I used the word ‘need’ in the bold part in order to show you how I see need applying to happiness (because you brought it up), but I don’t focus on need very much cause I don’t think happiness has much to do with need. ‘Need’ comes almost as an addiction, only after a thing, person, or situation has made you happy. The only other kind of needs are primitive, instinctive needs. I don’t think we have a need for happiness, I think it’s more of a ‘want’. Usually we have addictions or needs based on something that makes us happy, as I said before, but notice the wording. The focus is on the thing that made us happy, not the happiness itself. That’s why we stick with things and people for so long after they made us happy but have ceased to do so since. Furthermore, I think that happiness is ALWAYS associated with something else, happiness is never happiness for itself. Let me explain, cause this may sound like a contradiction. Happiness is always associated with something, this something gets implemented in our heads as the thing that makes us have a certain emotion, happiness. There are levels to happiness and so we categorize happiness levels with different things. Ie. Most would say sex=1 happiness. Car, food, etc = 2 happiness, and so on. So in a way it is for happiness, but it is for happiness via a certain thing. We would not search for the kind of happiness that sex brings us, if we were cutting down a tree. But what if I wanted to be as happy cutting down a tree as I am during sex? Well tough luck. This is why happiness is not something we seek in and of itself, because by definition this is impossible. In my opinion ofcourse.
I think only contentment happens without being associated with anything else. If I had no stimulus coming in or memories to resort to, I don’t see how I could ever be happy or upset for that matter. But I could see how I might be content or sad/bored.
I haven’t given the above posts a close reading - forgive me if this isn’t new, but I didnt see it mentioned. This is a bit off topic from these arguements, but on topic with the original theme.
It seems to me that the BMW can make a person happy. Being with another person can too. Winning an award or somehting of that sort might make someone happy as well. All of us have different causes of happiness and, as it was mentioned, happiness comes is different degrees. I’d like to think that there is a common link among all of these things.
I found myself most happy when I am “in the moment”. I think that when you are “there” (where ever that is) you are happy. Think about the last time you were happy about something. In my case, anyway, it was a time when my mind was not wandering and I was not concerned with other engagements, etc. I was in the moment. This is quite loose, and right now I won’t try to give a definition to something like “in the moment”. However, it seems that all the things that make a perosn happy accomplish this. It seems that some forms of hapiness that will die out - material things - can do this, and those more deep forms of happiness - love, relationships etc - can do this too. What is it about holding a girl in your arms that is so delightful. I think it is the ability to leave everything else and to really be absorbed in that moment. With money or the BMW this becomes a bit blurred, perhaps. Still, though, I think that a person who is lusting for a BMW will find himself really “there” in that BMW or while imagining the BMW.
Also, consider unhappy times. True, you can be absorbed in a moment of unhappiness as well. However, when you are scattered and not at all in a moment, htat is when I most often find myself unhappy. I find happiness most easily attainable when my life is simplified - it makes this momentness most attainable.
I wont ramble anymore. Perhaps this idea will become a bit more concrete with dicussion - right now it is not particualrly clear - sorry.
Happiness is the main initiator of good feeling.
Intensity of good feeling is proportional to will to live.
It is a feeling that we associate with will to live.
Happiness as a general rule comes from doing/sensing/having what you want. This comes in forms such as self satisfaction from achievement for example.
However since human society is so inhibiting, we have invented artificially induced happiness from entertainment, based on stimulating the senses. For example music and going out to the cinema or clubbing.
First, I dont think Im clear on what you meant by “main initiator of good feeling”. Also, happiness is proportional to good will seems a bit odd. If you have ever seen the princess bride, revenge fuels the will to live. Happiness may well be correlated to a will to live, but surely it they are not contingent upon eachother in strong enough a way to call them “proportional”.
Next, the satisfaction of desires is interesting. However, what are we to say for the desireless person. Many buddhist monks seem happier than anyone, yet they (allegdly) do not desire.
Just some quick thoughts, to some degree I agree with what you have to say.
Happiness is generally related to something that is good or feeling good in that its considered by society to be a ‘positive’ healthy and beneficial emotion in comparison to how society sees emotions such as anger and sadness which are generally considered bad, wrong or destrictive. I don’t think any emotion falls into such catagories, they are neither good or bad. We are however induced and coerced by society into believing sadness is a bad thing to be avoided and this has driven us as humans to ‘strive’ for continual happiness, which is a false state of being and which I think has distorted our concepts of what happiness is, making it seem something we cant live without, that we ‘need’ it at all costs, which in turn effects our behaviour to such an extent that we become selfish, greedy and even become self sacrificing for the pursual of it. Happiness shouldn’t be something we alter our behaviour to achieve, but that’s what we have learned to do, and it shouldn’t be given any higher status than other emotions, its of equal value to sadness and the like. I believe happiness, like other emotions, is there for the survival as a human race. Survival of the fittest and being the best, are related to getting the things we ‘need’ which make us feel happy. Sex and love make us happy, they make us feel good so we will continue to repoduce and continue the human race.
