Have Thais got it right, and we've got it wrong?

[ev1lchris]

Why worry about something if it doesn't directly affect you?

[wgdanson]

9 minutes ago, ev1lchris said:

Why worry about something if it doesn't directly affect you?

You mean like Donald Trump or Kim Jong Un? Or AIDS or gonorhea, or next door's daughter showing her cleavage..............Alfred E Neumann

Edited April 21, 2018 by wgdanson

[473geo]

10 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

You mean like Donald Trump or Kim Jong Un? Or AIDS or gonorhea, or next door's daughter showing her cleavage..............Alfred E Neumann

Absolutely 3 things I would never, and have no need, to worry about...

No worries on the Alfred front either a cartoon character.....relax and chill guys this is Thailand

 

Edited April 21, 2018 by 473geo

[Odysseus123]

9 minutes ago, 473geo said:

Absolutely 3 things I would never, and have no need, to worry about...

No worries on the Alfred front either a cartoon character.....relax and chill guys this is Thailand

 

Yes,I think that you have it right...

[Craig krup]

1 hour ago, ev1lchris said:

Why worry about something if it doesn't directly affect you?

A society is a group of people who worry about what doesn't directly affect them. Your sister wasn't murdered - it doesn't directly affect you - but if something isn't done about it a state of affairs may arise which does directly affect you. Of course it makes sense to be a pox on the community - a loafer, a free-rider, a manipulator, baggage. If I drop litter and nobody else does I get a litter-free (or nearly litter-free society, and I get to drop litter. Of course if each and every one of us thinks like that we have a pig sty. The solutions to the free rider problem are enforcement, habit, a culture of virtue or religion. Any one of these will make people cease to free ride, and what you get is what - and I don't want to blind you with science - we call "civilization". 

 

People typically define what they have to worry about too narrowly. So even civilized people tend to draw the line at the nation's borders, which is exactly why (for example) you get the clusterf**k of the Middle east, the migration crisis in the UK, and so on, and so on, and so on...

 

So, yes, you shouldn't worry about what doesn't affect you. Storms on Jupiter? Mai phen rai. 

[473geo]

3 hours ago, Craig krup said:

A society is a group of people who worry about what doesn't directly affect them. Your sister wasn't murdered - it doesn't directly affect you - but if something isn't done about it a state of affairs may arise which does directly affect you. Of course it makes sense to be a pox on the community - a loafer, a free-rider, a manipulator, baggage. If I drop litter and nobody else does I get a litter-free (or nearly litter-free society, and I get to drop litter. Of course if each and every one of us thinks like that we have a pig sty. The solutions to the free rider problem are enforcement, habit, a culture of virtue or religion. Any one of these will make people cease to free ride, and what you get is what - and I don't want to blind you with science - we call "civilization". 

 

People typically define what they have to worry about too narrowly. So even civilized people tend to draw the line at the nation's borders, which is exactly why (for example) you get the clusterf**k of the Middle east, the migration crisis in the UK, and so on, and so on, and so on...

 

So, yes, you shouldn't worry about what doesn't affect you. Storms on Jupiter? Mai phen rai. 

Civilisation - I guess it depends if one feels institutionalisation, corporate slavery, financial entrapment, military confrontation, all supporting capitalist profit margins where the rich get richer, place people in a better place than the self sufficient methodology prominent in Thailand.

Personally I prefer the latter version of civilisation - more humane, even if a little rough around the edges you can keep your version of an 'advanced society' it is a society of underhand control.

[The Deerhunter]

On 15/04/2018 at 12:36 PM, baansgr said:

One word sums it up....ignorance.

How about another one.  Self-centredness.  Ok. It is two hyphenated words but it encompasses a worldview, or rather a lack of one.   Possibly the same one that controls the way Thais drive in dis-regard of other road users and even regularly fail to let ambulances past.

 

Another interesting word is Fatalism.  That is the extension of not caring about something you cannot control.  Like If I am NOT meant to die today then why bother with a seat belt or helmet, or kiddie car seat.  And if I am meant to to die today, it will not prevent it.  This is one of the least desirable facets of Buddhism.

[473geo]

Ignorance, possibly on the side of those who cannot see past their own sad existence and wish to foist Their version of 'civilisation', as they know it, onto the reasonably happy Thai populace.

