King of your castle

[air-bag]

Happiness and success
Success in any endeavor you would engage would necessarily bring you happiness. Those endeavors can range from arguments to games, from seeking knowledge to trying to achieve tranquility of the mind. Success in anything that you try to do would bring you happiness. To attain success in any of your endeavors, you would necessarily try to perfect your mastery in the particular way that enables you to achieve success. I will refer to such mastery in the way that enables you to achieve success as a Domain. People have domains. Some examples for domains are being good at basketball, being knowledgeable in science, possessing good looks etc..

Domains
The reason for the name I have chosen, i.e. “domain” comes from how people utilize them. Arguably, people’s goal is to achieve happiness. Again, arguably, the most common way to achieve happiness is to be successful in what you do. To be successful in what you do, you would probably try to map anything that is external to you, into the domains of which you are a master. For example, a person who has sex as his/her domain, (i.e. who either loves talking about sex because he is knowledgeable in that subject, or his/her performance is outstanding, or any number of other positive relevant factors) would try to map any external occurrences to this domain to achieve success. The person would try to talk about sex or have sex more often, and would try to divert any subject towards sex since he/she has a better chance of succeeding at whatever he/she does within this domain because of their specialization in it. (I choose to talk about the domain of sex not because it is in any way outstanding but merely because most people would indeed possess such a domain, and therefore would be able to identify with it and reflect on what I am saying). However, sex is not an incredibly good domain to fully concentrate on since sexual desires submerge upon reaching your silver age.

Concentrating on one (or some) domains rather than on a multiplicity of domains
Concentrating your attention on perfecting your possession of one, or rather a narrow variety of domains would most probably result in your overall dissatisfaction and inability to achieve happiness as often as possible. This would follow from your probable inability to map most things that you encounter to the few domains that you possess. Even if your knowledge in a particular domain is extensive, you would not necessarily attain happiness by fully concentrating on this domain since the possibility of loosing one particular domain is great, and once you lost your domain, you have no way to achieve happiness anymore. The more probable way to attain long run happiness is not to indulge too much in a small variety of domains, but rather to distribute your interest and knowledge towards the possession of as many domains as possible, even at the cost of diminishing your potential specialization in any single one of them. That way, your happiness can be achieved much more frequently since you would be able to map many more new experiences to the domains that you now possess. Even if your satisfaction from single mapping is not as great as if it would have been had you specialized in this domain, you still achieve more satisfaction because you can map many more experiences to many more domains that you possess (arguable), and you do not risk too much in loosing a few domains since you now have a multitude. (examples – you can loose good looks with age, you can break your leg and never be able to play basketball, you can loose value in your knowledge of a particular subject if it does not interest anyone any longer etc etc..)


Any thoughts? Does it make any sense? Or is it, on the contrary, too obvious and doesn’t deserve to be documented?

 

[air-bag]

P.S. ...the wondrous things we do the day (or rather the night) before a final exam.. just to keep us away from studying.

 

[Mr_Furious]

Originally posted by air-bag
P.S. ...the wondrous things we do the day (or rather the night) before a final exam.. just to keep us away from studying.

so true.....so very true.....

 

[atomic]

wow, where did you get this, dude?

you have no idea how much thought I've been putting into just this subject as of late. I'd love to respond after I wake up with a fresh head.

I think it is worth documenting because I believe that it is the root of happiness and encapsulates the question we always ask ourselves, which is "what do I want to be when I grow up?"

 

[atomic]

a last thought - I think an argument can be made for single-mapping versus multiple mapping in that happiness can be found when you feel like you are an expert in something. extending yourself too far and accordingly too thin results in mastery of nothing. I think it's an innate human need to feel like we must excel in something so that we can leave our mark in others.

cheers,
a

 

[air-bag]

Originally posted by atomic
wow, where did you get this, dude?

Wrote it at 4:30 am instead of studying for a totally unrelated final exam at 9am.

Originally posted by atomic
a last thought - I think an argument can be made for single-mapping versus multiple mapping in that happiness can be found when you feel like you are an expert in something. extending yourself too far and accordingly too thin results in mastery of nothing. I think it's an innate human need to feel like we must excel in something so that we can leave our mark in others.

Yes, but you would risk putting all your eggs into one basket.

 

[atomic]

I think your distraction was well thought out. how'd ya do in your exam, by the way?

One point you make hits me the most - the point of individuals domain-mapping external experiences. that's where we get our personailities from. there can be certain cross-overs between individuals who perceive things in their ways (according to their domains) so that we find commonalities among us. friendships will occur because of this, but it's always interesting when you have a spread of domains, (like I'm sure most of us do) and some of them will intersect with others, where others won't. so you get an odd group dynamic which can have a mish-mash effect. I personally find that I can almost "group" sets of friends where I am the common domain that the others won't share. one example I can think of is my party friends here in town versus old schoolmates from the burbs where I grew up.

now you can also talk about career choices. we are all inspired by others who lead in their chosen field; sports, music, art, literature, science, whatever. I think we all have certain inclinations toward these domains, but our skill-set may be lacking. I believe that people who are at a young age who realize their domain(s) have a distinct advantage over others who find their domains later in life because the early and formative stages of life can be crucial for the proper development of these domains. as we get older, we inadvertently shut doors on ourselves. we can't help it - it's what we do. by then, unhappiness occurs because of missed opportunities. sure, life can seem long, and it's never too late to blaze a new path for yourself (it's admirable, especially as you do get older) but there's no doubt that there will be challenges, difficulty and times when you will question yourself with the validity of your choices.

