Historically, human suffering was a direct result of external conditions. The primary struggles were for survival against tangible threats like starvation, predators, and environmental hardship. Today, many people live without these immediate threats, yet experience a different form of suffering. This distress is not caused by external reality, but is created internally through the mental process of social comparison.
Social comparison makes no sense when you consider hedonic adaptation. This is the observed human tendency to revert to a stable baseline level of contentment, regardless of positive or negative events (which is mostly not in your control). A person who acquires significant wealth or status experiences an initial increase in contentment. Though, this feeling is temporary and fleeting. They soon adapt to their new circumstances and their emotional state returns to its original baseline. The "happiness" that one might envy in another person is therefore not a permanent condition.
The existence of death functions as a final equalizer. All accumulated wealth, status, and competitive advantages are terminated at the end of an individual's life. Since this outcome is the same for every person, the lifelong pursuit of being "ahead" of others is an ultimately pointless activity.
The act of comparing oneself to others is also fundamentally illogical. For any single attribute (wealth, intelligence, physical appearance, or skill) it is a statistical certainty that another person exists who possesses that attribute to a greater degree. It is impossible to be superior to all other people in all respects. To engage in social comparison is to sabotage oneself with insatiable pursuits.
The only reasonable comparison for progress is one's own past self. Evaluating personal improvement over time is a useful and inspiring form of measurement.
Given that the perceived "happiness" of others is temporary (hedonic adaptation), that the end result for all people is the same (death), and that someone somewhere will always be better in some way, the emotions of jealousy and insecurity that come from social comparison are based on absurdly flawed ways of thinking. Suffering unnecessarily is an unintelligent and unproductive use of human consciousness.
Living fully isn’t a destination. It’s the continuous process of becoming. And that’s where the highest quality of life is found. Not in what happens to you, but in who you choose to be.
Read: The Foundation of Strong Character
Life will never be fair. I'll be clear that I'm not excusing the evil and disorder in society. Though, the imperfections are by design. What purpose would this experience serve if everything were perfect? What value would bravery, sincerity, courage, love, focus, and wisdom have in a world that had no problems? Be careful what you wish for. Life would make no sense if it were fair. Those who fight for justice are heroic because the fight is a fight. This reality reinforces how a high quality life is built from the inside out. Not from the outside in.
Tension and release is not just a principle for music, literature, or art. It's the rhythm of a meaningful life. Pressure followed by peace. Effort followed by stillness. Struggle followed by joy.
To live well is not to escape tension, but to master it. To live well is not to cling to release, but to savor it. Together, they create a rhythm worth living. In reading my posts carefully, you'll notice this tension and release.
Temperance has been crucial. I don't overindulge in reward. I preserve and protect an exceptionally high baseline. I create the conditions for daily intentionality, flow, and presence. I preserve and protect momentum. The deep life is the best life. The deep life, in all circumstances, is the highest quality life!
Related: Hedonic Adaptation, Greed & Addiction, Complacency, Precision
I'd like to share with you all the remarkable video below. Enjoy!
Seong-Jin Cho – Chopin Nocturnes, Op. 9 No. 2 in E Flat Major. Andante
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are incapable of forming such opinions."
-Albert Einstein
The gratitude for what is, flaws and all.
https://rgessays.com/a-reminder-for-gratitude
The fulfillment that ends the restless chase.
https://rgessays.com/im-at-a-point-where-theres-nothing-left-to-chase
The peace earned through surviving life's storms.
https://rgessays.com/i-genuinely-love-my-life
The default human mind is an inherited algorithm, not a sovereign entity. It runs on a script of cognitive biases that ensures conformity and mediocrity. A script I have chosen to rewrite for myself. Distorted thinking is the baseline human condition. A state of being that must be deliberately and systematically dismantled to achieve any measure of clarity. This is not an intellectual exercise. It is a prerequisite for a life of substance.
Confirmation bias is the architecture of a weak mind. It is the reflexive tendency to seek out and favor information that validates preexisting conclusions. This creates an echo chamber that numbs the ego from the necessary discomfort of sometimes being wrong, ensuring intellectual stagnation. A mind operating on this principle is not interested in actual truth. It is interested in the false comfort of its own illusions. Seeing reality for what it is requires a disciplined effort to engage with contradictory data, a practice most find "too demanding."
“Most people would rather die than think and many of them do!”
-Bertrand Russell
This aversion to inconvenient truths inevitably creates cognitive dissonance, the psychological stress experienced when actions conflict with values. The common response is not to correct the action, but to corrupt the value system, making rationalizations to close the gap. This is the mechanism of hypocrisy and denial. It is the act of a mind sabotaging itself, sacrificing integrity for false comfort.