hmm and there are a couple of other things i find interesting … because of their links with staying alive…
1.Extreme happiness ‘mania’ causes a feeling of immortality and desire to live
2. When we’re feeling happy chemicals are released which improve our immune system => less likely to get ill and die …
More biology than philosophy but i feel it backs up the theory that feeling good is an emotion there for survival
I believe that happiness and feeling good are different. When I said that happiness is the main initiator of good feeling, I meant that the most common way of achieving a good feeling is by becoming happy.
I didn’t say that happiness was proportional to good will, I said that feeling good is proportional to will to live. About the princess bride, perhaps revenge makes her feel good? And thus, this fuels her will to live. I never said happiness was the only way to make yourself feel good - the different paths to happiness differ from person to person:
For a Buddhist monk, perhaps the self satisfaction of resisting desires for possession can fuel their good feeling and will to live.
However, one might even say that they desire to be able to be strong enough to resist desiring which is a contradiction showing that to be desireless as well as to want to live is not possible.
Lydia says that happiness is a great drive for wanting to live as it is so closely correlated with feeling good. What she says about not needing it to want to live is true. As long as good feeling is achieved, the will to live is there. Some of them are more accepted by society, some aren’t.
Silhouette, Lydia, isnowboard,
did you actually read my original post? I’m curious because all of you mention thoughts of Happiness leading to feeling good, being absorbed in the moment, a common link between degrees of happiness, being “there”, and so on. I think my definition of ‘focus’ on a variable within a situation covered these ideas well, I was wondering what you all thought about it. Do you think the idea is better elucidated with ‘being in the moment’, ‘being there’, etc or would you all agree that its safe to say that the common link between all degrees of happiness is that we are focused in on something. Let me know.
I didn’t read your post before I added my opinion. I get intimidated by lots of long posts, and just slap down my, as concisely as I can, unadulterated thoughts on the subject in terms I find non ambiguous and easiest to read & understand. The reason people rarely reply to my posts is probably as a result. I try.
But having read your post now, I can tell you think very similarly to me apart from a couple of words I think could be replaced by better ones which are shown in my posts.
Firstly, i would like to ask maginus why he/she picked such a varied topic. Happiness comes from state of mind and can be achieved by a great number of things. To say I have experienced happiness would be a lie, but i do believe in it. But i believe that happiness is precious and rare, as rare as say, true love, and something that everyone has a line to cross to actually become happy. The more that you pity yourself and start losing grasp of the most important parts of your life, the futher your line is pushed away from you. It gets harder and harder to be fullfilled- only a mild definition of what happiness truly is, and if you can’t be fulfilled then you can’t even think of progressing to happiness. if everyone was happy then there would be peace on earth, but earth would be full of people with nothing else to do with there life. everyone is reaching out for happiness, but everybodys line is positioned miles away from them. I would be very grateful for any comments from people who have passed this line, but especcially, how they did it. Or indeed, how people who haven’t intend to.
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I don’t think it to be a varied topic at all, actually I would be perplexed if no one ask about it. Happiness is definitely something that we all (generally) share as a theme, goal, emotion, purpose, etc. Such a common theme to be missing from an intelligent conversation between mature human beings would, to me, be surprising. I picked the topic because I was curious about it one day, and I wrote a small essay about it in a restaurant. I decided to post it to see what everyone else thought.
Sugarheartbelljar stated:
I can’t help but feel religion about to jump into this. Furthermore, what I was talking about (read original post) was about general happiness, it appears that you are talking about some extreme of happiness, euphoria perhaps, I don’t know. If you would like to further elucidate upon the kind of happiness you speak of, I would be happy to hear it. But the happiness I speak of we have all (generally) experienced, so you would not be lying to say that you have experienced it. Again, I too believe that the purest and truest form of happiness does exist, but I cannot say I have experienced it, though once again, this is not what my initial post was in reference to.
Sugarheartbelljar stated:
According to you, what might these MOST IMPORTANT PARTS of my life be?
Sugarheartbelljar stated:
What is it that gets harder and harder to be fulfilled? What do you by "if you can’t be fulfilled’? Don’t you mean ‘if you can’t fulfill your desire for happiness’? Anyway, if I understand the jist of the above quote, I would have to disagree with you. I know plenty of people that are miserable but still think of progressing to happiness. I myself am not truly happy, but I think of progressing to happiness. I don’t see why anyone who isn’t truly happy, cannot one day become happy through their own initiative or that of someone elses. I know many would say, though I am not as quick to jump to this conclusion, that one cannot truly be happy unless they are in love, which is to say that they cannot fulfill their own happiness, though they still think of progressing to happiness through the love and companionship of another.
