Hi Epiphany, yes good to hear from you as well!

I like your points. I did say at the top that I think this applies to everyone, but it sounds like that didn't stand out to you, and like a lot of other people missed that as well. The suffering about suffering is something that I see pretty much everyone experience. For example, someone who is unhappy because they are tired, might think about how they are unhappy because they are tired, and worry that they are going to do things that make them tired like this a lot in the future, and see it as a persistent state. I'd say more often than not, people see their states as persistent, even when they logically can look at their lives over time and realize that the states are not persistent. So when someone is in an uncomfortable state, they often angst about it because of this bias. In Learned Optimism, Seligman talks about how the difference between optimistic and pessimistic people is which states they (biasedly) view as persistent - optimistic people identify more with their positive moods and see negative as passing, and vice-versa. When I used to be depressed, I identified with my depressed state as "real," and all other states as passing and "not who I actually am." (guess I should have cited this in the article!)

I've been good, super super busy. You? Feel free to drop me an email: shannon dot friedman at positivevector dot com.