it is assumed, and in part codified, that
part of the “endgame” of existence is this
pursuit of happiness…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their
creator with certain unalienable rights, that among
these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
I have written about “all men/persons are created equal”
before and so I shall not work out this aspect, but
I am going to write about this idea of “the pursuit of
happiness”…
let us think about happiness itself for a minute…
what is happiness? My handy dandy dictionary says,
Happiness: the state of being happy…
so, what is being happy?
again, my dictionary:
Happy: 1. feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.
- fortunate and convenient.
another dictionary:
Happy: satisfied with the quality or standard of…
“I’m happy with his performance”
and the thing about happiness is this, if you have to ask yourself,
am I happy? I can tell you aren’t happy… for happiness is a thing
that we often don’t see or realize until after we are no longer happy…
we notice happiness when we are sad or grieving, when we are missing
happiness is when we notice if we are happy or not…
happiness is quite often, in fact usually is Ephemeral…
and my dictionary says this about ephemeral,
Ephemeral: lasting a short time… transitory…
and that is an excellent understanding of happiness,
ephemeral… lasting a short time, transitory…
and why should we chase something that is, by definition,
short lasting, transitory?
I can be happy and then any number of things can happen
that turns me from being happy to any number of emotions,
for example, I was happy this morning until I hit my ankle
on the chair, that fucking hurt, which means I was no longer
happy…but I was in pain, ugly fucking pain…
happiness is like that… it exists until it doesn’t…
and that can take a second to go from happiness to
anger, pain, sadness, despair, hate, lust… any number
of emotions can take over for happiness…
so once again, why should we pursue something that
is as ephemeral, short lived as happiness?
Why don’t we engage in some value that is of longer
existence then happiness…
and as I have mentioned before, I have replaced happiness as
my primary value with knowledge or seeking wisdom…
for I can seek knowledge/wisdom my entire life and still
it would be worth it… I am not seeking something that is
transitory or short lived, I am seeking something that
did have value, does have value and will always have value…
So I reject the declaration in one particular point,
the pursuit of happiness as a goal of existence…
and will I replace it with the goal of seeking knowledge
or wisdom…
Kropotkin