life is not a line. not even a ray… it is a line segment.
it has a beginning and an end
in the beginning it is simple, knowledge is scarce. reality is easy to sort out.
complications arise from a sea of questions and peace is buried in a grave of broken thoughts and wishes. love is harder to find, and true happiness is nothing but a vague outline in the thick mists of time.
is anyone here truly happy?
.
Dont worry about it , Im sure your life will turn around for the better at some point
.
I’m fairly happy.
I get sad enough to appreciate it… but I’d say I’m happy.
I find the biggest challenges are boredom and the “I’ve heard this a million times” syndrome. I can’t imagine life at sixty.
I seem to recall being quite miserable at times when I was young, whether this state was caused by my not being allowed to stay up past my bedtime, or by my not getting a new toy I wanted, or by my being made fun of at school. That is, I have experienced the lows of existence my entire life, with equal if not decreasing intensity.
Misery manifests in accordance with how often one’s desires fail to be satisfied. As an adult, experienced in life, I understand much better that my desires are relative to my own way of thinking, my philosophy, and that I am in control of them; consequently, I am in control of my misery - and my happiness.
Am I truly happy?
This seems to imply there exists a state of absolute or perpetual - or obligatory! - happiness, which, I’m afraid, is a fiction. One can only be as happy as the frequency with which one chooses to find those aspects of life, those perspectives of the world and of one’s self, that allow this emotion to accompany them. Sometimes I seek to find these perspectives, and other times I do not.
That is to say, I am as happy as I am able and willing to find happiness.
Those who focus on happiness miss the point.
It is not about happiness. It is about contentment.
Being content with your life is far more important then
happiness. Happiness is way overrated and is an illusion.
Kropotkin
I almost agree - except I would say the distinction between the terms is not as great as you seem to be implying; as though those who seek happiness are seeking something drastically at odds with contentment. Instead, I think the point would be to acknowledge contentment and happiness as virtually one and the same. (The terms are interchangeable in my previous post, for example.)
Peter Kropotkin:Those who focus on happiness miss the point.
It is not about happiness. It is about contentment.
Being content with your life is far more important then
happiness. Happiness is way overrated and is an illusion."
Uzi: “I almost agree - except I would say the distinction between the terms is not as great as you seem to be implying; as though those who seek happiness are seeking something drastically at odds with contentment. Instead, I think the point would be to acknowledge contentment and happiness as virtually one and the same. (The terms are interchangeable in my previous post, for example.)”
Kropotkin: Contentment and happiness are two totally different things.
they are not even in the same ball park. Happiness depends on
something to be happy about. Contentment does not.
Contentment is about accepting things as they are, not
on any one thing. Better to be content then to be happy.
Kropotkin
If contentment is so disjoined from happiness, if they’re ‘not even in the same ballpark’, why would a post about contentment emerge at all in a thread about happiness?
As I believe I’ve implied, my point is not to disagree with your conclusion contentment is superior to happiness so much as assert the proximity of these concepts, that they needn’t be considered mutually exclusive. Case in point: you write, “Happiness depends on something to be happy about. Contentment does not.” While I would certainly disagree in the strict sense - contentment certainly depends on something - I understand what you’re driving at. To my point, this ‘something’ upon which happiness depends may indeed be contentment. Thus, if one finds and lives within contentment, one can simultaneously find and live within happiness - hence my argument.
No, sir, better to be both: better to achieve happiness by way of contentment! 
I believe we’ve met, and it looks like you still need to read Nietzsche, or at least be a bit more intellectually modest by putting into effort than that kind of petty compromise/pseudo-balance.
Forget about Peter, he doesn’t even know that contentment is encompassed by happiness. And the idea that contentment is somewhat immaterially spiritual and devoid of a certain petty humanity, is an illusion. Happiness, contains illusions such as contentment. But the ubermensch is never content with that kind of happiness, for it is happiness achieved by petty creativity out of the barren emptiness, as the last resort for losers at large, whose will to power can only be maintained in this imaginitive way.
Nietzsche wants danger and war. That is the way to happiness. To realise the will in the most earthly way, to do away with romanticist illusions such as contentment, and to strive towards an actual goal. All else is defeatism, excuse and degeneration. Happiness is up for grab, only after pain and sacrifise, which is really why happiness is what it is. Contentment doesn’t really work, at best a breezing little comfort wind which calls itself happiness, becasue there is no struggle paid, no blood shed, in gaining it. If there is, it can no longer be defined as contentment, but should be regarded as celebration and recogition of victory. The ultimatality that content is a twisted illusion is becasue victory must be continued or remade - “Peace is merely a means to another war”. The will cannot be content with what it already gained, not for long. Thus ceaceless creativity is the only way to maintain the will in the long run, thus creativity is THE way towards the kind of happiness that actually makes you happy without demanding upbringing reflections or comfort eating.
