Benjamin Epstein's Blog, page 2

On Happiness

On Happiness

Facebook is a forum where you will continually see people talking about happiness. These are usually the sweet cliches, the nostalgic pictures, and the like

The topic was mentioned in a Psychology class I attended as an undergrad. Or maybe it was a reading. I guess it tends to blur together after a while.

Here's the crux of happiness, in a non-romantic sense: Having more than the other guy.

Here's an experiment conducted to test this. You give a kid a choice: "Hey kid. I got two scenarios for you. Either I give you five peanuts, and I give your friend over there two peanuts. Or, I'll give you nine peanuts, and I'll give your friend thirteen peanuts."

Most kids chose the first.

Why? Because they wanted to have more than their friend, even if it ended up costing them more. He's willing to give up four peanuts just so he could feel superior to his friend, rather than have an extra four, and look over his friend's shoulder with envy.

I think if we stretch this metaphor, we can imagine people would be happier as a caveman who has two deer to eat while the guy in the next cave over only has one small rabbit for dinner, than we would be if we lived in a large beverly hills house, down the block from a guy with a mansion and a dozen luxury cars.

Now is this irrational? Is happiness found in seeing we're better off than whoever is around for us to compare to? Or is it doing well for ourselves, even if someone else is doing better?

I hope we can understand that the second is a more mature way of living. Otherwise, we get to a spot where we may torch the city, just so we can be more comfortable than the newly made homeless in our one-room bomb shelter.

On Work

The heartbeat of the world is the work of the creator, who toils, no less than the animals and the trees, to keep it all alive. Man too works, no less than the lion, the corn, or the Divine. He who wishes to live without work is one of the first harbingers of wickedness.

-Cleric Heresh's Morals of Exile


It does take a lot of labor to get writing done. All things told, I'm sure I spent thousands of dollars at Starbucks to get the caffeine in my system to stimulate the old work ethic.

I'm still getting the feel for this blog. I mean to make this into a literary blog, not one for political rants, or religious discourse. Those can be topics for novels, of course, and my own does not shy from these ideas. But there are plenty of spots on the internet for people to argue unemployment statistics, or Adam's punishment from G-d. I certainly don't want to write about my personal work experiences.

I do have a fondness of the idea that G-d creating the world is an ongoing effort, not something that was done once and forgotten about. This can be picked up by using some of the divine verbs in the present tense. G-d gives life, not that he gave it and went away, but provides it, instant by instant, like the stream of electricity that keeps my computer operational. Shut off the flow, and boom! Battery power for about ten minutes.

As for idleness... well, talking about that will ranckle emotions. So I'll reveal it about myself. I cannot think of a more unhappy time in my adult life than being without a job. I cling to work like a man in a shipwreck grasping a buoyant stick of wood.

But I don't suppose it would due to define idleness as someone out of work. Unemployment can be terribly busy. Sending out resumes and filling those endless online appication forms can fill many a frustrating hour. A more appropriate definition would be not even trying to find work. It's a sensitive topic, and not one I wish to breach. Still, it's hard to rob a bank when you're working nine to five. By the time you get off work, you're too tired to stick up the tellers and cover the exits.

Blogging!

Whereas the spoken word lasts but an instant, a written word lasts forever. Or at least, that was true when we dropped ink onto paper. It was even more true when writing involves carving stone. Perhaps that's why it's hard to find cavemen who kept blogs. Stone tablets take too much effort to inscribe. But here, words are now electronic flashes of light that last as long as the individual website. Which could be about two weeks. Far less permanent than rock.

Even so, I was advised that keeping a blog here on goodreads may make me a more successful author. Is it true? I have no idea. I have little desire to write offensive blog posts that turn people off. Yet, I feel certain that if I write on controversial subjects, I will likely attract a whole host of flames, personal attacks, and a plague of locusts that will blot out the sun. Or at least, the fluorescent lights above me.

Do you know why G-d gave us both lips and teeth? So we have two seals to cover our tongue. No matter how many times I recite this rule, it seems my tongue leads to trouble. But lets see if my pen does the same. Or more accurately, my computer keyboard.

My words are out there. My first novel, "Captive of the Orcs" was published by Center One publishing, in November of 2012. It was a dream of mine since childhood to be a published author. Now I have to worry about being a successful one.

If my book offends, so be it. If its enjoyed, all the better. And if people want to ban it from school libraries, go for it. I'll be famous.

So with that, let me finish initiating the birth of this new blog. My name is Benjamin Epstein, playwright and novelist. Welcome to my public online journal, a diary with no privacy. A speaker's stand in the midst of the internet's wilderness. A forum that could be read by thousands, or by ones.

Farewell for now.