Edited April 21, 2018 by 473geo

[Poottrong]

To be fair, a good part of this is related to gender. Women all over the world, when the they talk, prefer to talk about people, particularly people they know - so and so's son got married, she said this and he said that, I think she's not happy, her husband got a job doing such and such, that boy is putting on weight and so on. Men tend to like to talk about abstract things, politics, sports, history, events, things... rather than people they know.  This goes on in the West all the time too.

 

Although the interest in larger issues and general intellectual curiosity is definitely lower in Thailand, I have found Thai men - even uneducated ones -  to generally show more interest in these things than the women do. It's just that us farangs don't tend to talk to Thai men much :)  And let's face it there are huge swathes of people in our homes countries who are only dimly aware of what's going on in the rest of the world and have no interest in it at all.

 

 

 

[geronimo]

Yes, in some ways. Living for the moment does lead to a stress-free life, and a majority of Thais want for nothing and are generally happy souls.

[Hummin]

41 minutes ago, geronimo said:

Yes, in some ways. Living for the moment does lead to a stress-free life, and a majority of Thais want for nothing and are generally happy souls.

What I have today, I have today, and what I have tomorow, come tomorow, maybe 

 

If you have lived among those kind of people for awhile, you know it is not stressfree life! I have lived a wagabond life almost all my life, and in different alike cultures many places in the world, and Thailand is one of the countries which is not stressfree laidback laife! They always worry about something, and often it is about money when they do not have it, also when they have!

[kannot]

On 4/15/2018 at 11:52 AM, The manic said:

Reality is 'Maya'..an illusion. It's a fundamental  precept of Buddhism.  As with all belief systems people are selective . The Thais are no different. There is a lot to be said for their fatalistic disengagement from issues about which they can have no influence. This makes them both agreeable but infuriating. The OP might consider he and his life are as utterly meaningless to his wife as Syria or Brexit.

Which reality, nothing has any meaning but it might well affect you eventually, why bother   looking out when  pulling out on your motorbike from a  side road, well Im guessing that pain youre gonna  get will be pretty much "reality"

[Poottrong]

On 4/15/2018 at 11:52 AM, The manic said:

Reality is 'Maya'..an illusion. It's a fundamental  precept of Buddhism.  As with all belief systems people are selective . The Thais are no different. There is a lot to be said for their fatalistic disengagement from issues about which they can have no influence. This makes them both agreeable but infuriating. The OP might consider he and his life are as utterly meaningless to his wife as Syria or Brexit.

The average Thai is not familiar with Maya or any of the other major precepts of Buddhism (four fold path, 8 noble truths etc). I don't think Buddhism is helpful to explain Thai behaviour - it's just a thin veneer grafted onto existing animist/supernatural beliefs.

[geronimo]

2 hours ago, Hummin said:

What I have today, I have today, and what I have tomorow, come tomorow, maybe 

 

If you have lived among those kind of people for awhile, you know it is not stressfree life! I have lived a wagabond life almost all my life, and in different alike cultures many places in the world, and Thailand is one of the countries which is not stressfree laidback laife! They always worry about something, and often it is about money when they do not have it, also when they have!

It's all about perception, and if you choose to see it that way, that's the way you'll see it. A stress-free life isn't something to search for and it isn't location based, it comes from within.

 

The so called poor people in this country are not miserable, and in my 35 years of living here, I can honestly say the ordinary Thais that I meet are genuinely happy folk.

[Hummin]

2 hours ago, geronimo said:

It's all about perception, and if you choose to see it that way, that's the way you'll see it. A stress-free life isn't something to search for and it isn't location based, it comes from within.

 

The so called poor people in this country are not miserable, and in my 35 years of living here, I can honestly say the ordinary Thais that I meet are genuinely happy folk.

They have given up, because they can not achieve anything, and maybe that is the bottom line of happiness, or the top? What do we really know seeing it from outside, and do not need to live their life. 

[Craig krup]

On 21/04/2018 at 2:17 PM, 473geo said:

Civilisation - I guess it depends if one feels institutionalisation, corporate slavery, financial entrapment, military confrontation, all supporting capitalist profit margins where the rich get richer, place people in a better place than the self sufficient methodology prominent in Thailand.

Personally I prefer the latter version of civilisation - more humane, even if a little rough around the edges you can keep your version of an 'advanced society' it is a society of underhand control.

None of the above has anything to do with what I said. Any country - communist, feudal, whatever - relies on the conduct I describe.

 

Of course freeloaders - bare knuckle fighting travellers, commune students - who deprecate the state and then need it for an eye operation following a blow-out fracture, or dialysis after kidney failure following drug use, need to find a reason why they're taking a stand against "the man".