Been a long time since my first post. But you gotta have something to write, right? So here we go. This one originates from some stuff I read about Ayn Rand and her philosophy on Wednesday. And it got me all excited because, a lot of these concepts were quite similar to what I have been thinking, but her inference from them was different from mine. The statement that struck me was that 'A man's own happiness is the only moral purpose of his life'. She then goes on to describe the concept of 'happiness barometer' and how happiness is an evolved human trait, which is at a higher level as compared to the biological instincts of other animals, obviously because of much more varied awareness. She said that the purpose of a man is to sustain his own life and happiness is an indicator of that fulfillment of purpose at any point in time.
This exactly matches with what I have been thinking and writing for the last few months, and so to speak I have never read Any Rand (which I intend to do soon). I agree with her till here but then take a few steps further and dig a bit deeper. Yes, happiness is the dashboard of the car of life, but making happiness the only indicator is like looking at the dashboard and assuming that the car is fine. Ofcourse she proposes the use of reason and intellect, and that is what I am going to do now.
I agree that human happiness is definitely an evolved trait which indicates the level of success in fulfillment of one's life's purpose. But rather that make happiness the purpose, I propose to make sustenance the purpose. Sustenance of not just my life but humanity and all life. Because if you look closely, this struggle for individual sustenance has let to the extinction of weak characteristics and the development of the more useful of human characteristics through the process of natural selection. A rational evaluation of this characteristic of individual sustenance will show that the underlying purpose is the sustenance of life.
So that would mean that though we make happiness an indicator of our purpose, we take the identification of ourselves to include the whole universe. We are the universe and not separate from it. This would include concepts such as environmental protection and social service within the domain of selfishness. This is the selfishness we should strive to achieve. Where an understanding is achieved that the self is all inclusive not just this piece of flesh, or family, or city, or state, or nation, or this world. The self is everything. Vedanta meets Any Rand? Well, it does. To be sure I have to read more of her work.
This exactly matches with what I have been thinking and writing for the last few months, and so to speak I have never read Any Rand (which I intend to do soon). I agree with her till here but then take a few steps further and dig a bit deeper. Yes, happiness is the dashboard of the car of life, but making happiness the only indicator is like looking at the dashboard and assuming that the car is fine. Ofcourse she proposes the use of reason and intellect, and that is what I am going to do now.
I agree that human happiness is definitely an evolved trait which indicates the level of success in fulfillment of one's life's purpose. But rather that make happiness the purpose, I propose to make sustenance the purpose. Sustenance of not just my life but humanity and all life. Because if you look closely, this struggle for individual sustenance has let to the extinction of weak characteristics and the development of the more useful of human characteristics through the process of natural selection. A rational evaluation of this characteristic of individual sustenance will show that the underlying purpose is the sustenance of life.
So that would mean that though we make happiness an indicator of our purpose, we take the identification of ourselves to include the whole universe. We are the universe and not separate from it. This would include concepts such as environmental protection and social service within the domain of selfishness. This is the selfishness we should strive to achieve. Where an understanding is achieved that the self is all inclusive not just this piece of flesh, or family, or city, or state, or nation, or this world. The self is everything. Vedanta meets Any Rand? Well, it does. To be sure I have to read more of her work.
