1. Is it possible for people to be happy without God? Living without God means being ok with sinning and enjoying the short term sweets while falling to long term traps (sloth to poverty, lust to broken relationships, greed to insatiaty, etc.). It's probably impossible to be happy without God becauae these consequences wear people down. Life is like a game - whoever realizes this (wisdom) sooner gets to be happy.
2. One of core teachings of Jesus is "love others." This is in my head a lot these days - there are actually brief moments when I feel like I love people as God loves them - I see people, strangers and friends, and notice their unique qualities, from apperance to personalities, and they seem lovely and just right. I want to say good things, make jokes, feel pleasant, and enjoy their company in these short moments.
I feel like I got closer to understanding the nature and feeling of loving others. But the problem is the process of replicating this to make it as close to being permanent as it is possible. Most of the times, I am not in this "love mood" and notice people's flaws or size them up, which is like the exact opposite of God's evaluation of his creations. This applies to my perception towards others and also myself. Not good enough. How narcissistic is this really, to disagree with the creator's own flawless evaluations?
I feel like I am not alone, and many people struggle with this, but it seems like nobody else is interested in love, even Christians. It seems like nobody even tries to love people, despite this being one of the most essential teachings of Jesus. I think loving people is one of the most efficient ways to move nonbelievers' hearts - a single word with love is far more persuasive than a loveless lecture on dangers of hell.
I am thankful that I have this much figured out, and I want to try to understand the process of love better so I could be a more permanently loving person. I think it's my ego that usually gets in the way of remaining in the state of unconditional love - pride seems like the opposite of love, rather than hate. Pride is self-serving, which is the opposite of love.
3. I was reading Tversky and Kahneman's wikipedia biography. The most immediate reaction was to feel inadequate - after all, Kahneman was good enough to win a nobel prize in economics as a psychologist. But I was reminded that they aren't THAT special. I could be like them if I am brave and take consistent steps towards a lofty, rewarding goal. It's so easy to see greatness and be discouraged by it. Rappers quit rap because of beenzino, but they should not. Beenzino only looks great because he is great right now, which is a horrible depiction of his entire trajectory of his career from his amateur days. When people see greatness, they tend to overpraise it to remove the emotional cost of envy and inadequacy by trying to expand the psychological distance between themselves and the posessor of greatness (my theory lolz). But we should battle against this and take a deeper look into the steps to greatness.
