Letter from Lhasa, number 372.The Pursuit of Unhappiness

Letter from Lhasa, number 372. The Pursuit of Unhappiness

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Watzlawick, P., The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious. The Pursuit of Unhappiness, New York, NY, USA, 1983.

(Watzlawick 1983).

Paul Watzlawick

People are basically unable to be happy. So their efforts are focused on building their unhappiness. They need to be unhappy and to be surrounded from unhappy people. So they pursue not only their own unhappiness but also the unhappiness of the people they can in some way reach.

We may observe and imagine what can and may be doing the people of government and in office! Bigger is government, bigger is the pursuit of other people’s unhappiness. Also Watzlawick cannot repress himself from noticing that the growing ‘welfare’ State simply increases people problems and unhappiness.       

The more one does not accept the world how it is and has strong convictions how it should be, the more one purses one’s own and other people’s unhappiness. That is undisputable although many people have strong convictions about how the world would be. However, the more people purse specific visions of perfect worlds, the more they try creating unhappiness. Of course, this unhappiness’ creation is variously justified.   

Many people convince themselves to be persecuted even only from destiny. I’d like to underline that perhaps even more people refuse to admit to be persecuted even when that really happens. One believes destiny be conspiring against oneself. One does not believe there really be individuals and eventually government conspiring against oneself. Basically, people refuse to see reality, what really happens under one’s own nose.   

Watzlawick underlines and unmasks various and currently used techniques one employs for denying reality, for complicating it, or using it for one’s own suffering and for making suffering other people, for persecuting other people and for inducing other people to assimilate themselves paranoid, self-persecutory and persecutory visions of reality, conditioned reflexes, customs and patterns.

For Watzlawick this infernal, or negative, cycle is breakable by loyalty, trust and tolerance. Assuming that everything be good, now Watzlawick is using Dostoevsky, would be possible to conclude that we are unhappy because we do not know we are happy. Those understanding that are immediately happy.  

These conclusions are certainly simplistic although they may contain elements of truth. What is surely essential is the suggestion of removing the unhappiness we self-create.

    

Watzlawick, P., The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious. The Pursuit of Unhappiness, New York, NY, USA, 1983. 

Letter from Lhasa, number 371.Become An Idea Machine!

Letter from Lhasa, number 371. Become An Idea Machine!

by Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Azula Altucher, C., Become An Idea Machine. Because Ideas Are The Currency Of The 21st Century, Kindle Edition, 2015.

(Azula Altucher 2015).

Claudia Azula Altucher

Motivational literature is what it is. Useless to discuss about that.

This book is focused on ideas’ production.

Is it sufficient to have ideas, a lot of ideas, or does one need to combine ideas with how to implement them, or some of them, or one of them, the supposedly good one, and, consequently, developing specific skills too? Creativity is essential, although I be not at all sure that only creativity, without the implementation steps, be sufficient. In my opinion, one also needs specific skills, technical skills, heuristic skills, although this be a more questionable point because if one has the possibility and the ability to buy people with the skills he/she need, that may be even better from the point of view of the creation of a profitable company. Delegating is important in business as wells as in whatever complex activity, although delegating too much may be risky. An owner and manager should at least be able to understand what his/her subordinated be talking and working about.  

This book is anyway decidedly more focused. It is focused an ideas’ production. “Become An Idea Machine in 180 Days”!

For becoming an idea machine, one needs either some predisposition or acts of will. For instance, when one finds oneself in difficult situations, one is objectively stimulated to find solutions. Although actually, only a few people really act in this way. So, one needs some predisposition for finding solutions. For finding solutions, one needs ideas and the ability to select and implement them. If in whatever moment of his/her like, somebody without any predisposition to produce ideas wants to learn this skill, he/she needs, for instance, a book as this one.

If you follow the instructions of this book, you have to produce ten ideas, or also more, per day. Think them and write them. Once started, you have to go on forever. You start producing ideas and you go on producing ideas. For a real training, the book provides suggestions, points to follow, for producing ideas for 180 days. You follow the program defined from the book and you become an idea machine or also better.

Azula Altucher, C., Become An Idea Machine. Because Ideas Are The Currency Of The 21st Century, Kindle Edition, 2015.