"Ambition" calculation

The ancients of China regarded "determination" as a major event in life, and even directly said that "if one is not determined, nothing can be accomplished in the world". But the strange thing is that the ancients never respected "promotion to get rich" as a life ambition, and always regarded some seemingly mysterious and empty "becoming a saint", "family country and world", and "seeking truth and truth" as alternatives for ambition. The most classic aspirational model is Zhang Zai's "Four Sentences of Hengqu": to establish the heart for the heaven and the earth, to establish the destiny for the life and the people, to continue the unique learning for the sages of the past, and to create peace for the world.

One question is, is it too metaphysical, too hypocritical, and unrealistic to take such a thing as an ambition? Is this a brainwashing tool of the ruling class in order to fish the common people more easily?

Perhaps, this is all.

But what is interesting is that if we examine such "determination" behavior from an extremely pragmatic and utilitarian perspective, we will find that it may be the most profound realistic calculation.

The reason why "Ambition" is important is because the "Ambition" you define directly determines where your sense of achievement and happiness in life comes from. Depending on whether the "ambition" is fulfilled, you will gain "happiness" or "frustration", "joy" or "depression", "enrichment" or "vainness".

If "aspiration" is defined as "name" or "profit", then this cornerstone of life must be fragile. First of all, these two things are not like learning, which can be achieved in a step-by-step manner, in a deterministic manner. Under the combination of "knowledge/vision + luck + assets", you often face two huge setbacks:

• You can't get any substantial wealth or power back from your years of hard work.
• Others may, without any substantial effort, get the return of wealth/power for a lifetime or even several lifetimes at one time just because of a good background or the luck of catching up with the times.

That is, the game can suddenly become a champion without laying any solid foundations. But he may not even have the chance to squeeze into the edge of the "winning layer" in the down-to-earth accumulation. The former makes you jealous of the unearned rewards of others, while the latter makes you feel disheartened about your hard work.

And what's worse, if you stop paying down-to-earth and start looking for unearned opportunities because of this, you will find yourself stepping directly across zero poverty and straight to debt-ridden hell at an even faster pace.

What's more, unless your life is over, even if you get a medal of fame/fortune, there are countless opportunities for fate to let you lose the big prize you won, return to zero, and then move towards the path of beings who are heavily indebted.

Such rules of the game are doomed to the uncertainty and uncontrollability of "name" and "profit". How can one gain any happiness or a sense of accomplishment?

Next, let's examine "name" and "profit" from a more abstract perspective. From an empirical point of view, they are all manifestations of the material world, closer to the falsifiability of science . If your foundation is "falsifiable", that means it is always vulnerable because it is always possible to overthrow it.

How can something so uncertain and fragile become your "ambition"? And if you unfortunately choose them as your life goals, it's basically doomed to the tragedy of your life.

Let's look at the ancients' choice of "aspiration"? From an abstract point of view, they are metaphysical, closer to the formal logic of mathematics , and are naturally "unfalsifiable".

Destiny can make you wander, it can prevent you from being promoted and rich, but it can't stop you from being a saint and pursuing the care of your family, country and world. No matter how deep the suffering you have experienced, it cannot stop you from continuing to seek truth and truth, and it cannot stop you from continuing to care for others with the greatest compassion. No matter how powerful the outside world is, it cannot stop you from defining your own "aspiration". No one else can deprive you of the power to define the beliefs on which you depend, no matter how sinister the heart may be.

This metaphysical belief that no one or any external world can deprive or falsify is the only thing you can absolutely control. Taking it as an "ambition" is really a shrewd calculation of pros and cons. In this way, your sense of happiness and achievement will not be deprived by the outside world.

You might say, this seems a bit like self-brainwashing? Well, yes, this method is not unfamiliar. In fact, the so-called "cult" idea is constructed by selecting a few ideas that can be argued in a circular manner and can never be falsified. But what I want to say is that this does not prevent us from absorbing its essence to forge spiritual tools defined by ourselves to solve the problem of whether the foundation of ambition is firm.

Speaking of brainwashing, is it not a form of brainwashing to "pursue progress and become bigger and stronger"? Who is brainwashing you? The brainwashing of species by natural selection. In order for a population to continue to reproduce, it must be genetically implanted with the "pursuit of progress" that has no reason to believe. Such implantation of brainwashing is undoubtedly beneficial to the entire population, but it is uncertain whether it is beneficial to each individual population. We can learn from the wisdom of natural selection and re-implant more solid brainwashing in ourselves, so that we can spend our hard-earned life more happily and with a sense of accomplishment.

Going a step further, this brainwashing by redefining one's own "aspiration" is actually a form of self-protection that is second to none. As long as you can achieve fame and fortune "through restlessness, by setting goals for how much money you make, and by increasing the weight of earning/claiming power in your life", I would encourage you to let it go. But as we discussed earlier, life is not such a deterministic and controllable game.

Faced with a random game, you either lose your rationality and fight desperately against the randomness of the game; or you accept the randomness of the game, and organize your own state of mind by redefining your goals/aspiration to keep yourself rational.

Do you want to choose an "irrational" random fight, trying to beat the old master to death? It should be noted that the end of "irrational" is not a simple return to zero, it can also allow you to go in the "negative direction" endlessly.

In order to give a stop in the tough random game of life, you have to be rational.

And if you're willing to choose to "stay rational," an essential step is to stay in a good mood. And a good mood depends entirely on what you define as "aspiration". In this way, the above-mentioned brainwashing/redefinition of aspirations, which seems to be the dross of feudal society, is essential.

At this point, we should be able to realize that the ancients used metaphysical criteria such as “being a saint”, “family and world”, and “seeking truth and truth” as the choice of “aspiration”. Whether your life is happy or not is actually decided the moment you define your "aspiration". If "aspiration" is properly defined, then the wind and rain are the nectar.

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