How dare such philosophies ask of things like discipline, over-coming of one's purely material condition and so on ?

Bovine bliss FTW !

Instead I find that the way to achieve it is simply to have the capability to do whatever you wish, when you wish it. To achieve that one needs to only have the basics covered and those are the things that you need to fill first before one can start doing anything further."

My FRIEND ! HATS OFF TO YOU !
By far the most profound and advanced philosophy available. The only place where I've seen a philosophy that came close to this level of profundity, was National Geographic, where a bunch of chimps were actually bordering your depthness. However, I sadly find that even they organize in communities, and have certain rules that they follow instinctualy. It seems that we must go even more steps, bellow the chimp condition, in order to reach the socialist ideal !!!

Yesssss… Delicious and various if possible. And yeah.. quite a lot of it. There are many tasty plants and animals out there!

"..absence of pain."

You know I do not agree. But last time we did not have the time to talk about it much, so here the missing link.. Pain is the best teacher to some, to others a drug, to others motivation, to others inspiration. I do not only miss the point in absence of pain, I think I would not want to live a life without it. Pain, suffering and problems made quite a contribution to who I am now and I love it. And I look forward to more of it once in a while. Love without a bit of pain would certainly bore me to death. Inner suffering and solitude, pain and sadness in the own mind/soul is most inspirating for any kind of creative work, be it writing, pain-ting ( ) or composing music. The calm happiness of letting go is worth nothing without the pain one feels from the side that does not want to. Some people feel numb and not alive without it (though I am not on that path).

No, dear friend, without pain.. no way! Life to me would seem dull to me.

Hehe.. just as Mr.Smith said in Matrix.. The first Matrix was a perfect world but people started rejecting it and it collapsed, because they did not accept a world without suffering and pain. There is more truth in these words than one might think..

"Power" is too coined to the use in politics and influence, finance and so on, that is why I dislike this term. I think power is the possibility to enforce one's will upon reality (general definition) by whatever means necessary. So if you have power (not in volt) you have the possibility to do what you wish when you wish to do it. Having power is the opposite of being helpless. And being helpless is what I am willing to avoid. And as I remember you defined happiness as "being capable.." – and in my opinion it is not far from what I consider is power. Now back to more power metal.. read you later.