The paradox of libertarianism

Let me begin by stating that the title is maybe misleading, I don’t mean that libertarianism is self contradictory nor that it is inconsistent with its own principles. Libertarianism, properly defined, is the philosophy of promoting individual Liberty, in contrary to most other political philosophies, it believes in the uniqueness of the individual and it places a high value on how each individual values, pursues goals and, broadly speaking, lives his life. The word Liberty (if you have noticed, written with capital letter L) must be distinguished from the new invented liberties that the left speaks of today. This division of Liberty into layers can only be misleading and dangerous (for more details see F. A. Hayek: the constitution of liberty), it opens the door for a completely flawed interpretation of the meaning of liberty itself. But liberty is one and it cannot be divided, for that it means absence of coercion, and any violation of this principle is a violation of Liberty. This principle should be applied to all people with no exception, including the State, society, tribes, groups of people etc. No group of people should violate the freedom of the individual, no State should violate it either, and no one should coerce anybody to submit to his wills. I wonder how some people think that liberty is the path to chaos and absence of the rule of law. How could it be so according to the definition above? Some argue that without coercion the preservation of the rule of law would be impossible, and therefore of liberty as well. However, that’s another concern that is beyond the point of this essay. 

This is a vague introduction to the concept of Liberty and I shall advance my excuses for this very short introductory paragraph but that’s because this is not my concern, it took Hayek probably 100 pages to fully make a very clear understanding of what liberty is or is not and I don’t merely want to restate what I read. I want to argue why libertarianism as a set of ideas, a political stance and convictions cannot and usually fails to compete with the other political ideas with which it is wrestling. It does so because of its emphasis on “the individual” while its competitors on groups. Libertarianism does not believe in global shared values except those related to the none aggression principle (NAP), it believes that each individual should run after his goals in his own ways and according to his own valuations as long as he is not interrupting anybody else’s way. Intuitively, the starting point to know why an ideology (a set of ideas, politics, or mere convictions) is gaining popularity is to ask how it did so. What purpose is it there to fulfill? Is it based on rational arguments that convinced the individuals who hold it? Or it is because it serves the interests of some special groups? Where does it find its origin? Does it make evolutionary sense? Does it fulfill, say, an inner need of individuals? 
How society is organized is no easy question, probably this is the hardest of questions in social sciences. But there is an axiom from which we can begin our analysis, that is, the institutions (the set of laws) governing human interactions in societies are partly determined evolutionary. In almost all societies, we observe “patterns” of behavior, or rules governing their interactions, such as ethics and hierarchies (e.g. all societies have rules that prevent crimes such as killing for no reason, theft, etc; and in all societies there are individuals who are viewed as the elite, the aristocrats, the wise, etc.). The institutions that are shaped by evolution are universals and are not our concern here. The difference among societies stems from the ideas and the conflict of interests, that is, they are partly determined by intellectuals (i.e., the ideas of intellectuals) and partly by those who are in positions of power, anyone in a position of power tends to use it in his own interest, but despite that, the power of ideas is so strong, as noted by David Hume, even special interests are shaped by ideas, and therefore this is the conclusion we will use to explain differences in institutions between societies – or in how societies are organized/shaped. To put it simply, if a nation is dominated by, so to speak, conservative, progressive or libertarian politics, that is because the ideas held by the majority of its inhabitants are conservative, progressive or libertarian. As Ludwig von Mises pointed out, either a regime is dictator or democratic, it can’t be maintained unless it is supported by the majority. Now we got a glimpse of the answer, but the question still can’t be solved, we know that the ideas of the majority are the key, but we don’t know why intellectuals hold a specific set of ideas and how the majority follows. There are two kinds of intellectuals, the honest and the dishonest. The honest intellectuals tell really what they believe and they are objective in their views, they are neutral from any subjective whims or emotional influence and they don’t shape their ideas to serve anyone’s interests. The second type of intellectuals is the kind who has the least interest to pursue the truth, they say only what is emotionally appealing and what serves special interests, i.e., their own and the interests of politicians and people in positions of power who bribe them. According to this assertion, it is clear what set of ideas will prevail rapidly and what set of ideas is condemned to be in the margin. The ideas of progressives (the left) serve the most interests of people in power since they seek big governments and as I have already wrote elsewhere, they are emotionally appealing to the morality of the herd. The ideas of conservatives, by definition, they seek to prevent progress, they prefer the status quo and they want to maintain the current situation as it is, they don’t want change, since according to them, change is dangerous and they use the power of the law to prevent change, no wonder, this kind of ideas is also appealing emotionally, since there is a lot of people who value traditions, beliefs, history and they regard everything new as a danger of these. That’s why conservatives also have their share in the arena of political power. But libertarians, poor libertarians, their ideas are largely ignored, they don’t serve any special interests, they don’t have a sacred view of traditions, they don’t fear change and they don’t appeal to the morality of the herd. And that’s why they have the least share of the power in the political arena. 
For me, there is something else that is missing from the puzzle. That’s not all. There is another factor that makes an ideology more appealing than the others. If we look to what is common among progressives (liberals in the U.S. language) and conservatives, it’s easy to notice that both are collectivists, they work in groups and they campaign to spread their ideas, because they believe in absolute valuations, and they don’t mind the use of the power of the law and legislation to put their plans into practice, both don’t mind coercion and the use of force. Humans have a tendency to believe that things can’t work unless regulated; they believe that, if there is no one to make sure that everything is alright, a chaos will emerge. On the other hand, libertarians believe in the spontaneous order and they are convinced that if things are left to function without any central planning, they will be just fine. As previously stated, libertarians are utter individualists and they don’t believe in collective campaigns to spread their ideas, they work individually and they don’t believe in the use of force to violate freedom in order to gain freedom. It is this, indeed, what I call a paradox, for that libertarianism is about freedom and individualism and to spread itself it must not either adopt the collective thoughts of its rivals nor to violate freedom and use the power of legislation. If it uses collectivism - that is, the members who believe in its values work in groups and violate freedom - then it’s no longer libertarianism. 
My fellow libertarians might think that I am too pessimistic and that this might mean that there is no way in which a libertarian society can exist, but that’s not true. First of all, the battle should take place in the arena of intellectuals. A libertarian society must be necessarily a society in which the majority of individuals are well educated. Once the intellectuals are convinced that the values of liberty are superior to any form of coercion, then, necessarily, it is only a matter of time that the majority of individuals will follow and with it the politics. We have all the reasons to believe this is true, per example just see what fueled the revolutions that gave rise to the communist regimes? Isn’t it the ideas of philosophers? What gave rise to a politician like Margaret Thatcher? Isn’t it because of the book (the Road to Serfdom) that was a best seller few decades before her election and that she herself had read? Indeed, I don’t think there would be anything such as communism if it did not appear in the writings of an intellectual. And without Adam Smith (along with other intellectuals before and after him) and his neat arguments in favor of free trade and the emphasis that markets spontaneously regulate themselves through the mechanism of prices, there would be no industrial revolution. Even the minor differences are explained by the presence of intellectuals. If you look at France and Germany from a historical viewpoint, both had great intellectuals but why France is falling behind Germany (though even Germany today is making the same mistakes)? Isn’t it because of the French intellectuals and their tendency to promote socialist ideas? I’ll answer no more any of these questions and I’ll leave the wise minds to decide.
Don’t forget: “never underestimate the power of your ideas”

