Obsidian Sync 2024-12-16 07:56:36

content/daily-notes/2024-12-16.md

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 #### Meditations for Mortals Day Nineteen
 This chapter is titled _A good time or a good story: On the upsides of unpredictability_
 
+“And yet despite the strange benefits that so often seem to arise from our lack of control, we proceed through life – as individuals, but as societies, too – as if the supreme goal should be always and only to obtain more and more of it. ‘The driving cultural force of that form of life we call “modern” is the idea, the hope and desire, that we can make the world controllable,’ writes Hartmut Rosa, the German social theorist we met in the introduction. ”
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+“Rosa certainly doesn’t deny that the quest for controllability has brought incalculable benefits; after all, it’s behind virtually everything that makes life today so much freer from unremitting poverty and pain than it was in medieval times. And he’s clear he’s not arguing that underprivileged people should reconcile themselves to having less control over their lives than wealthier ones. But he shows that, simultaneously, our desire for controllability backfires, undermining our efforts to build happy and fulfilling lives. The human domination of nature has caused nature to escape human control, threatening our flourishing through runaway climate disruption. The more people with whom we’re able to connect digitally, the worse the loneliness epidemic gets; and the more vigilance parents exert over their children’s comfort, the more anxious and uncomfortable they are.”
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+“The point is a subtle one, he notes, because a resonant relationship with life depends on its being semi-controllable, not totally uncontrollable. You need to engage actively in the world – to connect to others, to make plans, and to pursue opportunities and ambitions – and people need the freedom, and the economic resources, to be able to do that. (Neither good times nor good stories will occur very often if you just sit around, isolated, waiting for them – or if you’re obliged to spend every waking hour struggling to survive.) Still, it’s central to an enjoyable and meaningful life that whenever we reach out to the world in this way, we don’t get to control how it responds. The value and depth of the experience relies on that unknowability. Maybe you’ll get what you wanted, or maybe you won’t – and sometimes, not getting what you wanted will leave life immeasurably better.”