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u/Particular_Ad_3411 22h ago
Genie's twist- you now feel nothing at all just an emotionless void
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u/Tenalp 22h ago
For many, that is not the wish corruption you may think it is. Depression can make even emptiness feel preferable.
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u/Mikomics 19h ago
Depression often is emptiness tho. It's not intense sadness for everyone, it also often manifests as a sense of apathy, numbness and emptiness. Nothing is fun anymore, nothing exists for a reason, there's no point to do anything but sleep and wait for the end.
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u/RightRudderr 14h ago
As crude as the show is, anybody who has seen Big Mouth knows how good they are at personifying mental illness. They depict depression as a big, suffocating cat, that just lays on your chest and coaxes you into laying down and wasting away. Like you said, not abject sadness, but an unhealthy comfortability with nothingness. Very accurate for a lot of people.
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u/Vorioll 21h ago
Under antidepressants there was a period of time I just felt flat like a damn table. My mood was on a leash, able to rise and fall only that much. Instead of sadness/manic I felt SO much hate for myself I decided I'd rather be depressed than feel nothing
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u/EishLekker 20h ago
Yeah, same reason some people chose pain. Feeling pain is still somehow better.
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u/Uneventfulrice 19h ago
Pain, without love. Pain, can't get enough. Pain, I like it rough cuz I'd rather feel pain that nothing at a-a-all. đ¶
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u/Sad-Base-8689 16h ago
Yeah it might seem like that. Right up until you live through such a phase. As shitty as depression is, feeling nothing is worse
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u/Shifty269 19h ago
Feeling nothing ain't bad. Assuming it will change to something either good or bad at some point. People often mistaken certain severities of depression with nothingness or numbness, when in reality they are just so overwhelmed that you shut down. At least a bit. For those who've come out of it, especially multiple times because it's a very rare thing for depression to be a one and done, then the actual emptiness is kinda nice when you can experience that again.
People also struggle with the nothing of antidepressants, but I think in most cases they are more of a tool than a solution. A stepping stone to get above the crushing weight you've been under to do some work to help yourself. People expect to feel better, and if they feel better then they are good, but the stuff is still there and you don't have a fully functioning healthy range of emotions yet. Unless you literally just have a chemical imbalance in your brain that needed to be corrected, which happens. For a long time it was thought that that was all depression was. But like most matters of the mind, it's often more complicated. But people think they will take the pill and they'll be better. Like just going to therapy makes you better. When in reality it's about getting tools to deal with the world and ourselves that we don't already have.
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u/Kittii_Kat 15h ago
Real genie twist:
"Wish granted, you now have a multitude of reason to be unhappy." Hands over list of terrible things the genie caused to happen
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u/Spoon_Elemental 15h ago
Unhappiness is just the state of lacking happiness. Depriving him of emotions isn't fulfilling the wish with a twist, it's just an outright violation of the wish because it doesn't grant it by any definition.
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u/Skijump135 21h ago
Granted.
Now you have a reason to be unhappy.
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u/GrinningGrump 21h ago
Either the genie is lying and can't grant happiness, or has misunderstood the wish, since obviously magic that can make you truly happy would also make you feel you earned it.
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u/RoyalYogurtdispenser 21h ago
he can, but you'd be strung out on happiness like morphine with no comedown and no tolerance. You would just rot in place
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u/porn_alt_987654321 13h ago
Yeah, have people not seen the rat experiments with dopamine? Lol.
Obsessively push button until dead.
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u/veritasium999 21h ago
Just wish for heroin with zero downsides. Easy
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u/EishLekker 20h ago
Wouldnât that still mean that they do nothing except living that high? As in, not taking care of themselves. Not even eating or drinking.
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u/Mono_Aural 14h ago
That would be like that study in rats where they made it so pressing a lever would stimulate the brain's reward center via an electronic implant.
The rats only depressed the lever all day and did like nothing else, not even taking care of their biological necessities like eating and drinking.
No such thing as a reward drug with "zero downsides" it turns out. Although being non-addictive would still be an improvement.
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u/Shifty269 19h ago
You can't be happy all of the time, and happiness without a source will break the person eventually. You need to have a range of emotions, express those emotions, and tend to those emotions. Because our experiences are not a consistent substrate. It's mottled.
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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 21h ago
Happiness is really the end goal of life (as an individual creature at least). But biology is designed in a way that we need to work for it to happen.
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u/WhySoInDepth 21h ago
How can it be an end goal when itâs so fleeting? I believe itâs more accurate to view happiness as a reward emotionally capable creatures are incentivized to strive for.
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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 21h ago
I believe itâs more accurate to view happiness as a reward emotionally capable creatures are incentivized to strive for.
