Happiness

[Animavore]

I'm happy being miserable.

Are you sure? Most miserablists only seem to be happy when they are making others as miserable as they.

Emos are dramaqueens who wouldn't know true misery if it crept up and darkened their pathetic soul. True miserablists are an impentrable event horizon around a black hole.


:twisted:

[pErvinalia]

Shutter island. I've had similar thoughts...

DON'T have those thoughts.

[hadespussercats]

I'd much rather be dead than lobotomized. Never mind a bottle in front of me...

[FBM]

I'd rather have this bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

[Sean Hayden]

I've heard unrequited love is a kick in the pants. But I've also heard it makes some people sad.

Also, I guess you can't really go out and find that.

I wish I knew something to help Trinity. I think FBM has put up some good stuff, I like the idea of something like a normal baseline happiness in us all. It may not be true but it does seem -superficially- at least to accurately describe experience.

[Coito ergo sum]

[hadespussercats]

Hm.

I was thinking about contentment versus happiness-- contentment being something we can build, versus happiness being something that happens upon us one way or another (at least that's the basic sense I've gotten from the thread thus far.)

For me, I think contentment involves having people I love who love me back (in the whole variety of shades that love comes in), and doing work I'm proud of. Admittedly, chance plays a big part in this as well-- we're lucky if we have people who love us, though we can work on loving others well. And we're lucky if we can find work we're proud to do, and excel at it, though we can always develop our skills, our contacts, etc.

Of course, all of this is predicated on not being too sick to experience these feelings, on having food and shelter and enough safety to thrive. But those aspects are just a foundation for contentment-- never mind happiness.

On the other side of happiness, there's ecstasy. That can be cultivated, too. There are so many different traditions with different ways of approaching it-- through deliberate starvation or drugs or sleeplessness, or certain ways of moving or using muscles, or through sex (a whole world of techniques that use sexual pleasure as a mind-opener or a door to ecstatic joy.)

I've tried some of these successfully. But I also have a brain that's sometimes wired for ecstatic joy. Falling in love can be like this, too. But it's a hard state to sustain. Not just physically-- it's hard to take care of yourself or others if you're in it.

And I guess there are medium versions of this sort of thing-- the high you can feel from hiking or running. I don't push myself hard enough when I run (these days) to really experience the dopey version of runner's high. But I often smile while I run, without thinking about it. And I usually feel energetic and positive after. That's a sort of happiness, I guess.

And then there's the Ratz meet high. Took a couple weeks to really come down from that one!

[En_Route]

i think there is a lot of practical wisdom in Buddha's teachings , though I wouldn't follow them slavishly ( as indeed Buddha himself counselled against) engagement in a constructive and absorbing activity(" flow")is certainly one of the seedbeds of contentment; being trapped in a job you loathe, the reverse..and I suspect anincreasingly common plight in modern times.

[Cormac]

How did they get by without a jetski and a second car?

Poor benighted fucks.

This gave me a drunken chuckle.

[Cormac]

It actually works. Starting the day thinking about dogs, or cats.

They're fuzzy!

Shit, waking up enough for me. I live in a big flat with all modern conveniences, a fridge full of food, clean running water, I'm pretty healthy, I have a wife whom I cherish and a neighbourhood that's not on fire or being run by paramilitaries. What the fuck have I got to complain about really? Not enough ram on my comp?

We live in the West, most of us and we should all be very fucking thankful of that. Everything else is just pudding toppers.

...and yet... the human condition.

[Cormac]

Our societies are not perfect, nor the humans in them, but they are the best going.

Really? I think happiness levels would be higher in some more traditional societies.

...not the ones suffering from disease, war, thirst, starvation, or the destruction of the environment on which their culture is dependent...

[Cormac]

Our societies are not perfect, nor the humans in them, but they are the best going.

Really? I think happiness levels would be higher in some more traditional societies.

You may be right, certainly I've been in places where people have fuck all but goats and mud huts, who seemed more content than we do.

Why do you think that though?

I heard recently that hunter gatherers used to work 14 hours per week, and with that level of effort, they had enough food and materials to live a comfortable life.

It was the development of farming that started to extend our working week...

[Cormac]

Be happy that at least you're not Richard Cory.



Expectations are a big part of what causes unhappiness. My own and the ones I let people put on me when I'm not paying attention.

...apparently he has the political connections to spread his wealth around...

[Cormac]

I do, in a sense, boss my students about, but not being bossed is more valuable to my daily experience.

There's a famous study of stress levels in civil servants. The higher up the food chain they get, the more autonomy they have, the less stressed they are. I'm simplifying a bit but looks like happiness is being able to do what you want rather than what someone else wants.

A huge part of that is the fact that the higher you rise in the public service, the more untouchable you are, the higher your salary - and therefore the more secure and prosperous you are.

Security, prosperity. Two huge factors in stress reduction.

[Cormac]

Reading all this returns me to my though that to attain bliss one must achieve total ignorance. Children tend to be happier than adults, poor people tend to be happier than those in rich complex societies.

It kinda makes sense. If you have nothing and are starving your main concern is a meal, in achieving that it probably brings some joy. If you're a billionaire, you probably have created for yourself a whole skyscraper of worries and neurosis. "What if I lose it all?" "How am I going to invest?" "How do I screw workers legally to make more money?" "How do I deal with all the leeches and hangers on?"

So there you go. You want happiness? Chuck it all and go live in a famine zone or have a lobotomy.

Personally, I'm content, that will do me.

Those children are only blissfully ignorant because they have parents who shelter them from all harm, and who provide for all needs.

See how quickly children in distressed situations have to grow up.