• Philosophy and Spirituality
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
    Threads of Note Socialize
  • P&S Moderators: Xorkoth | Madness

Why didn't we evolve to feel awesome all the time?

.Lucid.

.Lucid.

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 16, 2010
Messages
708
ive wondered this ever since i started taking drugs so i figured i'd throw it out there..

why do i have to take something to experience extreme euphoria? why isnt our baseline more like rolling?
 
Presumably because some amount of feeling bad tended to move species to actions that enhanced their chances of survival.

Leaving evolutionary psychology alone for a moment I think some not feeling good enhances feeling good. Bliss, numbness, oblivion, an unchanging state can sound good or sound bad but after a while I assume you can not even discern what your state is any longer if it is unchanging.
 
I was wondering about the same thing :p. But I think that the reason that make the euphoria that good is the reason that make fine cheese, good wine, sex, movies, songs also that good. It lost his special side when you overdo. :D
Of course, if we forget this detail, for sure, I'll choose the constant euphoria state.
Sorry for bad english x)
 
so maybe we were born into euphoria we've just developed a tolerance to it lol


you know what i mean though.. it just seems to me like we should be more naturally chemically inclined towards happiness and love and less inclined towards feeling pain. mother nature is skimping us. :\
 
Think about what exactly it means to feel "good". What is this extreme euphoria you speak of?

It is a feeling that, when compared to how you normally feel most of the time, is far superior. When you're going through a typical day feeling normal, do you often taken notice at how normal you feel? No. Why not? That feeling of normalcy is simply the state that we've adapted to expect to feel because that's how we feel most of the time. It is neither good nor bad. It is something in between.

If you felt euphoria all the time, your mind would adapt to it and it would not longer feel any better than how you expect to feel all of the time. Euphoria would become your new normalcy and it would no longer feel "good" because good can only be good when you compare it to something that is less than good. Euphoria only has meaning when you compare it to feeling something less than euphoria.

Feeling good is nature's way of rewarding us for doing something beneficial. It's an incentive to do it again. Feeling bad is nature's way of punishing us to create a disincentive for something that causes us harm. We need to feel good and bad to help us make decisions concerning our behavior and survival. That's evolution.
 
1.) Because if we did, we'd be as useful as Lotus-Eaters.
2.) If we felt awesome all the time, would we even notice it?
 
AfterGlow said:
If you felt euphoria all the time, your mind would adapt to it and it would not longer feel any better than how you expect to feel all of the time. Euphoria would become your new normalcy and it would no longer feel "good" because good can only be good when you compare it to something that is less than good. Euphoria only has meaning when you compare it to feeling something less than euphoria.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I believe this - I mean it's not like depressed people need intermittent bouts of happiness to remind them how depressed they are. I tend to think of mental states as absolutes not relatives (or at least, relative to an absolute).
 
The most euphoria I have ever experienced in my life have been times I wasn't on anything. Deep, beautiful and intensely spiritual moments. Truly connecting to nature, God, myself, or another. There have been many of them.

So I disagree and feel we are absolutely evolved to feel awesome all of the time. Most of us just block it out with stress, societal pressures, bad energies, bad patterns, bad food etc. It's about learning to allow good feelings and accepting that we are deserving of them. To be honest, most people I've met (or a good number) hate themselves, deep down inside.
 
I think this is the point of philosophies like Buddhism.

Those religions or philosophies that encourage you to be 'aware' or 'conscious' all the time are basically saying: you can feel blissful/awesome/amazed/enlightened/aware/conscious/ecstatic/etc... ad infinitum, you just don't know it. Strip away the bullshit and get down to the core: the being. Do some intense meditation then look out the window at the snow falling in your yard, and if you don't smile, you're not getting it.



and before somebody responds: yes, you can't practically be in a state of bliss 24/7, but having the ability to realize, on command, that life is bliss, is very useful.
 
^ i hear you man and im totally on board with the whole idea of realization and enlightenment.. but i do get frustrated with it and myself.. and im sure you must experience your own frustrations with it.


i guess i just mean why isnt the human form more impervious to pain and more susceptible to feelings of bliss? like if all it takes is some chemical adjustments in our brains to wake us up out of identification with form then why havent we evolved to naturally be realized beings? perhaps the human form is still too primitive.. or perhaps we're not here to wake up at all, we're suppose to stay asleep in our roles..

sometimes i really do think it might be easier if i were able to go back and unknow the things i've learned from egoless states.. do you ever feel that way or is it just me?
 
