. Wishing to eternally cease existing and hating existence are all that makes sense to me, wanting to die to escape from the cruelty and futility of existing is all that feels rational to me.

Simply just existing is something so harmful as after all there is no limit as to how much one can suffer in this existence where chance so cruelly determines everything. So no, I don't believe in the idea of "happiness", any life worshipping views are very delusional to me as life itself is the true problem, to have the ability to suffer is such a terrible burden.

 

[Mistiie]

People saying that others aren't happy is a really weird thing lol. The vast majority of people are at the very least content with their lives, even if there's a minute amount of suffering involved. A lot of people are depressed but they have medications that deter those feelings. We're the minority here. However, given that this site serves as a form of sadness echochamber, given no actually happy people find this place, it'll obviously skew your view of people being unhappy.

 

[Darkover]

People saying that others aren't happy is a really weird thing lol. The vast majority of people are at the very least content with their lives, even if there's a minute amount of suffering involved. A lot of people are depressed but they have medications that deter those feelings. We're the minority here. However, given that this site serves as a form of sadness echochamber, given no actually happy people find this place, it'll obviously skew your view of people being unhappy.

Hunger levels are rising around the world. As many as 828 million people – or 10 percent of the world's population – go to bed hungry each night that almost 1 out of every 8 people go hunger around the world everyday i don't know about you but i hate being hungery

More than 700 000 people die due to suicide every year, 1 out of 20 suicide attempts succeeds, thats 14,000,000 attempts per year, or 1,120,000,000 attempts per 80 years one lifetime, 56,000,000 people would of died via suicide within the average lifetime but over 1 in every 8 of us would of attempted suicide at least once during our lifetime

How much of the population is disabled?
Key facts. An estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. This represents 16% of the world's population, or 1 in 6 of us.

24% of the world's population, which equates to 1.9 billion people, live in fragile contexts, characterized by impoverished conditions and dire circumstances. By 2030, more than half of the world's poor will live in fragile contexts.

Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. thats 9.1 million per year

 

[Mistiie]

Hunger levels are rising around the world. As many as 828 million people – or 10 percent of the world's population – go to bed hungry each night that almost 1 out of every 8 people go hunger around the world everyday i don't know about you but i hate being hungery

Just because people are suffering, doesn't mean they're unhappy. If I run out of food, or water, for the day, I'm not rendered unhappy, unless my constant state is one of being provided those things like in most wealthy Western or far-Eastern countries.

An African child might be used to dehydration or starvation. They might not be able to take comfort in the fact that they'll have food or water necessarily tomorrow, because they don't know if that's true or not. They might have to walk miles for what they want, even at such a young age. And yet, they may still be happy. Why? Because they take comfort in other things. The small parts of life - sports, friendships, etc.

Those people have less, and yet they feel the same as us, because they have never known any different. They don't take comfort in the same things as you and I, but what matters is that they do something to make themselves feel happy. Different paths to the same result.

More than 700 000 people die due to suicide every year, 1 out of 20 suicide attempts succeeds, thats 14,000,000 attempts per year, or 1,120,000,000 attempts per 80 years one lifetime, 56,000,000 people would of died via suicide within the average lifetime but over 1 in every 8 of us would of attempted suicide at least once during our lifetime

Sounds like a lot, but it's worth remembering that that's 14 million out of 8 billion. Roughly 0.002% of the population (actually less than that) actually attempt. Even less succeed.

An estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. This represents 16% of the world's population, or 1 in 6 of us.

This actually kind of proves my point. 1.3 billion people might face "significant disability", as vague a statistic from the WHO that is, but they still live life. Disabilities really don't mean anything at all and aren't an endpoint for life - if they were, you'd find that 0.002% of the population committing suicide was a bit low.

24% of the world's population, which equates to 1.9 billion people, live in fragile contexts, characterized by impoverished conditions and dire circumstances.

Previous point in relation to hunger levels also relevant here.

Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. thats 9.1 million per year

Again, they might be dying, but they aren't necessarily unhappy with their lives, or at least they are in the same way I'm unhappy I don't have a billion dollars. They find their own parts of life to be happy about, and rely on them. Just because they have a significantly worse life than you do doesn't mean that they're guaranteed to be unhappy or, as previously mentioned, you'd find that suicide statistic to be just a drop in the bucket of the true amount.

My point still stands about SaSu being home to an incredibly skewed view on life. You'll find most people are more than happy with their lives, or at the very least content with them, no matter what struggles they face because they overcome them. The people who end up on here don't, which is why you're thinking that people are more miserable than they actually are; because you haven't been able to succeed like they have in overcoming those issues, for whatever reason.

 

[Darkover]

Sounds like a lot, but it's worth remembering that that's 14 million out of 8 billion. Roughly 0.002% of the population (actually less than that) actually attempt. Even less succeed.

check your math mate it's actually 0.18% of the population that attempt suicide each year
0.18% of 8000000000 = 0.0018 × 8000000000 = 14,400,000
and 14.4 of the population that attempt suicide each 80 years

Just because people are suffering, doesn't mean they're unhappy. If I run out of food, or water, for the day, I'm not rendered unhappy

you obviously never gone hungry for very long i can assure you that going hungry even for a few hours is very painful

 

[WAITING TO DIE]

Hunger levels are rising around the world. As many as 828 million people – or 10 percent of the world's population – go to bed hungry each night that almost 1 out of every 8 people go hunger around the world everyday i don't know about you but i hate being hungery

More than 700 000 people die due to suicide every year, 1 out of 20 suicide attempts succeeds, thats 14,000,000 attempts per year, or 1,120,000,000 attempts per 80 years one lifetime, 56,000,000 people would of died via suicide within the average lifetime but over 1 in every 8 of us would of attempted suicide at least once during our lifetime

How much of the population is disabled?
Key facts. An estimated 1.3 billion people experience significant disability. This represents 16% of the world's population, or 1 in 6 of us.

24% of the world's population, which equates to 1.9 billion people, live in fragile contexts, characterized by impoverished conditions and dire circumstances. By 2030, more than half of the world's poor will live in fragile contexts.

Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. thats 9.1 million per year

Totally agreed on this.
Yet some people think that saying others aren't happy is a really weird thing ?
I wonder what planet they come from ?
It certainly isn't this prison planet if they are thinking this kind of shit.

People saying that others aren't happy is a really weird thing lol. The vast majority of people are at the very least content with their lives, even if there's a minute amount of suffering involved. A lot of people are depressed but they have medications that deter those feelings. We're the minority here. However, given that this site serves as a form of sadness echochamber, given no actually happy people find this place, it'll obviously skew your view of people being unhappy.

How can saying that others aren't happy be a really weird thing to say ?
It's a ridiculous comment to make.

 

[Mistiie]

check your math mate it's actually 0.18% of the population that attempt suicide each year
0.18% of 8000000000 = 0.0018 × 8000000000 = 14,400,000
and 14.4 of the population that attempt suicide each 80 years

My bad, forgot to ignore 2 0s cause percentages. Still, that's a reasonably low number. Nowhere near a majority.

you obviously never gone hungry for very long i can assure you that going hungry even for a few hours is very painful

If going hungry for a few hours is actually painful, you need to go to a doctor. I've fasted for days and it's not been painful, that genuinely sounds like a medical concern lol

I'll give you food for thought as well; around 280 million people have depression. That means 280 million people, out of 8 billion, don't enjoy their lives. That's nowhere near a majority either. A large amount, sure, but most people are dealing with their lives just fine. And that's ignoring the fact that you can be depressed and enjoy your life too, as paradoxical as that sounds. Antidepressants exist, and they work wonders - for some people, anyways.

How can saying that others aren't happy be a really weird thing to say ?
It's a ridiculous comment to make.

Saying that the majority of people aren't happy is a weird thing to say. Statistically, it doesn't line up at all, and even just using common sense, it wouldn't make sense either. The amount of happy people outweigh the depressed by god-knows what factor-fold. That's evident to anyone who's seen anyone ever.