Why subsidies hurt the very industries they seek to help?

“If you want to ruin any industry, it suffices that you subsidize it” – Myself.

If you want to ruin art, subsidize art, if you want to ruin education, charge the government of providing it and if you want to ruin national defense, also, make government the exclusive owner of arms, if you want the poor to remain poor, give them easy money, if you want to ruin justice, charge one government of establishing a centrally determined body of law and so forth and so on. Why I am so sure about what I am saying? It is because of one fundamental law of nature that all the above contradict. It is the law of competition and selection. When you subsidize an industry, it becomes immune to competition; it is no longer subject to the laws of selection. Let me explain, imagine that I am feeding an animal but yet still putting it in the environment to which it belongs, say a lion, say that I come every day and give him a prey and he has to do no effort to consume it. Imagine that the environment in which this lion lives no longer provides enough food for his other fellow lions (he is the only to benefit from the meal, others have to hunt, otherwise, they’ll die), this experiment have really been tried and the results are surprising. Following my assumption of scarcity applied to all other lions except my chosen lion, what will happen? What will happen, indeed, is that the other lions will have to compete for the scarce resources and when nature provides no enough food for everybody, only the competitive and efficient who’s able to hunt and manage his resources very well will be able to survive, but the idle lions, the non competitive, the wasteful, will be condemned to die. As this example clearly shows, under natural laws, the lions most fitted to their environment will be able to survive. But my chosen lion is immune to this law because he has to face no scarcity of resources and he is going to survive anyway. The other lions survive because of their skill but he survives because of my “subsidies”. But the problem of this sort of help is that it is distortive and goes against natural laws, and if I have to leave again my lion to the laws of nature, he is the very first to die, why? It is shown that when animals no longer have to rely on their efforts to survive, they become idle, they lose the skill necessary for hunting and they will die as soon as you leave them again to the harsh condition of their environment.