by the way, I have a side theory that the reason why so many of our parents chose their domains earlier than we do is simply because we have much, much more access to other domains literally on a global scale. with all these wonderous influences among us, we hop around, not really settling on anything because all the owners of these domains seem to have exceptionally green grass.

personally, I feel like I have been spreading my domains too thin. no doubt, I have absorbed, learned, been influenced and have had preconceived notions about other domains shattered by the paths that I have taken to get to where I am now. no doubt that I feel blessed because of it. but now that I'm almost 29 I'm always absorbed in serious soul-searching because I don't feel to be a master of any domain, and therefore have no mark to leave on the world. I have a number of under-developed domains that in their own right could really go somewhere. all of them I enjoy, but I feel that some may have to be sacrificed in order to service the others.

so getting back to your argument, that's why I believe that it rings true with happiness, because in short, that's where it is that I'm looking to find more of it.

I also echo your statement about the possibility of others not finding the relevence of your statement because it's already obvious to them. for them, I am happy (and a bit envious) because the whole thought could be moot thanks to the high development of their domains.

hope this isn't too much of a ramble - but I had to comment because this is exactly the kind of stuff that goes through my head every day.

cheers,
a

 

[KiX]

That must be the reason.

=tina=

ha

 

[air-bag]

Originally posted by atomic

One point you make hits me the most - the point of individuals domain-mapping external experiences. that's where we get our personailities from. there can be certain cross-overs between individuals who perceive things in their ways (according to their domains) so that we find commonalities among us. friendships will occur because of this, but it's always interesting when you have a spread of domains, (like I'm sure most of us do) and some of them will intersect with others, where others won't. so you get an odd group dynamic which can have a mish-mash effect. I personally find that I can almost "group" sets of friends where I am the common domain that the others won't share.

Very interesting extension! I havent thought about my theory's relationship to personalities, but now that you have pointed it out, it seems obvious.
It is always good to give terms and labels to abstract ideas in your head. That way you can operate with them using symbolic logic.

Originally posted by atomic
by the way, I have a side theory that the reason why so many of our parents chose their domains earlier than we do is simply because we have much, much more access to other domains literally on a global scale. with all these wonderous influences among us, we hop around, not really settling on anything because all the owners of these domains seem to have exceptionally green grass.

I'm not sure if it is entirely related to parents, but if you consider people who have a narrow choice of domains to master versus people who have a much broader choice, it is probable that the people with the narrow choice would indeed be more specialized and focused on a handful of domains while people with the broad choice would try to extract pleasure from possessing as many domains as possible.

 

[atomic]

Originally posted by air-bag


It is always good to give terms and labels to abstract ideas in your head. That way you can operate with them using symbolic logic.

that's so true. it's the only way we can deal with complex ideas or processes into tangable things we can manage. I really have no idea what my computer is doing when I click my pretty ie shortcut icon.

I think one real danger of choosing few or narrowly defined domains is the root of why humans find disagreement with one another. it's so easy for us to peg our ideas and ideals into little slots for quick and easy manipulation for our immediate needs. it's ignorance, which can be blown apart with the introduction of new information.

I feel like that could be a whole other tangent though, so I'll leave that thought be.

 

[atomic]

Originally posted by KiX
That must be the reason.

=tina=

ha

do you have any others? then speak up!

 

[air-bag]

Originally posted by atomic
I think one real danger of choosing few or narrowly defined domains is the root of why humans find disagreement with one another. it's so easy for us to peg our ideas and ideals into little slots for quick and easy manipulation for our immediate needs. it's ignorance, which can be blown apart with the introduction of new information.

Exactly. Most things can be perceived objectively. People tend to filter new information through domains that they possess, or reject it if it does not have any resemblance to those domains.

Suspension of judgment comes to mind, where you shouldnt make an opinion on a subject, without being fully informed (i.e. possessing that domain)

Let me introduce Kant's categorical reasoning into my (or rather our) theory; Our only (or rather main) domain should be our reason i.e. logical thinking. Since logic is universal, there would be no difference in filtration of information through this domain.

 

[atomic]

Originally posted by air-bag


Let me introduce Kant's categorical reasoning into my (or rather our) theory; Our only (or rather main) domain should be our reason i.e. logical thinking. Since logic is universal, there would be no difference in filtration of information through this domain.

that's an interesting addition into this theory we're building here. it's pure, so if indeed we could consume information unobstructed from prejudice, we would gain a higher level of enlightenment. I think in order to get to this logic state though, it first requires a working knowledge of self through externally learned experiences (or domains). so in effect we must spread our domains first to absorb as much as we can before we narrow the focus so we can realize the logic. maybe then we can explore infinite opportunities so long as our previous domains haven't tainted our new purpose.

 

[KiX]

Originally posted by atomic


do you have any others? then speak up!

I was trying to make a joke about the song but i guess it wasn't funny.

=tina=

 

[atomic]

Originally posted by KiX


I was trying to make a joke about the song but i guess it wasn't funny.

=tina=

sorry KiX, I completely missed it. I guess our domains aren't matching on that one.