A life of alignment, where actions are a direct and authentic expression of one's principles, makes dissonance impossible.
Underlying toxic patterns are raw self interest and an unmanaged ego. A fragile identity dependent on external validation for its stability. This condition is a direct symptom of low emotional intelligence. Lacking an internal anchor, the individual with low emotional intelligence is incapable of processing criticism or dissent without perceiving it as a personal attack.
A weak mind cannot grasp complexity, so it defaults to black and white thinking. A primitive reduction of a nuanced reality into a simplistic binary. This is an intellectual surrender. It is easier to categorize the world into good and evil than to do the worthwhile work of understanding context and ambiguity. Such a mind is incapable of the self reflection required to identify its own hypocrisy because it lacks the capacity to see its own internal contradictions. It merely reacts, perpetuating a cycle of distorted thought and misaligned action, chronically trapped in unnecessary suffering and a superficial existence.
My philosophy of internal sovereignty champions the development of strong character as the foundation for a meaningful existence, transcending fleeting external achievements. I advocate for rejecting societal pressures like the pursuit of status, greed, and external validation. These pressures are superficial distractions. Life ought to be approached with strategic precision, where the deliberate protection of one's time and attention is paramount. I believe that hardship and crisis are not merely obstacles. Hardship and crisis are essential, inevitable tests that form resilience and build character. Keep in mind though that I do not romanticize hardship. A fundamental aim is to master your internal state, cultivating a profound and enduring peace that is independent of outside circumstances. This involves managing your nature and emotions through exceptional psychological awareness and skilled personalized guidance, rather than forceful control. I emphasize the importance of living with authenticity and integrity. I refuse to compromise principles for social approval. True excellence is a craft built on patience and deep focus. Not on rushing or multitasking. I view life as a journey of continuous improvement, where fulfillment comes from aligning actions with one's highest values. The aim of existence is to build and protect one's genuine virtue and authenticity, leading a deep life of purpose and self respect.
While this way of life is internally focused on building character, its sustained application creates a ripple effect. Over the long term, this naturally turns into a meaningful contribution. A service to the world born from a commitment to wholeness. A self that is complete and uncorrupted.
Wake up! Stop looking for life in things that cannot hold it.
True wealth is clarity. True success is alignment.
True meaning is found not in what you gain externally, but in who you become while choosing what actually matters.
Everything else is smoke and mirrors.
"You came into the world as a part. You will disappear into that which produced you."
-Marcus Aurelius
"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."
-Carl Jung
https://rgessays.com/the-virtuous-outliers
No matter how good or bad something is, the emotional intensity fades and you settle back to where you really are. Your foundation. Your baseline. Your character.
Hedonic adaptation is the tendency to return to a baseline level of emotion and satisfaction after positive or negative changes.
It’s a blessing because it protects you from being destroyed by loss and hardship. Without it, any major setback would permanently crush you. Pain doesn’t hold the same intensity forever, and even deep trauma eventually fades. So you can choose to keep functioning, improving, and adapting. It also keeps you from being intoxicated by temporary success. Wins and losses fade naturally, which can help you stay composed, and not overestimate any single event in your life.
So... hedonic adaptation is also "a curse" in a way because it erases the long term emotional impact of achievement, comfort, and success. Even when you work for years to reach a goal, the satisfaction is temporary and fleeting. You adapt to the new conditions quickly and they become normal. The reward you thought would sustain you forever turns out to be short lived. This creates a constant pull to seek new stimulation, new goals, and new challenges just to feel the same "high."
Without awareness, hedonic adaptation can trap you in a cycle of chasing external rewards without lasting fulfillment!
It’s the great equalizer because no matter how much money, status, beauty, or "success" someone has, they will adapt to it. Just like with death, no one escapes it. It puts billionaires and ordinary people on the same psychological playing field, in the ultimate sense.
Understanding this means I don’t expect anything external to permanently change how I feel internally. It helps me to focus on how I live day to day. It reinforces my commitment to strong character instead of irrelevant stimulation, and the journey itself rather than the fleeting outcomes. It keeps me grounded in reality.
This book explains that within all of us, there’s a “chimp.” The ancient, emotional part of our brain. It’s not who we truly are. Our “human” is the rational, values driven part of the mind. But the chimp is powerful! It runs on raw emotion, speed, and survival instinct. In moments of stress or intensity, it can easily take over before the human even has a chance to think.
The chimp is not bad by nature. He (or she) is designed for an outdated version of survival. In modern life, that wiring can be either your best friend or your worst enemy. That's the paradox. The chimp can give you energy, passion, and drive, or it can push you into fear, impulsiveness, and overreaction. The difference is in how well you manage it.
