Happiness

[Infi]

I think I'm too old to go trick or treating, who knows - maybe I'll go this year.

 

I think being tall and overall my body frame will give it away though :?

[Cup Lion]

I think I'm too old to go trick or treating, who knows - maybe I'll go this year.

 

I think being tall and overall my body frame will give it away though :?

 

Hah. Wrong topic?

[Baezal]

This topic reminds me of an article written by John Ciardi regarding happiness. Kind of a long read, but very enlightening. :

 

 

 

[hide=]John Ciardi

 

What is Happiness?

 

 

 

In this essay, which first appeared in Saturday Review, Ciardi tries to define the elusive concept of happiness. In developing his definition, Ciardi analyzes the role of advertising and the nature of materialism in American life.

 

 

 

The right to pursue happiness is issued to Americans with their birth certificates, but no one seems quite sure which way it ran. It may be we are issued a hunting license but offered no game. Jonathan Swift seemed to think so when he attacked the ides of happiness as the possession of being well-deceived, the felicity of being a fool among knaves, for Swift saw society as Vanity Fair, the land of false goals.

 

It is, of course, un-American to think in terms of fools and knaves. We do, however, seem to be dedicated to the idea of buying our way to happiness. We shall all have made it to Heaven when we possess enough.

 

And at the same time the forces of American commercialism are hugely dedicated to making us deliberately unhappy. Advertising is one of our major industries, and advertising exists not to satisfy desires but to create them. For that matter, our whole economy is based on a dedicated insatiability. We are taught that to possess is to be happy. And then we are made to want. We are even told it is our duty to want. It was only a few years ago, to cite a single example, that car dealers across the country were flying banners that read You Auto Buy Now. They were calling upon Americans, as an act approaching patriotism, to buy at once, with money they did not have, automobiles they did not really need, and which they would be required to grow tired of by the time the next years models were released.

 

Or look at any of the womens magazines. There, as Bernard DeVoto once pointed out, advertising begins as poetry in the front pages and ends as pharmacopoeia and therapy in the back pages. The poetry of the front matter is the dream of perfect beauty. This is the baby skin that must be hers. These, the flawless teeth. This the perfumed breath she must exhale. This, the sixteen-year-old figure she must display at forty, at fifty, at sixty, and forever.

 

Once past the vaguely uplifting fiction and feature articles, the reader finds the other face of that dream in the back matter. This is the harness into which Mother must strap herself in order to display that perfect figure. These, the chin straps she must sleep in. This is the salve that restores all, this is her laxative, these are the tablets that melt away fat, these are the hormones of perpetual youth, these are the stockings that hide varicose veins.

 

Obviously no half-sane person can be completely persuaded either by such poetry or by such pharmacopoeia and orthopedics. Yet someone is obviously trying to buy the dream as offered and spending billions every year in the attempt. Clearly the happiness-market is not running out of customers, but what is it trying to buy?

 

The idea happiness, to be sure, will not sit still for easy definition: the best one can do is try to set some extremes to the idea and then work in toward the middle. To think of happiness as acquisitive and competitive will do to set the materialistic extreme. To think of it as the idea one senses in, say, a holy man of India will do to set the spiritual extreme. That holy mans idea of happiness is in needing nothing from outside himself. In wanting nothing, he lacks nothing. He sits immobile, rapt in contemplation, free even of his own body. Or nearly free of it. If devout admirers bring him food he eats it; if not, he starves indifferently. Why be concerned? What is physical is an illusion to him. Contemplation is his joy and he achieves it through a fantastically demanding discipline, the accomplishment of which is a joy within him.

 

Is he a happy man? Perhaps his happiness is only another sort of illusion. But who can take it from him? And who will dare say it is more illusory than happiness on the installment plan?