Sugarheartbelljar stated:
You know, till this day I do not understand why people are so quick to make this leap in logic. What leap you ask, just because someone is happy it doesn’t mean that they are harmless. Happiness doesn’t necessarily have to do with morality in general, though it will have much to do with THEIR morality, nor does it necessarily have anything to do with peace. That’s just the trouble, ones happiness gets in the way of another sooner or later. So if everyone on the planet was happy, it doesn’t logically follow that there would be peace. Lastly, even if happiness did entail peace, it doesn’t logically follow that we would have nothing to do. Our lives are not spent on creating peace, many of us acquire happiness through many differing themes, some of which have nothing to do with peace. It was during the times in my life when I was most at peace with my surroundings that I found the most to inquire about my surroundings, myself, and any other topic you can imagine. It’s problems, war, fights, stress, responsibilities, that lead me to live a more simple life taking care of these problems instead of putting my focus where I would naturally put it…to opening my mind and learning about the reality in which I reside.
Sugarheartbelljar stated:
I don’t agree, I think happiness is best reached through the things that are before you. There is no need to go anywhere, happiness can be found from within as well as exterior to oneself. I find that the problem is that people go too far to find happiness while they don’t stop to find happiness in themselves.
Sugarheartbelljar stated:
I can’t say for sure that I have crossed the line, for I know not the limits of my happiness, nor do I think I would know if I had reached them. But I know I am most happiest in nature and while I am being myself. Those, to me, are the two most important factors.
I think that your degree happiness is all relative to itself. When a child is born, it only suffers and cannot feel happiness until it endures less or more suffering so it can compare and determine its brain stimulation by associating something that makes you suffer less with a better feeling.
I’d say that true happiness is the happiest you’ve ever felt so far at any point in your lifetime/learningtime. I’d also say that the more new and valuable the thing that has been learnt, the more the satisfaction in learning/achieving you get. And so I’d say that everyone has felt true happiness although it becomes rarer the further you get through life.
Furtherly I’d say the further you get through life the more bored you become because that degree of feeling good which becomes more rare is proportional to will to live - so the longer you live, the less things are satisfying so the less you want to live. However I’d also say that the longer you are alive, the more you accept life and fear the alternative, so this cancels out the boredom and makes you want to stay alive even when you’re old and your life becomes really hard and horrible…
Although this does sound logical to me, I don’t see it needing to actually be like that. I was wondering if you could provide further evidence for this position, I would also like to be clear on the issue. I am not convinced that when a child is born it only suffers, it is born crying because it is slapped on the back and because being out of the womb is alien to the baby, which it’s senses are incredibly sensitive to. I also wouldn’t say it ONLY suffers, nor would I say it CANNOT feel happiness. Although I do understand your argument for varying degrees to stimulate knowledge, I am just not convinced by it.
Silhouette stated:
Hmmm…I agree. But is it useful for us to say, which logically follows from the above, that we are in a state of true happiness that differs each day of heightened happiness (assuming the next day is more enjoyable then the next)? Do we need that word ‘true’ in there? Or is it already assumed? What would we say about moments of happiness that weren’t greater then the present highest happiness we experienced? Would we say that it isn’t true happiness because it is the greatest of happiness’ we have known so far?
Silhouette stated:
I agree. But do you think it is safe to associate satisfaction with happiness? Are the words interchangeable or is there a distinquishing factor we should look out for?
Silhouette stated:
I’m not sure I understand here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but what you are saying is that everyone has been truly happy because each one of us has a relative level of happiness that is greater than the rest of our life experiences of happiness? If so, could you explain to me the purpose of saying someone has been truly happy? Put another way, what do we understand when a person says “i am truly happy”? Moreover, how can anyone be sure they are truly happy? Since our memory is fallible, we might forget our happiest moment, especially years down the road. Lastly, how do we gauge our happiness in differing levels?
Silhouette stated:
Why do you think that is? Do you think it is like that for everyone?
Silhouette stated:
So if I am understanding your argument correctly, you are saying that the only reason we are not bored of life, the reason we fight on despite the trials and tribulations of life…is the fear of death?
Although I find the topic of what creates happiness intriguing, I do not think that it can be answered via logical means. If there was a proven formula for happiness, everyone would adopt it, and unhappiness, aka. sadness, would be eliminated from this world. With that said, I perceive that happiness is one of several states of the mind and what would cause on person to be happy, can make another depressed. Today I woke up, showered, got dressed, drove to work, and for some strange reason why, I was happy. Given that I did not sleep as much as I should of, it is the first day back to work after a three day weekend, and I knew nothing exciting was going to happen at work… I should have been unhappy. On the other hand, one could have just purchased a BMW but was unhappy because he was unable to afford an exotic sports car. At times, we can do things that can create happiness or missery, or in the case of one of my coworkers, you have to give him some medication so that he can tolerate getting out of bed.