The secret in defeating the lure of contentment and bravely embark on Nietzschean existentiality is that, don’t kid yourselves.
I have problems, but, I have people to help shoulder the burden, I have more then most have, and yet still poorer then dirt, people help me I help them Damn right I am happy, I am the luckiest woman alive. My family survived being dead center of Katrina while she was at category 4 winds.(yea I know they are trying to say she was a 3, bullshit, thats another topic, the why) I have an eternal love with my husband, our son loves us and semi respects us. we have 10 acres a tiny house and laughter every day. we have problems everyday but, oh well we all do. If that ain’t happy I don’t know what is. I thank my maker and protector just about every day. If you are not happy you just need to look harder and laugh more. Life sucks but, it is what you make it. I have had tons of horrible things happen but, the hell with it I feel better when I laugh then when I cry.I am lucky to be able to see how damn lucky I am.
Nice touch to simply dismiss me, but the problem is you are
still under some delusion about what happiness is and what
contentment is. You are happy about something, love, baseball,
philosophy, oranges for example, take away these items and
you become unhappy. The pursuit of happiness is doomed to
failure. You can’t even make a good argument for the pursuit
of happiness because it is dependent on happiness ABOUT
something. Contentment does not have this problem.
There is not even a pursuit about contentment.
Contentment happens. A philosophers goal is not happiness,
but contentment. Contentment is simply the understanding that
the universe is and all you have to do is understand and/or accept it.
As long as you are under the false impression that happiness is
worthy of pursuit, you shall be tossed about the waves of life.
Abandon the pursuit of happiness and you shall find something
worth a lot more, contentment.
Kropotkin
Dude, I don’t pursue the unpursuable, any idiot knows that, you just open your soul and let it come to you. i am content, I am happy, I am lucky, all 3 are different, all 3 are just feelings, all 3 are just attitude. I also fall in manure piles of problems every day, Whoopie poopie, I get angry ,sad hurt, so what? no big deal Quality of life not quantity. I may get manure but, it makes damn good fertilizer. I am probably the meanest cold hearted person you could ever meet. I refuse to bow down to pain anger and hate, its too easy. I pursue nothing, Old Murphy pursues me and I am winning. so go have your contentment and I will have my happiness and fun. Think between the lines.
Agreed.
We argued a nearly irrelevant technicality, not anything concrete relative to Nietzsche’s views; and, moreover, you phrase this as though you were victorious in this (which is laughable) - so please spare me your ‘you need to read Nietzsche’ blasts. As I say, I agree with you above, as I did in the other thread as well, if you recall.
Uniqor,
Do you keep a portable Neitzsche in your wallet by any chance?
Consider this quote from the great philosopher, Bob Dylan:
Pax
Kropotkin: Contentment and happiness are two totally different things.
they are not even in the same ball park. Happiness depends on
something to be happy about. Contentment does not.
Contentment is about accepting things as they are, not
on any one thing. Better to be content then to be happy.
maybe we can be come happy with nothing to be happy about???
Jim Morrison did and look at his mindset. Actually, Morrison was a racist and I doubt Unicore is. Sorry unni, but your devotion is a bit much. Geez, I am devoted to my other half, but do not mention him half a much as you mention your god.
Truth Uzi, my fellow Nietzschean, with my “blast”, I was just trying to rough you up for your own good, that way you might get the chance to survive here at ILP for at least two months. I don’t want to see you blown away by psyque or detrop sometime next week, I need more Nietzsche literates here. Another kind advise, when guys like Jimmy’o2 or someoneisatthedoor try to “blast” you, it’s really just a subtle form of ILP male bonding. The truth be told, they love me, as I do you.
Gobble, that was last year. This year I’m trying to memorise Zarathustra from cover to cover. Next year my ambition is to recite Beyond Good and Evil from thin air.
aspacia, I,ve heard of Jim Morrison from vortical a long time ago, she told me that he was a singer who was into Rimbaud. Now that you told me he was also into Nietzsche, I’m not suprised, since Rimbaud was into Nietzsche as well. Since we are talking about Nietzschemania, let me give you a partial list of Fritz’s famous fans. You never know, you might even like some of them.
Rorty
Shaw
Sartre
Camus
Hesse
Mann
Crowley
Jaspers
Heidegger
Derrida
Brandes
Wylde
Bergson
Kazantzakis
Foucalt
Xun
Yeats
Freud
Jung
Adler
O’Neil
Rand
It is more probably a selection of Cliff’s Notes.