How on Earth are people maintaining even a quantum of happiness?

How on Earth are people maintaining even a quantum of happiness?
I find it unfathomable.

Jokes.
>:) hahahaha le unexpected twist xDDD
Once you heard 1000 jokes, the 1001st joke is not going to be very funny. Most jokes are derivative and predictable. John Cleese of Monty Python confirms this. His life evolved around comedy and now every joke is old and stale to him. Nevertheless most people seem to laugh at the most inane stories.

Work.
>will give you purpose
95% of jobs in 1st world countries are pointless bullshit jobs. I worked as a software programmer, helped get 2 startups off the ground. It wasn't fulfilling at all. Most software is either dumbing down the population, sucks the life out of users with dopamine treadmills (games, news, ...) or replaces jobs, which are supposedly required for a fulfilling life.

Children.
>pass on le values to your kids :)
>We must procreate because.
Overpopulation is the humanity's #1 problem. Every species, that faced a population explosion like humans did in the last 200 years, ended badly. Somehow most people seem to think infinite growth is possible on a finite planet with finite space and resources. They seem to be prisoners of oxytocin, the "love" hormone that's especially strong in mothers. Yes, a child will keep you occupied and managing to raise it well is an accomplishment, however it does not solve anything at all. You're just passing along the problem to a new generation, creating new suffering.

Is it just me? I was told I wasn't stupid by some. After all, I managed to obtain a degree in. Probably not very smart, but not stupid either by society's standards. Still, I feel dumb, because....
Ever encountered wild animals, like a deer? It doesn't seem to suffer from existential questions, and doesn't appear to be less happy without Facebook, the latest mass-produced movies, or a car.

Human consciousness seems like a disease that holds us hostage, and humans are suffering from Stockholm syndrome.

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>Most jokes are derivative and predictable.
Hahah I guess having that high IQ isnt so great after all, huh?

>complaining about overpopulation in a first world country

This is what happens when you have a high IQ. I love being a brainlet A
AWOOOOOGA

I know people like you. You over-eat bad food, take an insufficient amount of exercise, get little fresh air and sunlight and sleep, bury yourself in filthy pornography and let your passions dominate you and so make yourself miserable; then you blame the world for your depression instead of yourself for inducing it in the first place by your appalling lifestyle.

IQ is all bullshit anyway.

Native jungle dwellers can't even read, yet they know and recognize 500 different plant species. They know exactly what plants to eat and what to use them for. Is that not intelligence? They wouldn't score high on a test, yet they can survive on their own, better than most people in "civilization" with "education". And again, look at the wild deer or bird. Their low "IQ" doesn't seem to bother them much.

>You over-eat bad food
>take an insufficient amount of exercise
I'm not overweight and eat vegetables daily. I don't drink alcohol (another astonishingly stupid drug) or soft drinks.

>pornography
... is fake and dull. I do not understand how anyone can get obsessed by it. Mind numbing.

>blame the world
Not at all. I'm asking a question.

as for the question about wind animals and existential questions, read about 'pig happy, socrates unhappy'.

i hope you ignore the personal attacks on you here.

Happiness is a sham. If things people recommend you don't bring you satisfaction, do something that will. If nothing will, I recommend drugs. Works fine for me.

When i was a kiddo, I couldn't understand why so many celebs despite having it all, did drugs, drank booze and lived unhealthy lifestyle, same for the average person, they, we all have our vices and ways to cope, nobody is truly happy.
Life is a net negative on people's minds that we literally did everything to escape it, emotions are there just as feedback whether we are doing fine or not.
Unsurprisingly there are more negative emotions than good ones, to the point people started turning the negative ones into pleasure.
Everything men have built is to counteract the pain of existence, the arts, such as music are all born of struggle, that's why love songs are lame but yet not so bad considering they have some pain in them anyway.
Men suffer more, men build more, women barely struggle, that's the reason why men tend to have more smarts than women, the latter only uses her brain when she suffers like a man.
This explains why the smartest people can be just as ugly, as hardworking, as innovative individuals.
Do or die, you have a choice.
Whatever your choice, you are going to suffer.
Those who aren't suffering, reap the benefits, thus all happiness is built on someone's suffering, directly or not.
That's why we have religion, that's why we lie to ourselves, believing and almighty being will equalize everything, just so that we feel at peace.
Truth is Death is the only equalizer we have got, it doesn't discriminate anything, not even what's commonly known as non living beings.
Wanna be happy?
Ancient(not so much, everything is a cycle) wisdom dictates: ignorance is bliss.
The less you know the happier you are.

the only people i really get the feeling are happy are people who married their highschool sweetheart and both have careers.

or really good looking women who didn't fall through the cracks and the world is pretty much at their finger tips.

everyone else is either coping or competing hard as fuck for no real reason other than that's what they think they're supposed to do.

lately i just take shit for what it is. if something isn't funny, i tell people. if i don't like you, i let you know, if something is shit, i'm probably gonna try to change it.

I agree with you, user. All of your points make sense and I've thought about them before too.
Life is despair and suffering. Anything remotely positive in someone's life gets destroyed & snatched away from them inevitably anyways.

Anyone who brings up IQ is a dumbass. You can practice iq tests more then once and improve your score

That's why you take the test without practice, duh.

assuming all IQ tests are the same and people only take them once. which they usually haven't

If it's some online free test, yeah, they'll probably take it multiple times. Not so much with Official (tm) ones. Though I'm sure there are retards that want to have a high score so much they will practice for it and take it several times.

