What would a life without any wants look like? — schopenhauer1

A coma.

Carefree, I would say.

Even jellyfish want light.

What would a life without any wants look like? — schopenhauer1

A badly written tombstone.

Even a coma wants life support...

:roll:

Thanks...don't you just love pedantry?

:smirk:

What would a life without any wants look like? Is this like purely tranquil sitting and never getting up? — schopenhauer1

No. It's not like that. I can speak about it. Tranquil, yes. But the day to day things you want to do, you do it without anxiety or worry. You sleep better at night. You have more energy.

You see things that need to be done -- oh, the birds want refuge under the canopy with the water sprinkler. I'll turn it on. Or the brush needs trimming. It's things you do at the moment. I hope this makes sense.

Edit: I spoke about it briefly in another thread that I took a hiatus in isolation.

I want not a life without wants. But I want not to have too many wants. It's a matter of balance.

What would a life without any wants look like? — schopenhauer1

Even jellyfish want light. — Banno

And yeast wants sugar. But there is a difference between the wants that are cellular urges towards needs, and wants that are ideas of the mind created by thought and projected as a better life.
It is the difference between 'enough is as good as a feast' and 'enough is never enough'.

The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies,
by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.
If people lack knowledge and desire,
then intellectuals will not try to interfere.
If nothing is done, then all will be well — Tao Te Ching, ch3

What would a life without any wants look like? — schopenhauer1

A life without fear of dying. If you don't want anything and you don't have any purpose in life, why would you keep living?

It's in the logic of wanting that we should want not to want, as the ostensible goal of wanting, satisfaction, extinguishes want. But yeah, seems like consciousness just is fundamentally want or the subject is, along Lacanian (and Zizekian-- hey hey @Mikie ) lines, a lack or hole in reality representing desire because filling it in fills our own graves.

And yeast wants sugar. But there is a difference between the wants that are cellular urges towards needs, and wants that are ideas of the mind created by thought and projected as a better life. — unenlightened

:up: Reprojections maybe. Halls of ideological mirrors here. I wonder though if even your distinction can be perverted by our social puppetmasters pulling on our cilia.

What would a life without any wants look like? — schopenhauer1

I live as close to a life without wants as I ever have or ever will again. Not rich but enough money to live on with the things that matter to me. A house with the mortgage paid. No debt. No desire for expensive things. A 10 year old car that runs well. Reasonably good health. Health insurance. Loved and admired by the semi, sort of philosophy community.

Now that I don't have to do things any more, I pay more attention to why I do the things I do. It takes some getting used to. That's what's good about having a life without wants - lots of time to pay attention.

From "Break out from the Crystal Palace" by John Carroll, which I happen to be reading.
[Describing the views of Dostoevsky] "Soon there will be no more adventure, finally no more action, not only will man lose his free will but amongst the graphs, test tubes and timetables he will stop desiring. Desire depends on the unplanned, intense passion, on the fleeting paradoxical unknown."

Then there's Nietzsche's unflattering depiction of the man stripped of wants in his parable of The Last Man.

It ain't all wine and roses.

It's in the logic of wanting that we should want not to want, as the ostensible goal of wanting, satisfaction, extinguishes want. But yeah, seems like consciousness just is fundamentally want or the subject is, along Lacanian (and Zizekian-- hey hey Mikie ) lines, a lack or hole in reality representing desire because filling it in fills our own graves. — Baden

Schopenhauer has always had the best writing on this phenomena:

In a world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change; where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope—in such a world, happiness is inconceivable. How can it dwell where, as Plato says, continual Becoming and never Being is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with masts and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over. — Schopenhauer- The Vanity of Existence

Ascetic movements and religious practice seem to reify quietude of the "will" which I take to be essentially, lowering wants to a minimum. Pascal also said something about how all problems come from not being able to sit still in a room.

I see the opposite phenomena in flow states. It is total engagement in something interesting. There is not doing anything but being AT PEACE WITH IT. And there is doing something so engaging you are ENGROSSED IN IT. But they seem to be sort of polar ends of the self-help / guru mill of philosophy, therapy, and the like. You better find something that engrosses you! You better be more mindful and at peace with just being!

How about none of it?

Wants are all life is.

But they seem to be sort of polar ends of the self-help / guru mill of philosophy, therapy, and the like. You better find something that engrosses you! You better be more mindful and at peace with just being! — schopenhauer1

I disagree. The shallow end of flow is music and dance. Breath and movement and sound are the same rhythm, and thought is absent. Meditation is the same thing a cappella. To be 'in time', moving at the speed of time is to be fully present, whereas to be in thought is to be absent, in the past, and in the imagination of the future. Wanting is the centre of thought, wanting to be elsewhere and elsewhen, doing and being and having what is not.

How about none of it? — schopenhauer1

How about none of that?

Wanting is the centre of thought, wanting to be elsewhere and elsewhen, doing and being and having what is not. — unenlightened

Ok sure.

How about none of that? — unenlightened

Well one major takeaway here is if you were content in the here and now you don't need to do activities that engross you. Engrossing means you are not content now, but you need to "catch the rhythm" to go with your music analogy.

Things that eventually bring about flow states, are in stark contrast to the contentedness of not having wants in the first place.

Engrossing means you are not content now, but you need to "catch the rhythm" to go with your music analogy. — schopenhauer1

Indeed, but that's not how it happens. If you set out to become engrossed, you never are, because you're always thinking about being engrossed, like Bart Simpson in the car endlessly asking, 'are we there yet?' There is no thought that will end the train of thought, but the train of thought can end.