"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal

I try and think about this often.

Me too. I heard this phrase at maybe too young and age and took it completely literally, so it clouds my judgement of it a bit, but I still cannot shake the view that it is 100% on the money. The brain wants to "solve" your issues, ideas, hang-ups, anxieties, ("solve" because sometimes having no solution is the solution and that is valid) it just needs us to give it the space to meander through it. But we keep finding more and more novel ways to interfere and stop it from doing that most noblest of things.

As a related aside, that's why I continue to find it odd that many people take their phones when they're using the bathroom. Just further limiting the few places (with the shower being #1) where circumstances does force your brain to review and assess like it clearly wants to do.

▲

randycupertino 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Reminds me of the trend of "raw dogging flights" - ie no book, no TV, no music, no headphones. https://www.travelweek.ca/news/airlines/what-is-raw-dogging-...

▲

jjgreen 3 days ago | parent [-]

That means something rather different in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogging_(sexual_slang)

	▲	Cthulhu_ 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Oh no I'm sure the phrasing there is intentional.

▲

anonymous908213 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think it's very much worth thinking about. It's a pseudointellectual quip that sounds superficially insightful but which holds zero substance.

The overwhelming majority of humanity's problems, such as they might be described, stem from the biological drive to survive and procreate. The quip presupposes that man naturally has a room to sit quietly in; this is not the case. The procurement of a room to sit in requires a significant amount of effort. It can entail the securing of territory and building of the shelter oneself, or it can entail the education, advanced skill development, and daily labour required to pay to reap the results of other people having secured the territory and built the shelter. To say nothing of food, mating, and rearing of offspring.

Pascal was born well-to-do, so perhaps he was removed from the general human experience. He was provided with the room to sit quietly in by the efforts of others, and may never have had to work a day in his life, affording him the luxury to make that statement. He also did not marry or reproduce. If everyone had lived the life he lived, there would be no rooms to sit in and indeed no men to sit in them. Being charitable, I suppose it's true that if all mankind were to stop reproducing, there would shortly be no more problems for humanity on account of humanity no longer existing.

▲

cal_dent 3 days ago | parent [-]

just go to a park mate. an open field. an empty car park. everyone can find a place to sit or stop. no one has taken that away from you

▲

anonymous908213 3 days ago | parent [-]

I guess I can see how I didn't communicate clearly, but that was really not the point I was getting at. The point about the room is more that ordinary people need to acquire shelter and food to survive. If those things are not freely provided for them as they were for Pascal, their life will have many problems in the pursuit of those things. Meditating quietly in nature is all well and good, but doing so will hardly free you from all the problems that are associated with the pursuit of survival and/or procreation, and which make up the majority of human problems.

Pascal also stated...

> as we should always be, in the suffering of evils, in the deprivation of all the goods and pleasures of the senses, free from all the passions that work throughout the course of life, without ambition, without avarice, in the continual expectation of death

while going so far as rejecting medical care for an illness that eventually led to his death at a young 39. In other words, his attained enlightenment was suffering in the name of his religion to the point of dying. He certainly committed to his beliefs, but I don't find his form of enlightenment inspiring, and do not believe that humanity should strive to follow in his footsteps of fatal self-deprivation. The only way sitting quietly solves all of humanity's problems is if all of humanity commits to doing only that until they wither away and die without any pursuit of the things they need to survive. He framed it as giving up ambition and avarice, but even without ambition and avarice you will endure struggles merely to sustain yourself if you are not born into wealth. I, personally, am quite content dealing with those struggles and have no interest in solving them by dying prematurely as Pascal might prefer to do.

▲

cal_dent 3 days ago | parent [-]

shelter and food is not freely provided for the majority and a non-insignificant proportion of people are managing I'd say.

Yes, it's hyperbole, it literally will not get rid of all the problems but the ethos of the view is being conscious of your needs and your actions and you only truly get that by having the space to think. As opposed to just go go go and not taking a step back and implicitly treating your mind as a hostile place you need distraction from.

I'll throw in another quote that sits nicely with the Pascal quote, from Ursula Le Guin:

> Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive

just discrimination can only come from being comfortable to be with your thoughts, which can, but is not limited to, happen in a quiet room

	▲	anonymous908213 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think where we are not seeing eye-to-eye is our interpretation of his words. I don't take them to be hyperbole, given that he died practicing what he preached. He was an extreme ascetic who overcame his biological desires, including the very desire to survive. In one sense, that kind of mastery is an impressive feat. But I don't think that kind of mastery is beneficial to humanity or that people should strive to achieve the suppression of all their desires, including their will to survive. The second quote does not comport with Pascal, because Pascal was not advocating for a path that led to internal happiness, but rather the abandonment of the desire for happiness altogether. He believed that suffering on Earth was the purpose of being Christian and would lead to salvation through God.