Fiadh has one scary Buddha

well, it seems he’s telling Fiadh never to mind the things he wants from life, when they cause more grievances and don’t help him get ahead. Fiadh’s clearly suffered and feels betrayed, and for that he’s gotten no closer to the goal he wants. It’s a relatable feeling, and I feel many aspirational people have felt this way at some point or other. When you spend a longterm portion of your life yearning or working towards something distant, you’ll be confronted by the reality that pursuing it and feeding yourself to it will cause you so many lows, that you might be more satisfied if you simply didn’t want it at all.

It’s clearly part of human nature, a side effect of our intelligence. We’re uniquely able to plan for the future, and decide our own goals to best maximise our fulfilment. Nowadays when we talk about philosophy for example it sounds all the same. Buddhism, Stoicism, Diogenes in his Barrel, those are the popular ones that everyone knows, and they largely preach the same message. Forego worldly pleasures and wants, and you will always be content.

Their counterparts I’ve noticed have become far less popular, almost forgotten. Romanticism, from the cultural movement and the renaissance, prized intense emotion, artistic passion, love, suffering – all given value for their depth rather than their comfort. Nietzschean philosophy and ‘Amor Fati’, to love even your suffering because it shapes who you are as a human. The greek idea of Dionysian spirit, that life should be lived raw and emotional, both loving and violent, in passionate extremes.

Perhaps they’ve become far less popular because of the modern world, where pleasure’s easily found by distractions, and so all pleasure-seeking becomes construed with Hedonism. BCE if i recall, Cyrenaicism was closest to what we’d call Hedonism today, forgoing long-term pleasures for immediate ones.

I’ve always found it fascinating. The story of Diogenes and Alexander makes you think that Diogenes is a wise man, because he cares for little and so receives everything he wants. But if you asked Alexander what he’d thought, maybe Alexander would pity that Diogenes could never know the heights that he does.