That’s one that is often misquoted, I believe it is actually “That which does not destroy you…” Which has slightly different connotations and isn’t limited to simple death.
But is it the optimism that keeps them living longer, or not having to deal with all the shit that makes some of us pessimistic?
My nominations:
This pair, usually heard separately.
Less is more.
Have and Not Need.
Here’s one that the busybodies love, and I hate:
Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that`s no reason not to give it.
This one always amuses me because it’s one thing to be cynical and take the attitude of “fuck that, I’d be totally happy if I could just afford a jet ski and a beach house”, which isn’t necessarily true. Having lots and lots of money isn’t anywhere near as good an indicator of happiness as, say, having lots of meaningful long term personal relationships. But on the low end, having enough money to afford shelter, food and other important basic sustenance is an extremely highly correlated with happiness. Money isn’t everything, but if you’re on welfare and are hungry and can’t afford your heating bill it could literally buy a lot of happiness.
Very interesting book by Martin Seligman (Seligman’s the guy who did all the ‘‘learned helplessness’’ studies on dogs and later, people) called ‘‘Learned Optimism.’’ I did a thread on this book a while back if you’re interested.
To quote myself:
So the answer is that having to deal with a lot of shit can create pessimistic people, but that’s really no excuse for being a pessimist.
‘‘That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’’ is one of my favorite Nietzsche quotes and I have found it to be basically true, in the long-term. But the strength isn’t really a gimme; it’s something you’ve gotta consciously create.
Another great Nietzsche quote is ‘‘He who has a why to live can bear almost any how,’’ and it’s frequently trumpeted by the great trauma psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, so I think it gets a pass. Nietzsche was no optimist. He was a suffering man struggling to find meaning in his life.
(I believe I can be deeply pessimistic in the short-term, such as my own contribution to this thread, but I have a very optimistic attitude in the long-term, which has ultimately led to a happier, healthier life.)
Anne, I agree about the mindless platitudes thing, I mentioned that in the Seligman thread – irrationally positive thoughts have not been shown to help people. In general those who see failures as temporary, only affecting a small part of their life, and not their own fault are more likely to succeed.
Um, no. I’ve known lots of vile people who died happy and content without ever having to suffer the consequences for their actions, thank you very much.
A long time ago, a guy approached a scientist at some sort of social function. The scientist was an expert on fluid dynamics or flight or something like that. The guy asked the scientist how bumble bees fly, and the scientist was stumped. He couldn’t figure it out.
Since then, of course, it’s been figured out. But the story got out and it was said that science really doesn’t explain anything, and of course bumble bees can fly, because God (or whatever) made them perfect.
Over the years that has morphed into the glurgy notion that bees don’t know their limitations, and so they accomplish what Science tells them they can’t. The metaphor being, of course, that we too should ignore our limitations and achieve greatness.
I’m actually totally on board with the message. It just happens to come attached to a stupid, stupid story.
I’m familiar with that, but your aphorism was about how nobody could explain how they *can’t *fly, wasn’t it? Kind of like not being able to explain why cows can’t give milk.
The “self-evident truth” that “all men are created equal, (and) are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Terrific, heart-warming hyperbole and useful rhetoric.
Utterly wrong. Apparently Tom didn’t get out much.
I thought the point was that all men were morally equal; that is, you didn’t deserve something just because you were born a noble, or didn’t because you were born a commoner.
Wow, Olivemarch4th, that resonates with me on a number of levels.
I completely missed your threead about the book. I think that learned helplessness explains a lot about our lives here in North America… and my own history in particular. I learned when I was young that I had less power than those around me, and the attitude just carried on through my life, untill I got sick of it and wanted to change it. I think that being skipped ahead a grade in school, and hence always a year less developed than those arounf me, had a significant effect on me.
We grow up thinking these things are like the unchangeable climate of our minds. But I just finished The Brain That Changes Itself, and it goes a long way towards explaining why it’s so hard to change a habit: the more often we think something, the more the patterns of nreves and whatnot in our brains adapt to that thought, and the easier is is to think it. The book looks at people who’d trained their minds to do all sorts of apparently-impossible things, like compensate for balance organs destroyed by disease using sensors on the tongue.
Consciously creating one’s strength? That’s a revolutionary thought in itself.
We had to read some Victor Frankl in school and it just went right by me at the time; it’d be interesting to reread it now.
Actually I think his point was that all men are of equal value in some absolute sense; that is to say the peasant is not less intrinsically valuable than the nobleman. Again, lovely rhetoric but meaningless. And quite a number of peasants have given their lives for noblemen to prove how inaccurate the statement is. Along with the Rights being endowed part.
Riiiiiiiight. Actually, though, I think this doesn’t really fit the OP, because hasn’t it become an example of something widely recognized as *not *true?
