Filosophy and Happiness
F.I. is a common acronym for Financial Independence, the simple idea that by disconnecting from consumer culture, we can save and invest enough money so that returns on our investments become sufficient to fund a frugal lifestyle. The moment when returns on investments exceed expenses is called the Crossover Point, and at this point you achieve the freedom to pursue happiness in whatever way you like.
Philosophy has largely fallen short of its purpose, refusing to engage with the deepest human questions. My view is that the only objective that makes sense is finding happiness, and while happiness can be achieved in a variety of ways, rejecting the arms race of conspicuous consumption is a necessary ingredient. While philosophers are happy to debate questions like whether happiness is a good, where happiness falls in the hierarchy of other values, and what happiness fundamentally is, they rarely approach the practical question of how we actually can find this elusive happiness. Thoreau perhaps came the closest, writing in Walden about finding a kind of secular spirituality in nature. Certainly media refuses to consider that human well-being could be correlated with anything other than surging GDP, and so we largely must turn to eccentric lifestyle bloggers to be awakened from our dogmatic slumbers. But sometimes truth has unlikely messengers, and such is the case here.
I hope to connect philosophy to happiness in the way so many writers have neglected, and help spread the message of freedom in the process. To those seeking their own independence, we wish you the best of luck!
P.S. Incidentally, the Internet already has a Happy Philosopher:http://thehappyphilosopher.com/. He is great, and also interested in financial independence! He was a physician, however, rather than a philosopher, but I suppose fysician doesn't make any sense.
Philosophy has largely fallen short of its purpose, refusing to engage with the deepest human questions. My view is that the only objective that makes sense is finding happiness, and while happiness can be achieved in a variety of ways, rejecting the arms race of conspicuous consumption is a necessary ingredient. While philosophers are happy to debate questions like whether happiness is a good, where happiness falls in the hierarchy of other values, and what happiness fundamentally is, they rarely approach the practical question of how we actually can find this elusive happiness. Thoreau perhaps came the closest, writing in Walden about finding a kind of secular spirituality in nature. Certainly media refuses to consider that human well-being could be correlated with anything other than surging GDP, and so we largely must turn to eccentric lifestyle bloggers to be awakened from our dogmatic slumbers. But sometimes truth has unlikely messengers, and such is the case here.
I hope to connect philosophy to happiness in the way so many writers have neglected, and help spread the message of freedom in the process. To those seeking their own independence, we wish you the best of luck!
P.S. Incidentally, the Internet already has a Happy Philosopher:http://thehappyphilosopher.com/. He is great, and also interested in financial independence! He was a physician, however, rather than a philosopher, but I suppose fysician doesn't make any sense.
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