Though it may sound counterintuitive, giving easy money to the poor or unemployed will only hurt them because they’ll lose the incentive to develop a skill in doing a job, they’ll lose the incentive to work, that is due to the fact that they are already assured against the uncertainties of the future. Imagine that there is somebody I know that I always give him enough money for his basic needs, do you think that this latter will ever think about developing a skill in doing anything? We humans are predisposed to seek comfort and to avoid work and tiredness, and to not put this person in the situation of being obliged to do something to live will certainly hurt him in the long run. (NB: this is not to say that we ought not to help others in need or that we should leave someone starve to death, it is only to point out to the forms of help that are likely to harm rather than help) .

Providing subsidies for art is probably the most immoral act I’ve seen governments ever do. As there is nothing more precious to me than enjoying pure and authentic artistic creations and also there is nothing that tortures me more than being obliged to see or hear the low quality and degenerate art. It is a betrayal to taste and a betrayal to real artists to subsidize art. Why? Because once you subsidize art, it is no longer taste and quality what determines what art should be sold and what art should be forgotten. It is because of the bureaucratic and cronyism that is prevailing in the domain of art these days that useless “artists”, that I am even willing to pay to avoid their stupid and low quality noise, are supplying their productions and labeling it art. It is true that true art emanates from a passion and a desire that transcends all our material endeavors but an artist cannot count on his passion alone to survive and if he is not gaining anything from it, he is very likely to forget about his talent and go find another job. When you support low quality pseudo art, you are impeding the market mechanism that will allow real art to be seen. It is true that art is a matter of taste and I know that probably my standards when it comes to art are very high to the point that I am sure that what the market will judge to be art, in my eyes will not be sufficiently enough to be judged so. Despite that, I am sure that our state of artistic productions will be much better if we get rid of government indoctrination oriented art. We should let our tastes and what we are really willing to pay for determine what should be qualified as art.
Take the case of the lion and replace it with an "artist” and you’ll see clearly what I mean.

My problems with conservatism: an introduction

When one speaks of Conservatism, it pops up in the mind all the ideologies defended by the right wing. But here I don’t only want to criticize “conservatism” or “the right wing political philosophy”, since one cannot speak of a unifying framework of all these, there is many nuances among right wingers, to the extent that my political views have been described as part of the right wing. I firmly refuse any group classification and I consider myself neither left, nor right. I am neither a right wing anarchist, nor a classical liberal. I don’t hold any political stance that is easy describable by the direction toward which it aims pushing its ideas. I don’t think it is possible to conceive a societal arrangement upon which we can build a political theory that its ultimate end is the construction of such a society. Society is interwoven by an endless number of interacting phenomena, and no matter how “apparently” accurate your theory is, you cannot a priori know what the outcome would be if your so called “politics” has been implemented. You might think that if such and such had been implemented, then such and such had to be the outcome, but there is no reason whatsoever to believe that this is the case. Social institutions have been shaped by the spontaneous interaction of individuals and the laws of cultural selection. To have a clear political stance, is already a sort of belief, because it implies that you think some ideas are sacred and should be defended and imposed on society. Suppose for example that I say I am a classical liberal, it follows that all my conclusions must conform to the already established philosophy of classical liberalism and this, in my view, is unscientific, since, I believe, that I don’t know what’s the best for society and I cannot and will never know for sure, and accordingly, in the same way a scientist cannot say that he knows, for instance, that the multiverse theory is a truth -- and all his scientific research blindly pushes only the arguments in favor of his view and dismisses anything that runs against it--,  I cannot hold a view that all my arguments should only support its predefined political stance; the basic and most rational stance – and the wisest indeed – is that I don’t know and I should consider every single issue separately,  neutralized from any a priori ‘political influence’  and then conclude what should be the right thing to do in its regards. I believe that things should be fixed from bottom to up instead of the other way around. Instead of having a political philosophy that says such and such, I prefer pointing out to the flaws of already existing political philosophies and whenever one proposes a politics or whatever social political program, it is my chief task to tell him what he ignores and what he got wrong, my task is like the task of nature, I help selecting what’s best for us. We should concentrate on every single issue and solve it at the most decentralized way possible. For instance, I can know that project x is a waste of resources and that the right way to provide better alternatives for problem y is such and such, because when things are seen by the eyes of a close observer, at least, he can weigh the underlying components much better and he has direct access to both the roots and solutions of the problem. If, indeed, this philosophy is what’s guiding our morality of building a better society, then certainly, without any planned decision coming from above, either from a dictator or elected representatives, we’ll have the right formula for social harmony – whatever that maybe.

