The Way We Are Supposed to Feel

[MediumTex]

Has it occurred to anyone that the reason so many people feel alienated, depressed, despondent, confused, etc. is that they have unrealistic expectations regarding the way they are "supposed" to feel?

It's interesting that as the overall expectations of society regarding the proper level of happiness and satisfaction that one should feel increases, the actual level of happiness and satisfaction actually experienced may decrease.

TV commercials and other advertising don't help, as all they do is encourage people to hop on the hedonic treadmill and exhaust themselves through empty and ultimately meaningless consumption.

But it makes me wonder how we are supposed to feel.  What is our optimal state of mind based upon our evolutionary development?  Is it a sense of calm happiness, vigilant alertness, opportunistic selfishness or something else?  It does seem that certain states of mind are far more conducive to survival than others.

It seems that a low but constant state of psychological stress is helpful in keeping a person engaged with things (the opposite of this would be the crushing sense of boredom of someone who has no responsibilities whatsoever).  OTOH, if the level of stress is too high it obviously creates many risks to survival that are well known.

I have to think that much of mental illness is the product of our environments, since I see no survival advantage in the inherited traits of not being able to think clearly and react appropriately to the conditions one is faced with.  Imagine a rabbit who, rather than running from predators, sought out a therapist to discuss his feelings of insecurity and alienation at having to live in a world in which it seemed everyone was out to get him.

[Coffee]

Who knows?

My best guess would be either:

- We've created a modern society that is at odds with our base drives and instincts.  And that resulted in a perpetual state of disharmony... including breedings between individuals that produce off-spring who are not genetically predisposed to survive.  I.E. individuals with mental imbalances.

or...

- Our modern diet combined with a sedentary lifestyle have alienated ourselves from the ability to feel happy.

As a dog trainer: I've frequently thought about how interesting it is that wild dogs live in a state of perpetual stress-- both in pack dynamics and in general.  Yet the domesticated dog typically seems pretty happy.

[stone]

I have to think that much of mental illness is the product of our environments, since I see no survival advantage in the inherited traits of not being able to think clearly and react appropriately to the conditions one is faced with.  Imagine a rabbit who, rather than running from predators, sought out a therapist to discuss his feelings of insecurity and alienation at having to live in a world in which it seemed everyone was out to get him.

We are complicated and there is a lot to go wrong. Half of all human conceptions don't make it to term (generally going awry very early). That isn't because that gives those conceived embryos some survival advantage (it couldn't be worse). It is just a screw up.
I agree that modern lives probably don't provide well for our mental well being. We probably don't respond well to being "trapped in the system" or whatever. I can remember hearing about some old experiment (from the 1960s I think) where two rats were both given electric shocks. One rat was able to press a button that stopped the shock for both rats. So both rats received exactly the same level of shocks. However the rat that had some level of control did much less badly than the rat that had seemingly random shocks of random duration. I think a lot of modern lives are like that of the rat that doesn't have the off button.

[shoestring]

Dennis Leary once said something to the effect of happiness comes in small doses:  it's a chocolate chip cookie, You eat the cookie then you wake up in the morning and go to work!

Now he was being facetious in the name of comedy (I think) but he hits on an important point, not every moment in life can be elation.

I believe, that despite all the problems we have, the western world represents a level of comfort and decadence that the rest of the world cannot begin to comprehend having.  To borrow from Maslow and his famous hierarchy, I think most people on earth exist at the Physiological and Safety levels.

I submit that most of us in the rich part of the world probably exist solidly on the Love/Belonging level, to the point we believe ridiculous things about the value of social acceptance, etc. or we dip up and down between Love/Belonging and Esteem and we probably even visit the very top level of the pyramid every so often.  But I don't think most of us live there most of the time, if that makes any sense.

In my estimation it takes fabulous personal resources to fully realize these levels to the point you take them for granted (our resources in the west are so fabulous we can often ignore the first two levels), but what we're soaked in constantly are media encouraging self actualization, the highest level of the pyramid.