>How on Earth are people maintaining even a quantum of happiness?
I know what you mean, user. Happiness seems so far out of reach. But each has their own definition and source of happiness. Sure, some people can be perfectly happy in life just doing their job, collecting model trains, doing origami, fucking every chick they meet or whatever else it is they enjoy. Some just keep themselves occupied any way they can to avoid thinking about it, and a lot of them do it unconsciously. See what happens to your regular millennial when they're alone in a room with no internet. I recall some user here telling of his younger brother having a breakdown in such a situation. Most people who don't have such things that make them happy never think about it unless put in a situation where they don't have immediate distractions. The point is, most people unconsciously distract themselves from the miserable reality that is that they're not actually happy. And here's where you fucked up. You, like many others on this board are no longer (or perhaps never have been) capable or willing to distract yourselves in such a way and, having no means or ways to fulfill your lives, are forced into introspection, making you even more miserable.
I know what my problem is and why I'm unhappy, I'm just incapable of changing it. Do you? Drugs help though. And I'm not talking about the prescription ones.
That aside, jokes won't make you particularly happy, but Doug Stanhope's pretty damn good, look him up.

Just turned 14, huh?

You'll grow out of this phase, kiddo.

woooaah this is so deeep man

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It's all fake. Most people realise life is garbage for everyone so they try to put on a happy face even if they're depressed fucks anyway.

I've been having serious existential and nihilistic issues that make me feel pathetic and edgy but holy fuck I feel bad and can't hide it anymore, people around me are noticing and life in general just scares me now.

Anxiety is through the fucking roof. How do people even enjoy life?

I'm surprised it took so long for this response to appear. It's the typical normie brainlet rationalization to these questions.

>Overpopulation is
Not at all an issue now. There's enough resources to feed everyone on the planet. The other species didn't have technology to help them produce goods. Overpopulation is a brainlet concern for the most part and the only thing that has to be done to stop it from really getting out of hand is to end food aid to Africa

Shit skin originally detected

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OP, read Industrial Society and its future by Teddy K.

>IQ is all bullshit anyway. Native jungle dwellers can't even read, yet they know and recognize 500 different plant species. They know exactly what plants to eat and what to use them for. Is that not intelligence? They wouldn't score high on a test, yet they can survive on their own, better than most people in "civilization" with "education". And again, look at the wild deer or bird. Their low "IQ" doesn't seem to bother them much.
This is solid, id give you Jow Forums gold but I need to cut expenses

Self-assess and identify the deeper issues of your misery. You can gain a lot by identifying differences in your experience and those you would qualify as normative or healthy, and whether or not you have angst with the dissonance of those things. Before that, identifying things you enjoy and how to obtain them (be they material or experiential) is a good start. Setting goals, working towards them. Accepting that even if life ends and is meaningless, you will experience it, and pleasure is programmed in our brains to be superior to pain (and even base-line nothingfeel) is how I do it.

Not him, I agree with some of his points but then what?
Are you just going to feel miserable all the time or find peace while acknowledging the absurdity of life for the everyday human.

>Overpopulation is not at all an issue now.

Not now, but in about 10-20 years when the world population hits the dozen of billions, we will be extremly fucked. Do you think this world is able to sustain 10 billion people? Look at it from a geological stand-point. Only 2.5% of our water is drinkable, and even then its rapidly declining. You could say we could desalinate water, but then we would potentially be ruining certain habits, leading to food loss. Also, with more people, we will need more power, meaning more pollution, leading to a warmer climate, leading again, to not enough water nor food. You see the trend right? More people, more problems.

Read literature -- poetry, novels, whatever -- and listen to music more. The best art springs from that exact absurdity you mention. If nothing else, at least you'll know you're not alone in thinking about how crazy shit is. Not everyone actually, actively does this, and it's comforting to know that a good artist sees it.

Science and the immediacy of the problem will likely produce solutions. The resources already exist: America alone wastes enough food and water to comfortably provide for the population of the world, but is not forced to consider what it's doing in the name of profits.

On the other hand, we could keep barreling towards whatever it is we seem to be barreling towards -- while 1st world countries live in a land of connected everything and literal excess, the rest of the world could starve. I don't like to think that'll happen, though.

The problem with the overpopulation meme is that the people that are self-aware and are having doubts about reproducing are the kind of people that SHOULD be reproducing. In reality, we're only "overpopulated" because the poor and stupid reproduce like rabbits.

The average person isn't too stupid to be productive by nature. The average person isn't presented with avenues to express their intelligence or put themselves to higher work.

What is average to you? You think the average person in North America is the same as the average person in India?

have you considered asking why on earth people aren't maintaining happiness?
If what society tells you is supposed to make you "happy" isn't making you "happy" than find something that does. At the end of the day, you choose if your fulfillment is being affected by other around you. Anyone that says happiness isn't a choice is a complete retard.
>nice leddit spacing btw

>there's plenty of water
>10 billion is plenty sustainable, china currently has 1.3 billion people and imports 0 food in a country with a similar land mass as the U.S and that is with significantly less arable land.

>experts estimate the population will steady at 10 billion and begin to decline.
>the bigger issue long term is population decline. Look at places like Moldova or Japan. The governments are subsidizing children because if they realize the long term impact of a shrinking population.
>You're argument about happiness aside, population isn't a problem.