 

But, perhaps because I am Western, I doubt such catatonic happiness, as I doubt the dreams of the happiness-market. What is certain is that this way of happiness would be torture to almost any Western man. Yet these extremes will still serve to frame the area within which all of us must find some sort of balance. Thoreau a creature of both Eastern and Western thought had his own firm sense of that balance. His aim was to save on the low levels in order to spend on the high. Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreaus idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening ones perceptions of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him function for more important efforts.

 

Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfactions we get from a lifetime depend on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of The pleasure of taking pains. The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is that it purports to be effortless.

 

We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When the spoilsport ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.

 

The buyers and sellers of the happiness-market seem too often to have lost their sense of the pleasure of difficulty. Heaven knows what they are playing, but it seems a dull game. And the Indian holy man seems dull to us, I suppose, because he seems to be refusing to play anything at all. The Western weakness may be an illusion that happiness can be bought. Perhaps the Eastern weakness is in the idea that there is such a thing as perfect (and therefore static) happiness.

 

Happiness is never more than partial. There are no pure states of mankind. Whatever else happiness may be, it is neither in having nor in being, but in becoming. What the Founding Fathers declared for us as an inherent right, we should do well to remember, was not happiness but the pursuit of happiness. What they might have underlined, could they have foreseen the happiness-market, is the cardinal fact that happiness is in the pursuit itself, in the meaningful pursuit of what is life-engaging and life-revealing, which is to say, in the idea of becoming. A nation is not measured by what it possesses or wants to possess, but by what it wants to become.

 

By all means let the happiness market sell us minor satisfactions and even minor follies so long as we keep them in scale and buy them out of spiritual change. I am no customer for either Puritanism or asceticism. But drop any real spiritual capital at those bazaars, and what you come home to will be your own poorhouse.[/hide]

[Lenin64]

But! Do we all really seek happiness? A question I've asked myself as of late.

[warri0r45]

(1) Making things just to sell them doesn't bring happiness anymore than clipping your toenails does. ...

 

 

 

(2) What do we do when work/school is done and we get home? Nothing. We sit down and stare at TV or play video games. We as so confused as a people when it comes to happiness, that in our only free time we do things that bring us no real joy. ... However putting blood sweat and tears into making something just for you (or a loved one) is a great feeling. ...

 

 

 

(3) Teenagers that inherit great sums of money live easy, yet hallow lives, often turning to drugs to try and find a source of joy; yet farmers and shoemakers lead hard lives for which are rewarded greatly in personal satisfaction and happiness. True happiness comes from production, not consumption.

 

The above is simply a narrow expression of how you personally feel the rest of us should live.

 

 

 

(1) This is entirely dependent on the individual. To some, "making things just to sell" (i.e. profit) can bring more joy than production for personal use.

 

 

 

(2) This too is dependent on the individual. After a long day of labour, the last thing on my mind is more labour.

 

 

 

(3) True happiness can come from both production and consumption. For me, kicking back with a beer and/or a joint and "consuming" the beautiful view of an open lake brings me a great deal of happiness. Others may prefer to "consume" artificial imagery on a television screen. Who are you to tell me that these feelings of happiness are "not real"? :lol:

 

 

 

Welcome back, Trapical. I'll leave you with a quote. I urge you to take its advice. :)

 

 

 

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell. -- William Strunk Jr.

 

 

 

Not every piece of writing in life is supposed to be "vigorous". I'm sure you could knock a good novel down to a page, but it takes all of the heart out of it. I read Trapical's post and got a lot out of it. Not in the sense that I see all of it as fact or completely relevant to me, but in the sense that Trapical has shared some things he's worked out in his own life when it comes to happiness.

 

 

 

If nothing else, I found it an enjoyable read, so well done Trapical, and thanks for breaking up the usual monotony of Tip it posts. Having said that, I did resonate with much of what you said.

 

 

 

(By the way, Trapical, you should save this one on your computer this time! :P )

[venomai]

Not every piece of writing in life is supposed to be "vigorous". I'm sure you could knock a good novel down to a page, but it takes all of the heart out of it.