The biggest problem facing any political philosophy and probably the source of all conflicts among political groups is “valuation”. To put it otherwise, it is to find an answer to the question: what is the ideal that society should employ its resources to achieve? If we have different ideals – different valuations of social aims – then certainly we will not agree on what should be our best social arrangement.

Conservatives think that there are moral values and traditions that are absolute and therefore preserving them – even by the power of law – is essential. The problem of whether there is a solution to the question of “what ought to be” is not my concern here, but I cannot pass without a quick reminder. It is established in the domain of normative knowledge that there are no scientific answers to the “what ought to be” questions. For the sake of argument, if we take the colors “red” and “white” and attempt to make a value judgment to know which one is better for coloring our home fronts then it is easy to simply assert that it is a matter of taste and it is up to every person to make his own value judgments. When it comes to easy problems like this, it is easy to say that taste is subjective and it is up to the individual, not society, to decide what’s better. But when suddenly we jump to societal issues, conservatives’ fear of change begins to show on the roof. And they conclude, somehow, that individuals don’t know what’s best for them and in consequence they need guidance from above, from an above power that has the wisdom to make value judgments for the rest, since, people are fools and their the value judgments they make for themselves are not in their own interest. This is pretty much the view also held by traditionalists, who think that society needs a sort of transcendental superpower to guide it, a sort of spirit that unifies a desire within their psyches to strive for the overall good of the nation and halts the degenerate morality. What makes a person better qualified to make better value judgments for the others? And how can one ensure that the actions made as a consequence of such value judgments are really better for the overall good of society? This view, in my opinion is exactly conform to the view held by liberals and progressives, because they, too, think they can know what’s better for people and that maybe people always are wrong when it comes to managing their own affairs. In brief: both the left and the right are collectivists who promote group thinking.

If we allow more liberty, conservatives and reactionaries think that, inevitably, people are foolish and will run after the futile ends of mortal life. People are like animals, they are like sheep to be looked after, they need a force, a wise force to guide them, this enlightened soul, somehow, by a divine law, is superior and assigned by god the decrees to monitor its subjects – they think. What a nonsensical idea is that?

Why my conservative friends think if society is left to behave according to its spontaneous order will necessarily degenerate? How do they define such state of being? What if what they view as degenerate morality is a mere adaptation to the ongoing inevitable change in society? Why they think that what worked in a point of time in which the living standards were devastatingly miserable should work in our nowadays world?

If society is arranged according to their view, following the tyranny of the masses by imposing a universal morality and the individual is repressed and smashed under the forces of tyrannical mass oppression – which is very likely to happen –, then should we consider this worth it for the sake of protecting society from ‘la décadence’?

Economically speaking, the right is no different than the left, right wingers believe in a strong military that should be supported by the tax payer regardless of his will and they believe that capitalism is evil and it needs to be monitored from above. They believe that restricting free trade by taxing domestic consumers is good for the nation as a whole – there is nothing more nonsensical than this. Right wingers too, are likely to think that maybe your guns should be taken from you, since you poor citizen don’t know how to use it for your own sake better than your supposed masters. They don’t mind issuing laws against the peaceful exchange of drugs and other substances that are in their view a threat to morality.

As I already said, not all right wingers believe this, there are among them who hold more liberal views than others.

Why women should not be feminists and rather defend masculinity?

As absurd as it may sound, the war on masculinity is going to destroy the very feminine. And that would ultimately lead to the destruction of women's many acquired rights. Men are masculine for a reason, that is, they have acquired masculine traits through a complex process during a tremendous amount of time. Nature shaped men to be masculine, not to oppress anybody, but quite the opposite, men's masculine traits major purpose is the protection of their wives, tribe and offspring. Today's society is organized artificially -- that is, we no longer have the state of spontaneous order -- and that's why feminists fail to see the purpose of masculinity and rather view it as a threat to equality. Now, it is our organized institutions that are supposed to protect everybody and no one expects anything from a man, but, ironically, nature is nature and unconsciously expect men to be men. 