Everything is didactic and message filled any more, movies, sitcoms, the news etc. because these products are produced by an incredibly even more lavish subculture of an increadible lavish culture.  We're supposed to not abuse drugs and pledge not to bully people and put Kony 2012 stickers on our butts and not be racists and etc. etc. etc.

I remember as a child Family Matters was the show everyone watched and it's a good example because nearly every sitcom of its kind has been similar in its makeup.  Thinking about it now, the Winslow family lived in a very upscale house and never had any real problems, and every week we learned a sappy lesson.  Their lives were rosy, entertaining and fulfilling, even for Urkel the social outcast.  The subtle implication is that this is supposed to be reality.  Even today watching something like CSI, a modern and more "adult" show, these barely compensated civil servants wear new designer shoes every episode and live in apartments that look like furniture stores.

It was such a pervasive idea that you were even supposed to feel good about liking the show because the characters were members of ethnic minorities for the most part.  To say unrealistic expectations have been set by the media in so many ways is an understatement.

I mean seriously for everyone to be so happy all the time all we ever think about are moral complexities and nuances is silly.  Even people who are that happy aren't going to be constant founts of ecstacy at being alive.

I recall attending a lecture by Ruby Payne some years ago where she discussed this kind of thing, and likened it to her cultures of poverty, middle class, and wealth.  The latter category, despite being the least numerous is the most socially visible, so it distorts the perception that the other two groups have of both their world and themselves.

I believe you should aspire to more than you currently have and all but taking some time to gain a frame of reference and some realistic expectations is vital or you will be perpetually dissatisifed.

[Gosso]

I cannot remember who said this--it might have been Joseph Campbell (I am paraphrasing):

"The Founding Fathers had it figured out.  The pursuit of happiness is one of the cornerstones that built America.  The Declaration of Independence does not state the right to happiness.  To be happy one must pursue it, rather than expect someone to give it to you."

It seems we have become a culture of being unable to think for ourselves.  This lack of exploring leads to stagnation and a sense of emptiness.  Of course this exploration can lead to exhaustion and other problems.  The trick is to find a happy medium where you are challenged yet are able to still smell the roses.

I am still learning and will probably never stop learning because I truly enjoy it.  I think it was Carl Sagan that said this "I love being wrong, that just means I have something new to learn."

Just my two cents.

[Gumby]

Dennis Leary once said something to the effect of happiness comes in small doses:  it's a chocolate chip cookie, You eat the cookie then you wake up in the morning and go to work!

I prefer a moist and chewy chocolate chip cookie after lunch — I find it takes the edge off of the day. I'm totally addicted.

[TripleB]

What is our optimal state of mind based upon our evolutionary development?

Interesting thought and interesting premise for a post. I'd counter that your starting point is invalid. Evolution takes tens of thousands of years to do anything. It's caused by very minor mutations in DNA that provide marginal benefits to those organisms, which under conditions of limited resources, allows the favorable mutations to have greater offspring, sharing those mutations over time.

This takes a really really really long time to happen.

Additionally, consider up until about 1,000 years ago (or even more recently than that depending on your interpretation) humans lived short life spans and spent all their waking hours trying to survive. It's only very recently that we have all this free time all of the sudden to think about how miserable we are.

Considering these two facts, it will likely take thousands of years before we witness any evolutionary selection occur with respect to human mindset and neurotransmitter pathways, etc.

Furthermore, our society has developed such that natural selection has limited effect on humans. 10,000 years ago Type 1 diabetics would simply die and bear no offspring. Now we give them insulin and they live relatively normal live and spread their undesirable genes on to their children.

This is definitely an interesting topic, however I don't believe evolution or natural selection should be invoked, at least in the pure biological sense. We might argue that someone who is depressed a lot is unlikely to go out, get laid, and have kids. It will take tens of thousands of years to notice this shift.