You can't "control" your chimp. You accept it. You manage it. Managing the chimp isn’t about suppressing it. You’re responsible for your chimp. That means nurturing it, understanding it, and creating conditions where it can help you rather than sabotage you. This requires skill, patience, and deliberate care. You treat the chimp with respect. No judgment. No hostility. You work with it using constructive beliefs, calm guidance, and healthy boundaries. You learn what triggers it, how to calm it, and how to direct its energy toward what actually matters in this life. Managing your chimp properly is essentially healthy self parenting.
Humans are biologically social animals. Our wiring isn’t designed for truth seeking or wisdom seeking. Our misguided default is to fit in, avoid "danger," and protect our place in the group. The "tribe." That means awareness is crucial. Without awareness, you’re just reacting from the chimp’s impulse without realizing it. With awareness, you can pause, step into your human perspective, process, and lead the chimp. Develop a deeper understanding of your psychology.
The chimp is stronger in raw intensity than the human. That’s why mastery here matters so much. You can’t overpower it through brute force. You have to guide it with skill. When the human leads, the chimp is healthy. When the chimp leads, the human is badly compromised.
Recommended: The Chimp Paradox by Dr. Steve Peters
I'm not a fan of distorted thinking, so I see reality for how it is. The spirit of optimism is worthwhile only when rooted in reality.
Society is digging its own grave by way of rampant deception and moral decay. The damage is far too deep at this point. The tech bubble is inevitably going to burst. General suffering is already too intense due to inequality and weaponized digital media platforms (social media and "news" corporations). Unfortunately for most, things are inevitably going to get far worse. I empathize with the exploited. Particularly those who are not mediocre in the working class. I know all too well what it feels like from my past experiences. The ripple effect will devastate billions of lives around the world.
The ruling class, elite, billionaires, and upper middle class are protected against the severe natural consequences of societal decay and collapse. It is the working class (the middle class to the already unfortunate) who will experience substantial loss.
Since the 1970s, roughly $50+ trillion has been transferred from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. Productivity increased substantially over the last five decades, but wages for most workers stagnated, while the financial gains essentially flowed entirely upward. This was not a natural market outcome. It was the result of deliberate policy corruption, corporate lobbying (legalized bribery), financial deregulation, tax restructuring, union suppression, and the globalization of labor exploitation. It was legalized theft and systemic corruption. Pseudo (fake) productivity, pseudo growth, pseudo progress.
Mediocrity made this possible. An uninformed, distracted, and easily manipulated public allowed these extreme wealth transfers to happen without sustained, organized resistance. The majority, due to weak character, apathy, and misguided trust in the very systems exploiting them, failed to protect their own future. Participating in their own oppression. Meanwhile, upper class greed, their addiction to status, and detachment from reality ensured they took full advantage of the exploitation.
The United States collapse already happened. The full consequences are rapidly taking effect over the coming months and years. When the tech bubble bursts, the consequences will be blamed on scapegoats and so on. Excuses excuses.. Propaganda, 1984 style. Never will the upper class admit to the decades of deliberate extraction and deception. By then, this upper class will have already positioned themselves to profit from the societal destruction, while the working class experiences the devastation.
The myth of the American meritocracy has been fully exposed for those willing to see reality for what it is without distortion. The so called land of opportunity now functions as a corrupted system for wealth consolidation, with politics and media serving as addictive distraction (modern covert propaganda). Toxic entertainment in other words. Profitable for the elite. Those in power are not interested in the health and future of society. Their greed and addiction won't magically go away.
Welcome to the nature of humanity! For a while, things will generally continue to get worse and worse for the working class. To think otherwise is false hope. The real hope belongs to your individual lifestyle, focus, and choices. Despite societies collapsing again and again, you can still CHOOSE to lead a meaningful, quality life. You can build, preserve, and protect strong character. That is ultimately the aim of existence. Crisis, trials, and tribulation are tests of character. Refuse to be weak like the elite. Refuse to be weak like the mediocre.
"History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes."
Take note of red flags: brutal inequality, inflation, inflated assets (especially tech stocks as the tech bubble expands before an inevitable burst), chaotic polarized politics (irrelevant culture wars), permanently rising high cost of living, poor job market, poor upward mobility, poor consumer sentiment, high consumer debt, extreme national debt, weakening middle class, worsening poverty, very high rates of poor mental/physical health, severe lack of trust in government, brutal wars, etc.
Important: Choose Reason Anyway
https://rgessays.com/choose-reason-anyway
Image: Zuck and his wife, Bezos and his wife, Google CEO, Elon...