Again, it is the genius of Nietzsche that opened our eyes to the fatal mistake of thinking that the thing and its opposite are exclusive. Feminists are misguided by their ignorance that for women to be equal, and to acquire equal rights as men, they somehow should attack masculine values and the traditional structure of institutions, because, in their view, these values/institutions are what are excluding women from being equal to men. Some of them are aware that the thing originates in its opposite, -- i.e. men are masculine because women are feminine and the other way around --and they are managing to pursue another plan: to attack both the feminine and the masculine -- no wonder almost all feminists are either females with masculine traits or males with no masculinity at all and both are excluded from the mating market. The problem of these social constructionists -- since being man or woman is a mere social construct according to their view (RIP science) -- is that they want to mess with the current structure of social institutions artificially using the power of legislation. They want to end the patriarchy. This is a mistake -- a disastrous mistake, because this view does not take into account the future consequences of what might happen. The prediction concerning very complex social phenomena is very difficult and usually one ends getting the opposite of what he had been planning. To view men and women as blank pages that are easy to write whatever you want on them is absolutely stupid and naive. We are humans and far complex than mere machines or parts of a chess game to be messed with. I am very concerned that their plans will lead to the opposite of what they think: instead of reducing violence in society, we'll have more totalitarianism and more violence. Instead of harmony, equality and respect, we'll have chaos, discrimination and oppression. Please note that I am not stating whether men or women who will suffer more from these malicious sicknesses because obviously everybody will suffer. 

Feminists think that if the distinction among males and females is removed from language and social institutions, then, necessarily, the systematic sexism would be vanished. I don't buy that, and I think this is an over simplistic way to look at both men and women and it deprives them from any meaning that they might wish to pursue. Our subjective wellbeing (anyways, any wellbeing is subjective) depends partly on how our psyches are shaped evolutionary. And any deviations from our nature might result in a negative impact on our wellbeing. 

My problem with feminism is that it thinks that it can use the power of the law and legislation to achieve its ends. Without any scientific research whatsoever on how all this drama will end, they expect a utopian egalitarianism between men and women. Men and women are not the same to be compared in the first place. And speaking of equality is misleading. When I say equality I mean that the law should be indifferent regarding our sex but feminists talk about equality of outcome which I think is almost impossible to be achieved and we have strong evidence for that. Needless to say, I definitely think that the law should deal with people only as individuals. Feminists don't want to let the society function according to its spontaneous order. If men and women are really neutralized from any social construct, and then left to behave naturally, they surely will end up in a structure similar to the one we have today and any interruption with this spontaneous order can only result in a worse off situation for both women and men. 

To where feminism is taking us is beyond my scope of knowledge, but there is a number of things that are absolutely clear where they're leading us. I see nature as a corrector of the deviations from the path that it is writing for us. Once we deviate from its ultimate purpose, we shall be willing to bear the correcting consequences. Attacking masculinity will certainly destabilize males. They'll no longer feel satisfied with the new altered situation. That is, the male psyche is primarily shaped for specific ends, and how it functions to achieve those ends is the problem feminism can't see. Males are designed to be competitive and today's enforced equality is holding them off. Males are less and less likely to get into higher studies and this is a problem. A society of failing men is a society of violence. The resentment that men will feel when they are in the lower level of social hierarchy will certainly push them to be aggressive and criminal and especially toward women. That is because they are judged very badly by women. Why a woman would want to bother with a loser? If men suffer, women suffer too. I've never seen a man who's successful interrupting anybody's way but losers do it all the time. Feminism now instead of looking for the root of our problems, they seek to mess with legislation and make things only worse childishly. They may cure for the very short run few problems but in the long run things are certainly becoming worse. 

Feminists are neither driven by logic or science nor the desire for real equality; and I will not advance the arguments pushed by many alt right and men's rights movements to counter feminists pretensions of equality, since these arguments are ridiculous as well. Some men's movements usually state, whenever feminists ask for equality in high paying jobs, that it is men who do the uneasy risky hard jobs and therefore equality for women means sharing men these jobs: men drive huge machines, and build huge buildings, roads, bridges and almost everything, that is, according to men's rights movements, men literally created civilization. Of course I don't say that activists of men’s movements are wrong when stating these things. And they are right when they say that this is hard work, how could that be a "white privilege"? My problem with these movements is that they are as stupid as feminists. The reason that I don't buy this is that, just like feminists, they think of people as part of a group (males or females) and I think of people only as individuals. 

