Are You Happy?

[Skyweir]

I have to agree as well. I think it has to be about perspective V .. cos what happiness means to you .. might not mean happiness to me.

Though I am admittedly struggling to find an example. I know people who seem to have their lives squared away but are not at all happy in themselves.

So on Wayfriends point .. counting happiness apples ... as I did not die today ... is not the same apples as it is to him .. when his daughter shared her love of college with him.

So yes what IS happiness?

And to answer that question it is a matter of subjective view re happiness. Is there an equivalency between happiness and gladness? Happiness and satisfaction or achievement.

When I achieve something .. it does make me happy.

But I do not think happiness is ever .. simply the absence of suffering .. or merely a sense of relief or dodging a bullet. Though the response to dodging a bullet could indeed be happiness.

How curious .. this is a fascinating question is it not?

[wayfriend]

Reading these replies, I keep thinking, if someone says they are happy "all the time", then where's the joy in it?

Happiness is good, and happiness is desired, in inverse proportion to how often we feel happy. If we are rarely happy, then it is momentous when it arrives. If we are happy all the time, then it is trivial. And if it's trivial, why all the fuss? If it's common, if you're usually happy, then how do those rare moments in your life when something really good happens stand out? Why seek happiness when you get happiness just by waking up?

The thing that you feel rarely ... that is momentous ... that's what I call "happiness". I think other people are talking about something else.

[Vraith]

You say it's not about perspective, but you don't say why or what it is about?
--A

SOME things, SOME times, perspective matters. It's why SOME times Cognitive-Behavioral and other therapies can have an effect. Many kinds of things can have some effect. Exercise, chemicals, meditation.
Note that they very rarely cure...enable management, alleviate, limit, sure.

And some of the occurrences are normal [and temporary/reducing], even HEALTHY.

But some isn't that. I don't think anyone knows for sure what/where/why.
They don't know which, if any treatments will work.
They don't know WHY any of the treatments work.

I suggested upthread [didn't I?] what I thought it might be related to.

Putting together a lot of "maybe's"/hints from a lot of places, it seems to me it is in some way a part of the default electro-chemical resting state...or operating system. So various "perspectival" and other functions could have an impact. And if one is in the group of people where the perspective/cognitive is where the error lies, it's all good.
But, if the issue isn't in Office or your browser---if it's in Win10 or OSX or whatever...
Ya see?
And it seems to be true that both kinds exist.
And not just for depression. For many mental health things.
That's why some people have a single particular issue...but many have a cluster of associated issues...and the single/primary issue have much better treatment outcomes. Those are problems with Chrome or GoogleDocs. The clustered are issues with the underlying system...hardware? software? no idea. Possibly both or either. There's more than one kind of illness.

[Skyweir]

So not sure if I got all that .. but are you saying that some who may not be capable of happiness are like a computer with an error function? Or in need of a defrag or something?

I think because happiness can mean different thing to different people ... so that leaves with a sizeable happiness spectrum.

Begging the question.. what is it? Whats IN the happiness spectrum ... and what isnt?

It must be defined with greater rigour than the dictionary defines it .. as happiness is acknowledged as a philosophical pursuit .. mentioned in Mills theory of utilitarianism.. but first he has this to say about happiness...

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoyments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en passant, without being made a principal object. Once make them so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only chance is to treat, not happiness, but some end external to it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning.

Then Mill focuses his happiness concept .. in line with his theory... but he combines his notion with the pleasure principle..

In reality, utility is defined as pleasure itself, and the absence of pain. Thus another name for utility is the Greatest Happiness Principle. This principle holds that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.

Im not suggesting that Mills or even Benthams view on the Happiness Principle is the way we should progress an understanding of happiness ... but maybe its a kick off point .. for further thought.

[Avatar]

Ah, I think we were talking about different functions of perspective.

I wasn't suggesting that perspective is the cause of all unhappiness. Yes, certainly there can be factors (bio-chemical ones) which can result in it.

What I was suggesting was that the way you perceive things is going to have an impact on your happiness of lack thereof...classic half-empty type thing is what I was thinking of.

--A

[Zarathustra]

If we are happy all the time, then it is trivial. And if it's trivial, why all the fuss? If it's common, if you're usually happy, then how do those rare moments in your life when something really good happens stand out? Why seek happiness when you get happiness just by waking up?

That's where perspective comes in. Training yourself to see wonder in the mundane not only invigorates your sense of appreciation and happiness, but also brings you closer to reality. The mundane world really *is* wonderful. Landscape really *is not* just scenery. We can turn on our own "Healthsense" merely by training ourselves not to fall daily into a kind of waking forgetfulness for our true nature: sentient beings made of atoms on a world spinning like a top through the void . . . emotional/rational animals in a vast collective mind of comprising a global civilization . . . temporary lives embodying this particular moment in time. It is not "all the time" that makes something trivial, it is only how "all the time" drags your perspective away from wonder. For me, happiness is not something you seek. It's a by-product of seeking a deeper connection with reality. And this can be done in every single moment by turning your mind away from the ontic to the ontological. It's not that you get happiness merely by waking up in the morning, but rather by awakening every moment.