---

I also found a study originating in the U.K. that found 1.1% of people dislike their lives, which is around what I expected. Nowhere near a majority, still, and whilst it's not taking into account people from different countries, or those far worse off, I doubt it's like a 50-fold increase.

 

[Darkover]

My bad, forgot to ignore 2 0s cause percentages. Still, that's a reasonably low number. Nowhere near a majority.

you originally said 14 million out of 8 billion. Roughly 0.002% of the population, we now know its 0.18 of the population thats increased by a factor of 8900 percent
What is the percentage increase
from 0.002 to 0.18 equals 8900 percentage increase and your staying that's still a resonably low number even when your original percentage of the population has incressed by factor of 8900 percent

 

[Mistiie]

from 0.002 to 0.18 equals 8900 percentage increase and your staying that's still a resonably low number even when your original percentage of the population has incressed by factor of 8900 percent

Yes? If I increase 0.01% to 0.02%, that's a 100% increase, or double. Does that mean that that percentage isn't still a sliver of the total value? No. It's still just a small fraction. It's obviously more than it should be, but by no means is it the overwhelming majority; quite the opposite. It's not like one out of five people you pass by on the street are attempting lol. Even with your value of 0.18, you're still at around 1/556~ people. As mentioned previously multiple times, that's not the majority, nor is it anywhere near it. It's not the default state.

An increase in percentage means nothing when dealing with such small values. It's the actual end result that's the most important here.

 

[ADeadBunny]

Personally I think awareness is what leads to dissatisfaction with life. If you're aware that you've been working toward this "goal" that was never yours and you working for it has only served the people that hold you under their thumb. You're likely to get depressed after that.

Personally my suffering comes from elsewhere as I think most people's here does. That doesn't invalidate how soul crushing society is. However I don't think most people can see it. Most happy people I've talked to, get scared at the mention of thinking any deeper than the most superficial level. Therefore they'll never see what's so bad about living to work.

I think society has bigger problems than that though, the fact that everyone seems to have some sort of complex where they need to put someone down to feel good is the real killer here. I think it's all orchestrated by people far above the average citizen though.

I believe life on earth right now, is designed to be as cruel and depressing as possible without causing mass hysteria, revolts, etc. It keeps citizens subservient and stupid so they're easier to control. It doesn't matter that x amount of the population commits suicide because it isn't enough to cause a sway in power and we'll stigmatize that anyway so it'll be unattractive.

If hell exists, I'm already there. There isn't anything that suicide could bring that could be worse than this place.

 

[LaVieEnRose]

Well, I don't think this world generally facilitates happiness, but miisery or happiness are probably the wrong metrics to look at. The question is whether people find life worthwhile and that's unequivocally the default state, even if they're not having a good time, so to speak.

 

[gbi2]

People began saying a while back that humans have peaked. Perhaps previous civilisations had too and is why they died out, they reached a point at which the future stopped seeming so promising and performed to their max capabilities until things went wrong for them.

All these phrases like "quiet quitting" are coming about now as people realise you aren't going to get the job you were told you would get if you worked hard. The possibilities for humankid that we used to view with amazement now isn't appealing as we realise we might one day be on a spaceship or otehr planet but we'll still be working mundane jobs - however many of us are left, that is - or answering to someone. Even with robots doing things for us we aren't ever going to be able to just roam where we want whenever we want. We are still going to have to be somewhere at some moment in the day and do something we don't really enjoy doing.

It might turn out to be different than that but at the moment it doesn't seem like it is going to be so people are not seeing a point to anything.

I'd rather have a life where I contribute to the 3 essentials, growing food, making clothes, and building homes, than what I have now. That would probably be 2 full days work per person and then if anyone wanted luxuries they learn how to contribuute to the production of them so they can have them. At the very least that would mean most people would work more while they are young and healthy and as people got older and lacked the need for new gadgets they would work less. The amount of free time we had would be enough to make the work seem worthwhile and easy.

