StoBud Philosophy

Both the Stoics and Buddhist claim to offer happiness, contentment, serenity, and the like. When we examine their philosophies, at first they are so different, yet eerily similar in so many areas. Yet looking further, they are not mutually exclusive. So what would a merger of the two look like. Patrick Ussher and Ronald W. Pies, and others have separately explored this.

What would the objective ultimately be? To develop a correct philosophy to live that would produce a flourishing peaceful life. As we know now, it is all about what we think, not about the way it actually is, relative to others. If we are happy sitting on a stump by a fire, and are willing to work enough to keep that fire going, we can be happy. Personally, I need a warm house, enough food, and enough to do to keep my mind off food. My social needs are low but I do need a bit more that I am currently getting... oh well. The internet makes up for that.

Point 1. It is about what we think, our expectations over actual, or our satisfaction index. If the ratio is greater than one, our expectations are less than actual, then we are happy. If the actual does not reach our expectations, the ration is less than one and we are unhappy.

There are two parts to this satisfaction index, the actual which we do not control but only influence, and our expectations, which we have absolute control over, so the Stoics say, and seems to be true. There is no reason that we cannot be happy almost all the time, within reason. We may have periods of adjustment, when we need to adjust our thinking to the new reality.

First we must accept that we are animals first and human second. The physical capacity is limited, we get tired, sick, and in the end we die. We have no control over this, regardless of what high energy hype grues say. There are always those who sell hope and other forms of false information. Reality is the world is filled with evil bastards, and we must avoid these predators, approximately one third of the population. These animal humans do not think of themselves as bad people, if they think about behavior at all. They just take and are happy, greedy, and living off the work of others. They may only be part time evils, but we need to identify and avoid heavy exposure to these, if we are ethical, and hold ethical values.

Point 2, we live in a real evil world time, and all is beyond our control. Both philosophy systems make these points. That which is common to both systems is likely correct, that which is not common is somewhat questionable, or just assumed in the other system. These come from two very different cultures. Any culture has a bunch of common assumed foundation beliefs, and if these are right, these often go unstated, when they are wrong, the philosophy covers it over. Merging two philosophies requires uncovering and merging the assumed unstated foundation beliefs. Therein lies the difficulty.