Huh, I feel like you both changed topics midstream there?

I took your earlier post as saying that the ability to see the bigger picture leads to neurosis and unhappiness. But in replies, you're both talking like that ability lets someone figure out the game and solve for more happiness...?

Going back upstream, I'd say that the ability to "see the big picture" is not well defined. Part of it is abstraction and part of it is systems thinking and knowledge about additional activities going on in your world.

And, I think these are mostly orthogonal to a happiness. Your emotional disposition can cause you to see a very different valence in the same systems view.

> I took your earlier post as saying that the ability to see the bigger picture leads to neurosis and unhappiness.

Yes, that was the intention. What I perhaps failed to convey in my last reply is that simply having the mental capacity to “zoom out” on its own doesn’t mean that the individual in question is actually doing that, and that some other secondary condition (such as life experience or knowledge) is required. In my anecdote, I was missing some requirement until halfway through college.

> Going back upstream, I'd say that the ability to "see the big picture" is not well defined. Part of it is abstraction and part of it is systems thinking and knowledge about additional activities going on in your world.

> And, I think these are mostly orthogonal to a happiness. Your emotional disposition can cause you to see a very different valence in the same systems view.

I don’t think the two are entirely unrelated. I would expect that someone who’s more cerebral is going to be less influenced by their disposition, and in the case of someone stuck in a negative mental loop their disposition could be shifted if the loop goes unaddressed for too long.