Dragon, I respect your view that happiness may not be answered by logical means, but don’t you think it kinda flimsy to back it up with an argument based on ‘if there was a proven formula for happiness, everyone would adopt it, and unhappiness would be elimintated’? I mean, it is an extreme that hasn’t been backed up with any logic. Imagine for a second that there is an answer to why people are happy, but the reason leads us to find that it is some kind of random effect in the mind that is loosely correlated to moments of humans getting their way. This example, shows that your extreme of unhappiness disappearing to not follow. Furthermore, do you not believe that whether something has an answer or not, we should look for one? Especially since we have no guide or rule book to separate that which has an answer and that which doesn’t. Since, we could easily overlook something that has an answer to be something that doesn’t and never come to more information on the topic.
I agree. In my eagerness to backup my initial statment, I made an argument that was both too extreme and too broad. When making that statement, I was thinking of those self-help books that provide a clear plan that consists of several well defined steps that ultimately results in happiness. In order to avoid any further confusion, let me restate my argument: If there was a well-definined, easily attainable method that involved little effort and no sacrifice, and it would immediately lead to long-term happiness, everyone would adopt it, and unhappiness would be elimintated. With that said, people will often gravitate to money, power, sex, work, religion, family, scolastics, etc. to attain happiness; however those same things may lead to confusion, anger, sadness or other undesired emotions.
Hmmm…I’m still not convinced. I’m actually surprised because as I was reading this I was going to mention exactly what you say at the end of this paragraph. Even if there was an easy way to long-term happiness we would still be led to confusion, anger, sadness or other undesired emotions. Moreover, each of us defines their happiness in a different way. Hence, there can never be ONE easy and long term solution for making everyone happy. But this isn’t what I was striving for in making this thread on happiness. All I am looking for is some kind of a general understanding of Why we become happy. Let me emphasize, because many people confuse that to mean “HOW does one become happy”. I am merely interested in ‘why’.
Yeah! Why do we need “human†emotions? Why aren’t we purely logical machines, programmed like computers, to do the thing that we’re required to do?
After thing about this again, I think happy, sad, etc are just ways of getting us or motivating us to do things in a very generic way. Fear being the strongest emotion in my opinion, then things like sadness, (e.g. at a lose so we try not to lose things - I’m being very general here). Then happiness every now and then, so we’re not always filled up full of the stronger emotions and decide that we should kill ourselves.
Also, if I remember correctly, the part of the brain that deals with emotions is much older then the logical part. I think logic to a great extent has superseded emotions, but this is more on an individual-by-individual case. Meaning we sometimes like to scare ourselves for the fun, I don’t think we would find this fun other for the fact that logically we know that we can’t be hurt or that the risk is minimal. Therefore we put ourselves in positions to experience fear, but it’s a false-fear, in effect we are tricking ourselves. The logical brain is fooling the emotionally brain in a controlled why, but the emotionally part is separate from the logical part, so it doesn’t know its being fooled.
This is a very rough example, but I think it explains the idea I’m getting at.
Okay, but I’m not talking about the kinds of happiness. I think we would all agree that there are different kinds of happiness as well as different degrees. The way I get happy because I got my way is different than the happiness I get from being with friends, which is still different from the way I am happy thinking about philosophy, which are all different from the way I am happy with a girlfriend, and so on. To each of the above stated kinds of happiness is a constant change of the degree of happiness. One may be much more happier getting a Porsche 911 than they would be to get a Nissan NSX, but it would still be the same KIND of happiness in relation to the situation or context at hand. Relating all this to your above quote, I am not talking about EXTREME happiness, nor am I talking about the happiness one feels in getting one’s way. I am after some kind of a general understanding of WHY we become happy.
still_mind stated:
I don’t see how. Nor do I see how asking why we are here is equivalent to asking why we are born or why we die. In fact, asking why we die is a very scientific and serious topic going on right now. I sense that your intention was to say that I am wasting my time with the question of why we are happy, as I would be to ask why we are here, why we are born, or why we die. But I would disagree with you on all counts, for I believe that we should investigate all things.
still_mind stated:
I realize you meant this as a joke, but I just wanted to say, out of all seriousness, that what got me to analyse happiness was the idea that if we could answer that, we could help lead all people to happiness, or atleast some degree of it that would be higher than if we had not asked ourselves that question or had not analysed happiness.
Pax,
I would be very interested to hear more of your thoughts on the matter.
