The Important Way

What is the opposite of happiness? Sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness… The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is – here’s the clincher – boredom… The question you should be asking isn’t ‘What do I want?’ or ‘What are my goals?’ but ‘What would excite me?’… Living like a millionaire requires doing interesting things and not just owning enviable things.

Timonthy Ferris
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Alive

People should live in a world that fully engages their senses, their bodies, and their brains.  This means either that the world resembles the ancestral savanna more than say a windowless office; or alternatively, that brains and bodies have changed to be fully engaged by different kinds of complicated challenges and environments.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
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Novelty

Life should contain novelty – experiences you haven’t encountered before, preferably teaching you something you didn’t already know.  If there isn’t a sufficient supply of novelty (relative to the speed at which you generalize), you’ll get bored.

Eliezer Yudkowsky
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