Why Eudaimonia & Zen?

Eudaimonia translates roughly into happiness in ancient Greek. However, the deeper meaning is human flourishing. Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics starts his lecture with the argument that most things have a function and the function for humans is to achieve the highest state of human flourishing in accordance with reason. This pursuit is for its own sake.

Although I have my disagreements about some of Aristotle’s views, he sparked my interest in living the examined life where I took every ethics course in university (Honors Intro to Philosophy with a focus on Ethics, Intro to Ethics, Advanced Ethics, Human Nature & The Meaning of Life, Intro to Logic with a focus on Ethics). Underneath eudaimonia, I view effective altruism as being a core virtue. “Effective altruism is about using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis.” [CEA]

Building further on this foundation, I see the long run future as outweighing most other cause areas for my fit. I’m most interested in the long run future and believe there are many existing problems (global health, improving institutions) that still have shovel ready solutions. I’m personally driven more by increasing the chances I marginally improve the long run future. As of 2022, human life has never been better but our existential risks have also never been higher - eg risks from advanced AI, biorisk, nuclear risks. All of this creates the label of a longtermist. There are over 12,000 future-people for each person alive today or 125 quadrillion expected future persons.

Lastly, I spend a lot of my time thinking, reading, and working in a field that requires a lot of mental processing. It’s become somewhat clear that some philosophical questions don’t have a clean cut answer (free will, absolute moral truths etc). I believe it is worth tackling these while also wrestling with no thoughts through zen. I practice zazen daily and meet with a zen priest monthly. This practice has allowed the cultivation of meta-awareness or the ability to better direct my mind & attention. I believe this has allowed me to better accept reality, which includes the inability to accept reality & suffering as one of the four noble truths.

My practice then leads back to, “How can I reduce the world’s suffering?” for me and for others. Given that I’m in the Global Top 1% (and it’s very likely you are too if you’re reading this), I have immense luck purely based on where I was born - the United States of America. Granted, I was born into American Poverty to 19 year old parents, but this is still a much better situation than most people in the past & most people around the world. Therefore, my goal is to be the pareto best in the world and improving the long run future.

Finally, I don’t view myself as being that different from others. Meditation has led me to seeing human consciousness as the universe looking back at itself. Through my eyes (and yours), my seemingly unique experience fades away as being special and rests peacefully into what is, the Future Self. To me, the Future Self is a unified consciousness where all individual minds converge if allowed enough time to flourish. Paradoxically there can be multiple copies of this Future Self giving rise to the name of this blog: Future Selves.