Understanding Opposites vs. Absences · 2:51am Mar 21st, 2016
TL;DR 1: Pay attention when thinking about the opposite of a word. Is it really the opposite, or is it merely the absence of the thing itself?
TL;DR 2: Chinchillax gets introspective using charts.
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So I was on the wonderful strange wondrange part of the internet and I came across a concept that I could not reconcile with myself. What is the opposite of happiness?
Tim Ferris answered this question as follows:
What is the opposite of happiness? sadness? No. Just as love and hate are two sides of the same coin, so are happiness and sadness. Crying out of happiness is a perfect illustration of this. The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is—here's the clincher—boredom.
I want to agree... but I feel like "opposite" is a different concept entirely when talking about the absence of something.
It's kind of like light. The opposite of light isn't dark, as dark is merely the absence of light.(Man, there are a lot of cool story ideas to take that concept)
And it's the same thing with Love and Hate. There's a sliding scale of love vs. hate, but way out of nowhere is indifference.
When thinking about opposites, it's really a triad of "the concept" vs. "it's polar opposite" vs. "absence of the concept." Now I've never heard of this triad idea before from anyone else. This is just my linguistic observation.
Has anyone come across this idea before?
Regardless, back to the original argument. While I don't necessarily think the opposite of happiness is boredom, the absence of happiness may be boredom.
Actually I gotta argue with myself there. I don't think I've been bored in years. I am constantly, unceasingly, aggravatingly busy. And one can't be bored when one is busy? Right? So if I'm not bored, I'm happy, right?
Upon self-reflection, I have to disagree. I don't really feel happy. Or at least I don't think I feel happy. Maybe there's some subjectiveness to that. But what is happiness anyway? If I could define that better, that would make this entire process much easier. But people's definitions of happiness are radically different from each other anyway, so it's not like anyone else can tell me what makes me happy. (Though the entire advertising industry loves to tell otherwise.)
Perhaps the problem is that "busy" doesn't necessarily mean "productive." I feel busy all the time with school and work projects that don't particularly enthuse me, but I do them anyway for sociological/pride reasons. To feel "productive" I need to be working on my own art/writing projects that excite me in some way.
Actually, following that same flow. Busyness counters boredom, but can lead to sadness just as much as it can lead to happiness. So... in conclusion I should... be more productive? Hmm... I'm not sure where I was going with this self-reflection.
Well anyway, after thinking long and hard about opposites vs. absences, I've come up with a bunch of examples/ways I'm wrong.
I'm curious if you guys can think of more of these concept/opposite/absence triads.
Maybe:
Talking - listening - silence?
Healthy - sickly - dead?
More triads:
Honesty - ignorance - lying
Kindness - apathy - cruelty
Generosity - disinterest - greed
Loyalty - indifference - betrayal
Of course, this is just a human attempt to categorize the world. Occasionally a helpful pursuit, but likely full of unknown unknowns.
I've sort of heard of this triad idea somewhere before, but not so rigidly defined. It may be useful for properly defining and organizing certain things, but there's one thing that I see that would break it down at certain times. "Absence" is the opposite of "Presence," therefore if ever a thing or concept is defined by the presence of something (hydrated–the presence of water), its absence would necessarily also be its opposite.
Perhaps, then, to say boredom is the opposite of happiness is to define happiness as the presence of something that elicits that emotion or the presence of the emotion itself. And to say sadness is the opposite of happiness is to define happiness (and sadness) as an uninfluenceable state of being that you are either in or not.
I have no idea if my little ramble there means anything to anyone. It is 5:18 AM and I have not slept. (Also, "uninfluenceable" totally should be a real word ><).
1 <-----> 0
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the computer
is off
There are times, I think, when it makes sense for "absence" and "opposite" to be identical. Some comparisons, as you rightly point out here, are not binary. I don't think their existence invalidates every binary comparison.
I am glad that I bookmarked this when I saw it (I was too busy when this came out to read it). I like mathematics, so it seems to me that many of your triads, rather than forming triangles, should be linear:
-1, 0, +1
assisting, ignoring, hindering.