I think through this little essay I have succeeded to show that we can only speak of human rights -- human natural rights. 

Those envious full of hatred and resentment who speak about equality in high paying jobs need to be schooled in basic economics.

The metaphysics of happiness

 "Ask yourself if you're happy and you cease to be so" - John Stuart Mill

 Humans endeavor is mysterious, and how we run after things is no less unclear. The most mysterious and strange thing we have ever come to encounter is certainly our own self. The self – whatever it maybe – is what defines who we are, it is the responsible why often people struggle with life, it’s the cause why they complain about its meaningless nature. We are conscious beings, that is, we know what it means to be happy, and we can tell how horrible it is to suffer. For me, it is this realization that makes everything matters, either good or bad.

You can doubt everything, you can be skeptic about being, but I doubt that anybody doubts the feeling of suffering. You might think that the feeling of happiness, the feeling of being in love and the feeling of serenity are mere delusions but not the feeling of pain and suffering. In my view, this is the first building block to argue for our being. It is this feeling what pushes people to think that life is pointless, to prefer not being over being, to think that the best for us is to not be born at all, because, as pessimistic philosophy pointed out, life is nothing but a journey of suffering and a struggle for survival.

You might expect to hear it only from nihilists but I heard it from all sorts of people. According to materialist nihilists, it is impossible to make any sense of life if it is the result of cold, deterministic, uncaring interactions between matter and energy. What meaning could one assign to trajectories of particles that are describable with mathematical equations? Accordingly, if you sum up the huge number of atoms of your body and how the particles forming them interact with each other and with the world surrounding you, then can you tell who are you? Aren't you anything but a ghost inhabiting these atoms and deluded by your "consciousness". Probably, atheists think, one day, we'll be able to describe the immense number of matter particles in the whole universe with precise models and come to see everything as mere simulation and inevitable deterministic fate of matter and energy. If that is the case, then what's happiness for us? What's pain? What does it mean that we are obliged to face all these different emotions through our lifetime, since nothing is a choice? If you hold this world view, you definitely think there is nothing you can do and everything is imposed on you.  There is no escape that whatever emotion you experience, be it joy or pain, is an inescapable fate. And therefore you realize that the point of living is meaningless in the first place. I understand the position of this philosophy, despite my conviction that it is a naïve and coward way to see life.

If nihilists have their reasons, what about religious people? Is it possible to be a nihilist religious? Indeed, Buddhism and a lot of ancient mythologies have recognized that life is suffering. To overcome this suffering one should transcend his own nature, that is, to devote himself to a greater purpose that is worth the suffering. The whole foundation of religion and the metaphysics of meaning are somehow predicated on this idea – to transcend human nature.

What’s the purpose of belief if it does not provide you with meaning? If metaphysics can't save you from the hell of being drown in nihilism, then there must be something wrong with it – psychologically speaking. People presuppose that the meaning they ought to find is “happiness” and as long as they haven’t found it, then, they think life must be meaningless. No religion ever tells you that the point of your life is to be happy.

The problem of both religious and nonreligious people is that they ask the wrong questions. They want to be happy and they ask what they shall do to be happy. I see dozens of posts on Facebook, I hear many advices from friends and I encounter it a lot in magazines, all, they give advices on how to be happy. Happiness is the ultimate goal of all simpleminded people.

We want to be happy and we want to maintain that feeling. Happiness is nothing but the result of your reward system. When you get something that enhances your chances of survival, you feel happy, when you don’t, you feel the other way around. Even if your reward system is responding to a favorable situation, after a short time the feeling vanishes away. Happiness in the mind of the simple minded intellect is purely a physical thing.

When you are involved in questioning and discovering, to the point that you forget yourself, you forget that you are hungry and need to eat, you forget that you are wasting a chance of mating with “highly desired mate” and when you no longer care what car you’re driving or what home you’re living in, then, you have figured the secret of happiness. Intellectual curiosity is full of mysteries and inquiries; it satisfies a desire in you that is transcending your whole nature.   Your primitive reward system no longer tricks you and you are no longer naïve to track “happiness” because you are already happy and you should not ask yourself if you’re happy.