Mindcoolness

Let There Be True Will

What Does It Mean to Be a Man? (MPC#73 with Timothy Wenger)

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In this special episode of the Mindcoolness podcast, I talk with Timothy Wenger (@themaneffect) about the concept of masculinity. He's a great guy with a great project (themaneffect.com), and although our conversation is all over the place because we had too many ideas to talk about, it will give you numerous impulses for thinking about his project's guiding question: What does it mean to be a man? Episode Overview [0:00] Introduction and greetings [1:39] What is The Man Effect? [2:42] … [Read more...]

Against Morality & Ethics

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The Primacy of Will It doesn't matter what I think is moral, or what other people think is moral. All that matters is what I want, what other people want, and how we can cooperate to get what we want. That is the primacy and sociality of human volition. So let us replace ethical language with volitional language: Ask not, "Should I do this?" but "Do I truly want to do this?" Ask not, "Does this make me a good person?" but "Does this reflect my True Will?" (The True Will is what … [Read more...]

Against Values & Principles

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The Human Will Humans want to survive and flourish, to live and live well, to be and be well: Well-being is a combination of pleasure and meaning in life. Humans want to feel good and fulfilled. They want hedonic and eudaemonic happiness; some more of the pleasure part, others more of the meaning aspect. A good life is a positive well-being balance over a lifetime. If, on your deathbed, you were to look back at every moment you have lived, summing up all your pleasures and pains, all … [Read more...]

Do You Have Meaning in Life? (Take This Quiz!)

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Eudaemonic Well-Being There are two types of happiness: Pleasure is short-term happiness: the hedonic feeling we enjoy while we're present to the moment. Meaning is long-term happiness: the eudaemonic sense we enjoy while we're aware of our purpose and belonging in life. In this blog post, I want to introduce some recent research on meaning in life, which rests on one key conceptual distinction. But before I expand on the distinction, I want you to take a little quiz that shows you … [Read more...]

How to Get on Your Path and Stay on It

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Do you sometimes have goals, but not enough drive and motivation to achieve them? Do you sometimes have plans, but not enough grit and perseverance to go through with them? Do you sometimes have dreams, but not enough guts and energy to make them reality? How can you get on your path and stick to it? Know that whenever you quit or even fail to start, you didn't want it badly enough. That's a simple truth. So it seems that all you can do is to fatalistically accept your state of will, whatever … [Read more...]