MynameisnotDeja said:
So I disagree and feel we are absolutely evolved to feel awesome all of the time. Most of us just block it out with stress, societal pressures, bad energies, bad patterns, bad food etc. It's about learning to allow good feelings and accepting that we are deserving of them. To be honest, most people I've met (or a good number) hate themselves, deep down inside.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was going to say. I remember taking LSD or MDMA years ago and feeling that the ecstatic state was underneath all the resistance and blockages that we ourselves put in our own way. Our natural state is the "garden of Eden" so to speak. It is all about focus too and where it is put. There is a difference between playing my guitar from that inspired state of creating and feeling bliss, and focusing on all the the things that bring me down like gov, injustice, ignorance. etc. All these things exist at the same time and we can put our focus on what we choose.

What we do to ourselves is amazing. The inner tug of war as well as the inner peace exist depending on what we do to ourselves.
 
.Lucid. said:
why do i have to take something to experience extreme euphoria? why isnt our baseline more like rolling?
Click to expand...

There are many different beliefs for this. My own personal belief is that we DO have a baseline and it is not like "rolling", but it is one that is content and happy. We have to search inside ourselves long and very thoroughly before we realize what makes us feel awesome.

Euphoria comes with a price, as I'm sure you know. I'll stick middle route, the neutral path to happiness.
 
.Lucid. said:
^ i hear you man and im totally on board with the whole idea of realization and enlightenment.. but i do get frustrated with it and myself.. and im sure you must experience your own frustrations with it.


i guess i just mean why isnt the human form more impervious to pain and more susceptible to feelings of bliss? like if all it takes is some chemical adjustments in our brains to wake us up out of identification with form then why havent we evolved to naturally be realized beings? perhaps the human form is still too primitive.. or perhaps we're not here to wake up at all, we're suppose to stay asleep in our roles..

sometimes i really do think it might be easier if i were able to go back and unknow the things i've learned from egoless states.. do you ever feel that way or is it just me?
Click to expand...

What is your source of social programming? Maybe the government, television, pop culture? If so, consider their motives: they want you to consume so that they get rich; they want you to watch their shows so that you buy their advertised products; they want you to vote for their candidates so that you can proudly say to your peers, "I voted for him and he won! I did something!!"

Do you think that these "definers" (of your world) want you to realize that everything they are selling you on is bullshit? Most certainly not!

Now consider: shut yourself away from negative outside "definers" and only surround yourself with what you perceive as positive sources of inspiration. See what kind of an impact that has on your life.

:)
 
Well if you felt awesome all the time how would you know you even felt awesome? You have to feel something other then awesome to actually feel awesome in my opinion. The bad times make you appreciate the good times all the more.
 
I'll echo what Deja and others have said and throw this out there:

To some, the greatest euphoria is the feeling of ecstasy caused by their brain being flooded with serotonin. For some others, it's dopamine. For others, it's divine revelations.

In any case, we don't all feel euphoric all the time partly because each person's idea of euphoria is at least a little bit different. In any case, though, it's a temporary state because it involves an imbalance of some kind, be it brain chemicals, selective sensory awareness, neuron activity, or whatever. It's one end of a spectrum, or one extreme of a system.

The nature of any system tends towards equilibrium. I think we are born in a certain euphoria, that is the ignorance and naivety of childhood. As we rapidly absorb information, and as our bodies stop growing, we reach a state of mental and physical balance or middle ground. It's just more useful to exist in such a state, because it allows you to perceive and judge experiences more accurately, by weighing the pros and cons and plan for potential future happiness. If we lived in a constant euphoria, our decision-making process would be radically skewed, even things we currently love to do would seem like a chore, and it would be very difficult to motivate anyone to do anything productive.

Think about this: if your mind was in constant euphoria, existing at peak happiness all the time, what incentive would you have to form interpersonal relationships? Nobody would have anything to gain, so nobody would bother to have sex, deal with the difficulties of raising children, and very soon the species would go extinct.
 
HoneyRoastedPeanut said:
Think about this: if your mind was in constant euphoria, existing at peak happiness all the time, what incentive would you have to form interpersonal relationships? Nobody would have anything to gain, so nobody would bother to have sex, deal with the difficulties of raising children, and very soon the species would go extinct.
Click to expand...

i dont agree with this. i think we would form relationships and have children simply for the pure joy and celebration of doing so. relationships based on incentives and things to gain are flawed from the ground up.
 
I think some people here are making this common mistake:

PLEASURE is NOT the same thing as HAPPINESS.

In fact, I think it's VERY important for each of us to learn to distinguish each of them from the other.
 
L O V E L I F E said:
I think some people here are making this common mistake:

PLEASURE is NOT the same thing as HAPPINESS.

In fact, I think it's VERY important for each of us to learn to distinguish each of them from the other.
Click to expand...

i know of some philosophers who would disagree. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top