It's also possible that favorable traits are linked to unfavorable ones. For example, suppose depression is caused by an increase in a certain type of neurotransmitters due to an elevated level of a certain blood protein that also causes an increase in fertility. Then the "depression gene" may be more likely to be passed on because it's linked to having more children. The human body is extremely complex with many interrelated biological pathways.

A real-world example of this is sickle-cell anemia. It makes people sick to a certain degree because their red blood cells are shaped like sickles and can't carry oxygen as effectively as round red blood cells. Certainly this is a mutation that should be selected-against, correct? As it turns out, the microorganisms responsible for malaria cannot "live" in sickle shaped red blood cells as well as in healthy ones, so these people have an advantage in malaria-infested environments.

Back to the original topic, I don't believe we are "supposed" to feel any specific way. Every system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets. If we "feel" a certain way, it's because the system of our brains and the society we created has led us to feeling this way. It's highly possible that certain stakeholders are driving society towards this system. For example, big corporations who make ice cream and junk foods also make diet drinks like slim-fast. These corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to get customers to get fat and then want to lose weight and then get fat again. It's unlikely any one corporation can have that effect on society as a whole, however in an integrated system, they are doing a damn good job of making us feel like shit, such that we need Rx medication for everything, and politicians make us feel scared so we pay our taxes and re-elect them to save us from terrorists and child molesters, and the news media makes us scared so we keep watching the news, etc. We feel exactly the way the "system" wants us to feel.

[Lone Wolf]

Has it occurred to anyone that the reason so many people feel alienated, depressed, despondent, confused, etc. is that they have unrealistic expectations regarding the way they are "supposed" to feel?

I don't think that any neighborhood braggart, TV commercial, or magazine cover does its harm by telling you, "You can and should be happy."  I agree with this.  Barring a medical condition like anhedonia, I think that a very good, happy life is within just about anybody's reach.  I think that the harm is that message actually goes, "You can be happy only if you do \ buy \ look like \ sleep with X."

What a strain it is to conform to the desires, achievements, and priorities of other people (many of which are quite phony and most of which are irrelevant to who you are.)  Believing that you have to be as rich as talented, lucky risk taker X or have lady-abs like air-brushed, half-starved supermodel Y is a recipe for terrible stress.

Fortunately, all you are tasked with is living your life.  (And that's plenty enough job for each of us to take care of, I think, without having to "keep up" with the lavish lifestyles, impeccable tans, or ripped physiques of synthetic Joneses.)

But it makes me wonder how we are supposed to feel.  What is our optimal state of mind based upon our evolutionary development?  Is it a sense of calm happiness, vigilant alertness, opportunistic selfishness or something else?  It does seem that certain states of mind are far more conducive to survival than others.

It seems that a low but constant state of psychological stress is helpful in keeping a person engaged with things (the opposite of this would be the crushing sense of boredom of someone who has no responsibilities whatsoever).  OTOH, if the level of stress is too high it obviously creates many risks to survival that are well known.

I think that the lowest level of psychological stress possible usually works best.  I think that we evolved to feel stress when we were threatened with true danger.  I'm not sure we're well-suited to remaining in a state where we feel that there's a dire wolf around every corner or a slavering drop bear hanging from every tree limb.  It takes a mental and physical toll.  (I realize that this isn't what you meant by a "low level" of course.)

The way I see it, once you understand the vastness of the world and all the things there are to do in it, the only "motivator" you need is the ticking of the clock and the understanding that someday the last of the sand will drain to the bottom of the hourglass.  Enjoy what you're doing... but remember to do.  (I like to think this is how early humans felt when engaged in satisfying, important, productive work like building shelter or happily hunting and gathering.)

[MediumTex]

What is our optimal state of mind based upon our evolutionary development?

