‘When was the last time you felt truly happy?’
It made me curious. After all, it must have been a beneficial event for survival. Professor Seung-guk Suh mentioned in ‘The Origin of Happiness’ that our body’s biological mechanism rewards us with dopamine. This is to encourage us to keep repeating actions beneficial for survival.
A friend of mine felt happy watching sushi move along the conveyor belt at a sushi place over the weekend. Another friend felt joy seeing their child enjoy going to the library. Eating helps us survive day by day, and feeling happiness from watching a child creates positive signals for reproduction. His theory was more logical than other books on happiness that just talk about metaphysical mindsets. I was impressed, and then a friend asked me the same question. Of course, the answer that popped into my head was clear.
‘Last night, I bought a game online, and when I tried to run it, I had to download a 70GB file. I had to wait quite a while, and I fell asleep waiting. But when I woke up in the morning, the download was complete, and the play button was glowing. That made me so happy….’
While talking, I wondered if I should send this to Professor Suh. But that wasn’t all, Professor.
A friend mentioned that their friend’s dad opened a coffee shop across the building where they work. Whenever there’s a chance to have coffee or snacks, they volunteer to go. And every time, they bring back coffee and snacks from that shop. It feels great to have such a loyal friend. 😊
To test that, you have to do a big job that takes over a week, but if the results aren’t good, it becomes a pointless task.
Said the developer. Sure, that’s true, but skipping it altogether? I got annoyed and said, ‘I’ll work on it and give it to you by tomorrow morning.’ Then I regretted it big time. I couldn’t focus on anything. Why did I get so worked up? Was I bored? I sat at my desk after work, but I really didn’t want to do it. The developer probably felt the same. Would he think it’s weird if I told him tomorrow morning, ‘You’re not really expecting what I said yesterday, right? Of course, I was joking.’?
Have I forced myself to do something I didn’t want to recently? Definitely not. That’s for sure. Since graduating college, I haven’t done anything I didn’t want to (and the only thing I didn’t want was studying). Anyway, for the rest of my life, I’ll live like a Stoic philosopher, with apatheia as my core virtue. This will never happen again.
Ultimately, because of my own doing, I had to work all night without sleep. 😩
Recently, I patiently watched ‘Dark Matter’ on Apple TV for a solid 9 weeks. Nine weeks ago, I was interested in quantum mechanics, so I watched the first episode without hesitation when it was released. It was a drama about the multiverse, and I have to admit it was quite intriguing at first. But there were three major crises, and if you plan on watching this drama, you might want to skip the following part.
The first crisis was the existence of a black metal gate in every multiverse world. The dark version of the protagonist may have created the one in their world, but why does it exist in other worlds? The second was being able to enter a desired world based on some principle when moving to another multiverse, and that principle involved thinking about the place in your head. Might as well pray, right? The last was the protagonist returning from another multiverse with hundreds of versions of themselves, as the overlapping experiences and memories with different versions caused multiple selves. It might have a quantum mechanical basis, but it wasn’t properly explained in the drama. Shouldn’t they live happily with their family in the end? What about the hundreds of other selves being unhappy? I got so frustrated that I decided not to watch anymore, but it turned out to be the last episode. So, I ended up watching it all unintentionally. 😅
I signed up for a reading lecture, got selected, and received a free book. It was Carl Sagan’s ‘The Demon-Haunted World’, a book I chose among many because I personally like him as a scientist. It’s been three weeks since the book arrived. I’ve been hauling it to cafes every weekend but haven’t read a single page. Honestly, it’s big and heavy, and I feel proud for carrying it around, yet foolish for never taking it out of my bag. But the pride in carrying it is far greater, so here I am. I brought it out today, too, but didn’t open it. (Hopeless) 📚
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