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.

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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.