I think that all the things that make us happy do so only in as much as they connect us deeper to the world in that moment, i.e. "wake us up." This goes for superficial things like a good meal or a compliment, that makes us want to move deeper into the world rather than running away from it. But it also goes for more significant things, too, like meeting your "soulmate" or having an epiphany. On the other hand, pain and displeasure bring us unhappiness because they cause aversion, a turning away from our own existence in that moment, and desire to "run away" from being, to not be this. The irony is that they can also be powerful forces for awakening--if you are brave enough to face them. So am I actually saying that pain and displeasure can bring happiness? For extraordinary people, yes. Yes I am.

[Fist and Faith]

-Oh, ho, listen, Man, and we'll tell you everything! Do you hear the waves whispering the secret? We know you know, Man. The secret of life is just sheer joy, and joy is everywhere. Joy is what we were made for. It is in the rush of the nighttime surf and in the beach rocks and in the salt and the air and in the water we breathe and deep, deep within the blood. And the sifting ocean sands and the wriggling silverfish and the hooded greens of the shallows and the purple deeps and in the oyster's crusty shell and the pink reefs and even in the muck of the ocean's floor, joy, joy, joy!

As Z says. Happiness is in doing the goddam chores with my wife. Because we are living, and together, and when we look back decades from now, we should not remember happiness only in the infrequent, special moments. It is everywhere, there for the taking!

[Vraith]

I wasn't suggesting that perspective is the cause of all unhappiness. Yes, certainly there can be factors (bio-chemical ones) which can result in it.
--A

Yea, I realized that later on in re you and me an others---they have to be related/connected.
But they aren't the same thing, and cannot totally determine each other, and we were talking different parts.
And that's my bad.
[[that was actually probably clearer in my earlier. I have happiness quite often---even joy, and a few time ecstasy and even transcendence.]]

But [in my defense] the world is packed to the rafters with people...and everyone who ever reveals what's really going on in them finds out it's most of the fuckers...who babble and drool slop about smiling, how you look at things, blahblah...and if you try to explain further they'll start the poison mouth/brain diarrhea about "stop thinking about yourself" and eventually their flaccid ignorance-club about weakness/cowardice...

And then, someone gets hurt...because one of the two is an actual bad-ass, the other is not.

[Skyweir]

Excellent post Z .. a deft explanation of happy and happiness

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Assuming wisdom is a path to happiness / contentment, it makes sense that we might grow wiser faster if we are comfortable and contemplative enough to identify and extract positive benefits from our experiences, whether they are perceived as objectively good, bad, or otherwise.
While objectively neutral or bad experiences may not themselves cause happiness, and we inherently strive to avoid bad experiences when possible, they may still teach us something if we are paying attention. If all else fails, the bad things at least provide contrast, so we more acutely appreciate the objectively good things when they do happen.
And in the above statements, when I say objective, I'm being sort of disingenuous....the concept of happiness is inherently subjective.

[lucimay]

blueberry eggos with real maple syrup
mr goodbars
watching Harry run
the sound of my mother's laughter
RuPaul singing Born Naked
Creator hollering as he comes in the door "I'M HOOOOME!"
Sorus' jokes.
a pic of Brandi Carlile having dinner w/ Joni Mitchell
finding an antique filing cabinet worth 6k and paying only 330 bucks for it
Ger, clean and sober
the birdies in our backyard at our 6 birdfeeders
the neighborhood fox in my front yard
Ursula K Leguin talking about "the mothertongue"
finding the scissors right where they are supposed to be
getting an unexpected package in the mail
the sound of my dad's laughter
remembering things my grandmother said
singing
laughing
dancing
Creator's hugs
the smell of sea wind and sage in San Francisco
books
walking Harry on the woody path next to big rocky run creek
the pic of me and Ger that lisa took when we first went to big sur
hearing the first chords of Airbag at my first Radiohead concert
finding FrankieAllen on facebook (who i hadn't spoken with since 9th grade)
Coach handbags
a good pedicure
intimate quiet moments with Creator
true crime television
sleeping in late and finding a hot cup of coffee on my bedside table when i wake up
flying over the Sierras on my way to SF for a visit with Ger
my fabulous gas grill and everything i cook on it
a shot of Knob Creek on occasion
cake
my fuzzy purple overland slippers
finding a treasure while rummaging at the goodwill
having a good dream that i can remember when i wake up
the smell of fresh lavender
getting a blue box for a present (chicks dig the blue box, T&CO)
the pic of my grandmother sitting on my desk
a good ink pen
a productive, constructive day
finishing a poem
killing a boss in WoW

listen, i could go on and on and on...
these are things that make me happy
and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
i'd say i'm pretty happy for all of these things
and people and loves are in my life on a regular
daily basis.
i don't have to intellectualize it.
life. life makes me happy.