Interesting thought and interesting premise for a post. I'd counter that your starting point is invalid. Evolution takes tens of thousands of years to do anything. It's caused by very minor mutations in DNA that provide marginal benefits to those organisms, which under conditions of limited resources, allows the favorable mutations to have greater offspring, sharing those mutations over time.

This takes a really really really long time to happen.

Additionally, consider up until about 1,000 years ago (or even more recently than that depending on your interpretation) humans lived short life spans and spent all their waking hours trying to survive. It's only very recently that we have all this free time all of the sudden to think about how miserable we are.

We're sort of like deer trying to adapt to the threat posed by vehicles traveling at highway speeds. 

[lazyboy]

There really is no truth in how I am supposed to feel. Why pursue it? It seems a waste of time. It doesn't lead to awakening. Better to experience how I feel, not judge it and leave it be. It accomplishes little to beat myself up over some way I think the world wants me to feel. If you closely examine it, the world has no real power over who we really are, only the appearance of power. That's because the world (not real life)  is only a projection of our minds. If I exercise my inherent ability to rest in my true nature, a natural compassion for all beings naturally arises. That's a feeling, like love, that I can choose to cultivate.

[MachineGhost]

I remember as a child Family Matters was the show everyone watched and it's a good example because nearly every sitcom of its kind has been similar in its makeup.  Thinking about it now, the Winslow family lived in a very upscale house and never had any real problems, and every week we learned a sappy lesson.  Their lives were rosy, entertaining and fulfilling, even for Urkel the social outcast.  The subtle implication is that this is supposed to be reality.  Even today watching something like CSI, a modern and more "adult" show, these barely compensated civil servants wear new designer shoes every episode and live in apartments that look like furniture stores.

You should get the DVD's of "The Cosby Show" and see where it all started for African-Americans on a nationally, televised scale.  Family Matter is a little too '90s stereotypical chic-liberal to be considered conservative.

MG

[MachineGhost]

Interesting thought and interesting premise for a post. I'd counter that your starting point is invalid. Evolution takes tens of thousands of years to do anything. It's caused by very minor mutations in DNA that provide marginal benefits to those organisms, which under conditions of limited resources, allows the favorable mutations to have greater offspring, sharing those mutations over time.

This takes a really really really long time to happen.

Additionally, consider up until about 1,000 years ago (or even more recently than that depending on your interpretation) humans lived short life spans and spent all their waking hours trying to survive. It's only very recently that we have all this free time all of the sudden to think about how miserable we are.

Considering these two facts, it will likely take thousands of years before we witness any evolutionary selection occur with respect to human mindset and neurotransmitter pathways, etc.

Oh rubbish.  Mutation is just one of many influences on evolution, and it is not even the most prominent.

The human brain is still evolving physically, even now.  I am proof! 

MG

[Gosso]

Additionally, consider up until about 1,000 years ago (or even more recently than that depending on your interpretation) humans lived short life spans and spent all their waking hours trying to survive. It's only very recently that we have all this free time all of the sudden to think about how miserable we are.

This is a common misconception.  The fossils show that our hunter-gatherer ancestors had the potential to live until the age of 80 or 90 (and many did), but were normally killed earlier by accidents, diseases, predators, etc.  Also there were many infant deaths which skew the average life span lower.  If you look at modern day hunter-gatherers you will see that many of them live until their late 80's.

[stone]

Gosso, that thing that Lone Wolf linked to also showed that violence accounted for a lot of deaths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization .
25% of Australian aboriginal men died in battle. People were perhaps like lions in that population was controlled by humans fighting humans (just as with lions fighting lions) rather than by shortages of food or disease etc.

I was really struck at how appalled hunter-gathers visiting the UK for a TV show were with our lifestyle. They couldn't comprehend how busy we were and how little time we had for family etc.

[Gosso]

Gosso, that thing that Lone Wolf linked to also showed that violence accounted for a lot of deaths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Before_Civilization .
25% of Australian aboriginal men died in battle. People were perhaps like lions in that population was controlled by humans fighting humans (just as with lions fighting lions) rather than by shortages of food or disease etc.

