O, The Humanities!

"I do believe that smartphones are addictive. They've been engineered to be addictive and ... we don't really need more studies to show that that's true. All you need to do is go outside and look around."https://t.co/6CXBvp8WYj

— Nathaniel Meyersohn (@nmeyersohn) August 25, 2021

Human beings are programmed to approach pleasure and avoid pain. It's an instinct that dates back millions of years, to a time when people needed to actively seek food, clothing and shelter every day, or risk death.

But psychiatrist Anna Lembke says that in today's world, such basic needs are often readily available — which changes the equation.

"Living in this modern age is very challenging. ... We're now having to cope with: How do I live in a world in which everything is provided?" Lembke says. "And if I consume too much of it — which my reflexes compel me to do — I'm going to be even more unhappy."

Ed. note:  no, it's not an "instinct."  "Instinct" is properly defined as inalterable behavior of a creature, such as birds that build nests they were born in and never saw constructed (and so learned to construct).  Human beings do not have instincts.  At all.  Pedantically yours (I can't help myself; it's an instinct.). 

This is an old human problem. Study the literature (but who does THAT anymore?) and you'll see it dates back to the beginnings of recorded history (there have always been some among us sated with what the world offers and wondering "Where can I get more?").  The literature also indicates that the solution is to be found in wisdom.

Alas, who teaches wisdom anymore?  Is there even a field of study of the topic?  Any source for it at all?  It can be secular, it can be religious; but where is sophia to be found?

(Is this where I point out "philosophy" is from the Greek philosophia, literally translated as love (philo) of wisdom (sophia)?  That sophia makes several appearances in the Jewish and Christian scriptures; appearing in the Septuagint as sophia, in the Gospel of John as the logos (the Greek word for "word," but also for "reason," by which the Greeks understood "wisdom," as well.)  And sophia is, for the Hebrews, an aspect of God, one closely related to the creation (so John is not exactly sui generis to say "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.  "Everything came to be by means of it;/nothing that exists came to be without its agency."  (SV)  It's what you might call a fundamental concept.  Except, I guess, to scientists.)

These things that pass for knowledge I don't understand.