[Lazy Luke]

In reality [,..] We are all meat bags spilling over with chemicals and constantly taking in new ones, but also ablaze with sensory inputs, old and new, plus (re)analyzing misremembered old ones. We are a mess. Amidst all that environmental onslaught, we also enjoy id/ego/superego tug of war, and despite that, a lot of us manage to be decent human beings to each other.

dw

I'd like to think we/I isn't a mess!
This morning on awakening, and before getting out of bed to make coffee, I did some lazy yoga and I thought about something I'd said earlier in another thread about, "the stimulants in air".
I suppose a scientist might refute that statement as bunkum, only not being a scientist I was aware of the lungs to be similair to that of a honeycomb. Where each hexagonal cell has the potential to be filled with honey, or necter.
In reality each hexagonal cell is probably just a three-sided multiple reflexion rooted in the id/ego/superego, that you had mentioned above (dw).
However, the root or source of the honey necter is actually to be found in the chambers of the heart. Which really surprised me ...

I'm happy to know this.

[Avatar]

That's where perspective comes in. Training yourself to see wonder in the mundane not only invigorates your sense of appreciation and happiness, but also brings you closer to reality. The mundane world really *is* wonderful. Landscape really *is not* just scenery. We can turn on our own "Healthsense" merely by training ourselves not to fall daily into a kind of waking forgetfulness for our true nature: sentient beings made of atoms on a world spinning like a top through the void . . . emotional/rational animals in a vast collective mind of comprising a global civilization . . . temporary lives embodying this particular moment in time. It is not "all the time" that makes something trivial, it is only how "all the time" drags your perspective away from wonder. For me, happiness is not something you seek. It's a by-product of seeking a deeper connection with reality. And this can be done in every single moment by turning your mind away from the ontic to the ontological. It's not that you get happiness merely by waking up in the morning, but rather by awakening every moment.

I think that all the things that make us happy do so only in as much as they connect us deeper to the world in that moment, i.e. "wake us up." This goes for superficial things like a good meal or a compliment, that makes us want to move deeper into the world rather than running away from it. But it also goes for more significant things, too, like meeting your "soulmate" or having an epiphany. On the other hand, pain and displeasure bring us unhappiness because they cause aversion, a turning away from our own existence in that moment, and desire to "run away" from being, to not be this. The irony is that they can also be powerful forces for awakening--if you are brave enough to face them. So am I actually saying that pain and displeasure can bring happiness? For extraordinary people, yes. Yes I am.

Yeah, so much agreed.

See, the thing is, everything is trivial.

We're all going to die. If we're unusually lucky, we might live on in the memories of our loved ones and descendants for a few generations. If we're extraordinarily lucky, we (or some version of ourselves) may live on in history.

But the vast majority of us will be gone and forgotten within a generation or two at most. (And sooner for some.)

Everything we thought or did or cared about will be either meaningless or irrelevant or both.

The world is an amazing place. The simple fact that we're here at all is so incredibly unlikely that it's equally amazing. And we're here for such a short time that we're less than mayflies as far as the universe is concerned. (If it could be concerned, which it can't. )

Everything we see and think and do is transient. From our happiness, to our suffering.

Like the old story says: "This too shall pass."

Personally, I find it incredibly liberating to know that in the great scheme of things, nothing really matters.

--A

[Skyweir]

I think there is a sense of liberation to the realisation that human life is finite. I get great comfort and satisfaction from the reality of that little nugget of realisation.

But I dont agree that NOTHING matters .. the fact that in the big picture view .. we are organised organic matter that will ultimately disorganise .. sure

While I live as organised organic matter, my family matter, my friends, my life for as long as it is .. matters.

I noted my husband has had depression his whole life, since a child ... and seeking some glimpse of purpose seemed important to him. For him, its a reason for living or functioning. Some higher purpose to look to ... to justify keeping on, getting up, going to work, continuing day in and day out.

Not for me. I dont need an overarching purpose for my existence to exist .. I get up because I want to engage in living, doing, loving all of it. I find knowing this life IS everything... that this life is what it is all about .. means I want to enjoy it as much as humanly possible.

Ill dissipate like everything and everyone does at death .. I dont need to be remembered ... and it doesnt matter if I am or arent... I wont be here to know the difference anyway.

So this life, my family, the various humans I choose to be part of my life, the animals, my environment, my experiences, these interactions have meaning.

Our lives gain their richness from what we do with them, from who and what we choose to include in them.

To my mind I choose WHAT matters and WHO matters

So a similar perspective but slightly nuanced.

[Fist and Faith]

"If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today."

[Skyweir]

Precisely .. love that quote