I was really struck at how appalled hunter-gathers visiting the UK for a TV show were with our lifestyle. They couldn't comprehend how busy we were and how little time we had for family etc.

No doubt there was warfare back then.  I think we can look at hunter-gather tribes and develop hypotheses on how a natural human life should be lived.  I don't like how their lifestyle is romanticized, but I think they do a lot of things right.  From the research that I've seen most modern day hunter-gatherers have very little "diseases of civilization", and are overall very healthy.  Is this because of their easy going lifestyle, diet, rituals, or sense of community...I don't really know.

[WildAboutHarry]

I am still learning and will probably never stop learning because I truly enjoy it.

This is the key thing for me.  I am not satisfied if I don't learn something new (read, listen, try) every day. 

We know virtually nothing at birth (well, not counting eating and associated processes) and collect and process information for the rest of our lives.  Satisfaction comes comes from application of acquired knowledge to one's life.  Happiness, perhaps,  comes from application of that acquired knowledge that results in a "good" outcome.

Learning to avoid lions (or hedge funds ) is useful knowledge.  Those who acquire such knowledge have a far greater probability of a better outcome than those who do not. 

I suspect that a large part of modern unhappiness stems from life happening to individuals, rather than the other way around.

Operating in a modern society with limited education/knowledge is a sure formula for frustration.

[Gosso]

I am still learning and will probably never stop learning because I truly enjoy it.

This is the key thing for me.  I am not satisfied if I don't learn something new (read, listen, try) every day. 

I am starting to learn that about myself--my pursuit of knowledge gives me happiness.

I suppose "happiness" means different things to different people, and their pursuits in life reflect their image of happiness.  So someone could direct there life pursuits towards any of the following (or combination of the following):

- money
- video games
- gossip
- food
- unhealthy drugs
- sex
- music / art
- political debates
- saving the planet
- searching for God
- acquiring information so that it may become knowledge
- family
- helping others
- health
- power / greed
- acquiring a high status in society
- building a business
- meditate on a mountain top
- travel
- etc.

The problem is that many of these "paths" lead to false or temporary happiness--namely the paths advocated by the media.

I suspect that a large part of modern unhappiness stems from life happening to individuals, rather than the other way around.

I agree with this.  If you're not even on a path, then what is the point of living?

Once again I'm going to bust out a Joseph Campbell quote:

"People are not looking for the meaning of life; they are looking for the experience of life." (paraphrasing)

[lazyboy]

Speaking of knowledge, evolution and happiness, according to current neuro-psychological research, humans are constantly adapting and integrating internal and external information. One of the main new definitions of what it is to be a human is our integrative capacities. It defines our healthiness and our ability to survive and thrive. I heard a talk by Daniel J. Siegel M.D.  a psychiatrist speaking to these points. I have a book of his at home which, I admit, I have not yet read, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are.  Another book I have read on this subject and can recommend is Buddha's Brain: the practical neuroscience of happiness, love and wisdom by Rick Hanson, PH. D. with Richard Mendius, M.D.
http://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Brain-Pra ... 1572246952
You can search inside and see if you like it. The overall impetus of these books is to educate and empower people too recognize their potential to be free. Basically, it's a message of scientific and reality based optimism.
From chapter one of Buddha's Brain:
"When your mind changes, your brain changes too. In the saying from the work of psychologist Donald Hebb: when neurons fire together, they wire together - mental activity actually creates new neural structures... As a result, even fleeting thoughts and feelings can leave marks on your brain, much like a spring shower can leave little trails on a hillside.
For example, taxi drivers in London- whose job requires remembering lots of twisty streets- develop a larger hippocampus (a key brain region for making visual-spatial memories), since that part of the brain gets an extra workout...As you become a happier person, the left frontal region of your brain becomes more active."