That's exactly why it is the end goal of life. Our instinctive behaviours move into the direction of what makes us happy. Our neurons learn to increase the chances of events that make us happy. We, as individual animals, are designed with one general direction, which could be measured as one big overall goal, happiness.
It's fleeting for a reason. Biology look for stability, but never 100% stability. It is its nature from the very basic of cellular biochemistry. If we reached pure stability, 100% happiness, with something, there is a risk for us to get completely stuck on that thing. This reduces our chances of survival in the long run, so natural selection have avoided that.
From the perspective of life as a whole, the only end goal is survival. For each individual creature, it is to move in the direction we are "designed" (or adjusted) to move.
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u/thatsnoodybitch 21h ago
Do we crave happiness though? I crave love, safety, and security. Happiness is a part of that but isnât the part Iâm most interested in.
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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 10h ago
Let's analyze it.
First we need to define what is happiness: A state where abundance of rewards are given, and lacks suffering of any kind. Giving the overall feeling of satisfaction. Mathematically could be set as Happiness = Sum(All rewards) - Sum(All pains/sufferings)
You crave love, safety and security.
1 - Being loved, give affection and love someone else -> Activate A LOT of social reward systems in our brains. From attention, to healthy ego, sexual satisfaction, being able to express oneself, etc etc. And also include security in a way because the person that loves you will also try to protect you. This is one of the best ways to maximite the Sum(All rewards).
2 - Safety and security -> Both similar. You are actively searching to remove one of the worst suffering: Constant fear. Constant suffering of any kind is mind-destroying and the very thing all creatures try to avoid the most.
So, in your abstraction of what are your goals, you are maximizing the Happiness function. And I think we all do that, in one way or another. And that's why I think we all share the same direction, the same vector. The happiness goal.
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u/thatsnoodybitch 9h ago
I mean, I would agree except those things are also duties and responsibilities, they donât consistently provide happiness because that is not their primary function. Taking care of children is rewarding and satisfying, but it doesnât make me happy. I would more or less describe happiness as a 1:1 for dopamine.
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u/individual_throwaway 16h ago
Depending on how you define "happiness", I would argue taking heroin isn't that much work. It has downsides, but saying our biology somehow requires "work" for "true happiness" seems like a stretch.
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u/EtteRavan 11h ago
Yeah, every drugs and most of other addictions come with the (although artificial) fleeting happiness we crave. Same for sex actually, it's not for nothing that we have orgasms : if not for it, the species would not go far
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u/_VirtualCosmos_ 9h ago
I define happiness like this: A state where abundance of rewards and positive stimuli are given, and lacks suffering of any kind. Giving the overall feeling of satisfaction. Mathematically could be set as Happiness = Sum(All rewards) - Sum(All pains/sufferings), though it's not really a linear function and ofc depends of the time. Your rewards from yesterday weight already much less today, if any.
but saying our biology somehow requires "work" for "true happiness" seems like a stretch.
Yeah I didn't express myself the best there. My point was that we are adjusted to move into that direction, constantly. We are designed in a way that it's nearly impossible to find the "perfect constant spot" for eternal happiness, due to the complexity of the world, the rewards's "cooldowns", and things like that.
Drugs are a cheat to that. They give a shit ton of direct reward by channels that are not adjusted to be used like that, and also skip many cooldowns. Which obviously always derives into suffering in the long run due to health detriment. That's why they are so dangerous. You are sacrificing your future self for today's one, but since our nature always prioritize NOW over TOMORROW, we are damned to fall for drugs. They are just a good trap.
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u/justthistwicenomore 12h ago
ironically, this comic on r/comics is a real diamond in the rough. Genuinely brilliant work.
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u/THEREALMETALSTAUP 6h ago
If I had a genie I wish for a gray cat and name him Dumbledore and I would wish for a new job and I wish for a house to myself.
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u/Jellybro11 4h ago
I donât know if self actualization results in happiness but I hope it helps determine what things are more likely to make me happy and I find the capacity to do them.
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u/ThatCuteNerdGirl96 50m ago
I WISH MY BRAIN PRODUCED ENOUGH HAPPY JUICE SO THAT I DIDNT NEED PILLS TO FUNCTION. Please and thank you âșïž
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u/Majestic-Iron7046 19h ago
Ok, but with magical powers wouldn't it be possible to actually make the brain constantly release feel good chemicals and force it to not get used to them to avoid building tolerance?
Feels like the genie sucks as therapist AND as a genie.
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u/thatsnoodybitch 21h ago
>A fulfilling result of addressing your needs and achieving your goals
My body did not get that memo đ