In Which I Spaz Out

I watched a clip of Louis CK on Conan, talking about how people were impatient and unappreciative of the incredible advances in technology that they take advantage of every day, and how nobody today was happy about it. Couple things:

1) Well, of course! There's a huge part of the human organism that is like the anti-Buddha, in that its entire being and concept is to want. As David Foster Wallace described in his essay on the pleasure cruise that he took,the entirety of this part of us is devoted to dissatisfaction. In response to any pleasure or gratification, it will simply adjust its needs upwards until it once again arrives at its usual state of grasping greediness. The fact that the next generation of phones is a little faster or shinier or better at maintaining a WiFi connection has absolute fuck-all to do with satisfying this pleasure-principle, because it cannot ever be fully satisfied.

2) Was anyone really so ephebic as to think that our ability to manipulate little packets of data in better ways would contribute to overall human happiness? He's upset that technological progress has had little to no effect on what is essentially an organic/spiritual problem?

3) Happiness is itself a state of disequilibrium. As far as I know, our bodies just don't have enough dopamine or serotonin to be "happy" all the time. Nor are we set up to be "sad" all the time. What is sustainable, I think, is serenity, peace, understanding, contentment. So expecting society in general to be "happy" is kind of unrealistic, I feel. (What you can do is act and behave in ways that make your life more conducive to happiness. You are the garden, moments of joy are little butterflies that come and visit. You don't get upset when butterflies fly away-- you know they come and they go. If conditions are right, they'll be back).

4) It's all very well to point to people who are surly, childish, impatient, general pains in the ass-- lord knows they exist in droves-- but that's only part of it. We have to at least come up with some ideas for making things better. (In fairness to Louis CK, I didn't watch the entirety of the clip. It's possible that he has dozens of good ideas for making peoples' lives better). To jump to an unrelated point, it's kind of how I feel about people who are smug about their atheism because they've just come up with it. OK, there's no God. Are you just going to stop there? You've reached the end of all thought and there's nothing further to glean? Nah, man, you've got to keep going. People are immature and greedy, they complain about trifles, they feel entitled to all pleasures-- all right, and then what? Where do we go from there?