If hell exists, I'm already there. There isn't anything that suicide could bring that could be worse than this place.

Hell isn't where you go if you kill yourself, hell is your life gone wrong.

Great post by the way. I deleted a lot of what I was writing because you said it much better.

 

[Ε. Η. R.]

The only thing I agree with in the arguments that you wrote: nowadays there are a lot of extremely vile and deceitful nonhumans. More than 10 years ago, according to my observations. And also, every year people have less and less morality, chastity. These are the main problems in society in my opinion.

 

[Ε. Η. R.]

the end of this century as climate is going downhill.

This is complete nonsense and lies, which is promoted by globalists and current "liberals".
Everything is fine with the temperature of the planet and the climate. It's been like this for thousands of years. And so far, which is good, there are no changes and no changes are expected.

 

[WAITING TO DIE]

This is complete nonsense and lies, which is promoted by globalists and current "liberals".
Everything is fine with the temperature of the planet and the climate. It's been like this for thousands of years. And so far, which is good, there are no changes and no changes are expected.

Yeah, it's all part of the great reset. Klaus asshole schwab and his paedophile friends telling everyone lies as usual.

 

[TheBroken]

Less happy every year since about 2015 ........

 

[Meditation guide]

Woke up and cried this morning, like I have done the last few mornings, but since my shouldn't hasn't hurt today like it's done for two months I was less miserable. Not happy but I'll take it.

 

[RoundaboutResolved]

75-25%, some days are actually ok or even nice, followed by lifes bs for quite a bit. Rinse, repeat...

 

[sanction]

Life is a losing battle no matter what. The fact that no one makes it out alive already shows how pointless this shit is. The amount of hassle it takes to stay alive from birth to senior age is just disgusting

The small amount of people who have it better and considered "happy", could never make up for the majority out there who's lives consist of suffering most of their existence. The ratio between the 2 are completely off balance

And out of all species, humans are just extra complicated. We're cursed with the "ability" to constantly try to create meaning, out of no meaning. Which in the end just traps us here to further prolong this unnecessary suffering. It will forever be an uphill battle

 

[dreambound]

i do agree that as op said misery is the default state, if you took away peoples distraction & escapist coping
mechanisms the shit would hit the fan .
A lot of people who appear happy are faking it, coz they are aware that keeping the facade going will mean they
are more likely to keep their jobs, their partners, their status etc.

I'm not saying that everyone is miserable but it appears to be the default state.
I recall another poster that said something like.... 'people settle on a level of despair they can tolerate & call it happiness'.

 

[Morte]

they probably are, I've never met anyone happy. Even a guy who I thought had everything to be happy, told mehe was unhappy and he didn't believe in anyone happiness. I even disagreed with him at the time, saying that out of 8 billion people, by chance at least a thousand people must be really happy. Now im even uncertain about. I can feel the misery in people's eyes, as if they only live to see tomorrow, deep down waiting for the worst.

 

[LeperGnome]

Every time I actually interact with the outside world there seems to be a sense of unease in the air, people are less patient and more aggressive, haunted somehow. Maybe it's just me projecting.

 

[Morte]

This is complete nonsense and lies, which is promoted by globalists and current "liberals".
Everything is fine with the temperature of the planet and the climate. It's been like this for thousands of years. And so far, which is good, there are no changes and no changes are expected.

It is already scientifically proven that human actions are interfering with the planet's temperature and that species important for maintaining nature may become extinct as a result.
The planet will obviously never die because of this, but our life quality will obviously decrease by a lot. Where I live for example, every year is a new temperature record, when before 30 degrees was the maximum tolerated, now I'm having to deal with temperatures above 38 degrees. But of course, there are always those like you, who think it's all just a conspiracy.

 

[Meditation guide]

This is complete nonsense and lies, which is promoted by globalists and current "liberals".
Everything is fine with the temperature of the planet and the climate. It's been like this for thousands of years. And so far, which is good, there are no changes and no changes are expected.

Hi, I'm laughing at what you wrote, thank you, it might be the only time I laugh today.