 

Strunk isn't suggesting we knock a novel down to a page. He is suggesting that we remove superfluous material to ensure that the work as a whole has meaning, rather than only particular sections having meaning.

 

 

 

Trapical's post certainly is a breath of fresh air, and I greatly appreciate somebody who takes the time to write down their thoughts in full, structured English. However, I feel that his writing style can be greatly impproved by choosing his words in a more concise manner. This is, of course, just a piece of advice, one which he is welcome to reject. :lol:

[Perakp]

No no, I know the maths as well as anyone. My point was that it's a fairly arbitary and meangingless function to attach to it without any kind of evidence for it. Some people might have an exponential "happiness graph", some a logarthimic etc. etc. Peaks and troughs occur in everything in life, but to attach such a well defined mathematical function to it seems a little silly.

 

 

 

I agree, it isn't an accurate model. The wavelength between two happy seasons isn't always the same. The basic idea still stands: I think that you have to be sad, atleast once, to know what happiness is. The more you are sad, the higher you value your happiness.

 

Also, it is possible to affect your happiness graph with drugs, sex, chocolate (etc) to give a temporary sence of euphoria, but what things make the permanent changes, if any? It has been proven that money doesn't bring happiness, you can get bored to sex, videogames aren't meant to be played all the time, and friends and family members will die some day. What is the permanent "happy-pill"?

 

Why do people say "enjoy the moment"? What is wrong with enjoying your past, or the future? I can't say I'm very happy at this very moment, but planning and dreaming of a bright future brings happiness to my dull day. This future may never come true, but so what, it made me a little bit happier today.

 

 

 

bump :

[Infi]

I think I'm too old to go trick or treating, who knows - maybe I'll go this year.

 

I think being tall and overall my body frame will give it away though :?

 

Hah. Wrong topic?

 

God damnit, Happiness and Halloween looked the same when I clicked here.. :wall:

[Will H]

Not every piece of writing in life is supposed to be "vigorous". I'm sure you could knock a good novel down to a page, but it takes all of the heart out of it.

 

Strunk isn't suggesting we knock a novel down to a page. He is suggesting that we remove superfluous material to ensure that the work as a whole has meaning, rather than only particular sections having meaning.

 

 

 

Trapical's post certainly is a breath of fresh air, and I greatly appreciate somebody who takes the time to write down their thoughts in full, structured English. However, I feel that his writing style can be greatly impproved by choosing his words in a more concise manner. This is, of course, just a piece of advice, one which he is welcome to reject. :lol:

 

Actually, I think that making the language more concise will reduce the quality of the post. Part of Trapical's charm lies in that he's concise enough to put across complex ideas efficiently, but not so concise that the style and flow of the writing is lost.

 

 

 

Great post Trapical, it really connected with me. We really should make a 'Trapical's collection' (with backups!), so they're more accessible.

[Nom]

Not every piece of writing in life is supposed to be "vigorous". I'm sure you could knock a good novel down to a page, but it takes all of the heart out of it.

 

Strunk isn't suggesting we knock a novel down to a page. He is suggesting that we remove superfluous material to ensure that the work as a whole has meaning, rather than only particular sections having meaning.

 

 

 

Trapical's post certainly is a breath of fresh air, and I greatly appreciate somebody who takes the time to write down their thoughts in full, structured English. However, I feel that his writing style can be greatly impproved by choosing his words in a more concise manner. This is, of course, just a piece of advice, one which he is welcome to reject. :lol:

 

Actually, I think that making the language more concise will reduce the quality of the post. Part of Trapical's charm lies in that he's concise enough to put across complex ideas efficiently, but not so concise that the style and flow of the writing is lost.

 

 

 

Uh, no. The post doesn't flow so much as meander, and if style is lost by reducing the amount of superfluous words then it is a bad style. Hence the improvement that will come of writing in a more concise manner.

 

 

 

That being said, I certainly don't regret reading it, but the wall of text was a bit of a turn-off.

[trapical]

It can be a long read sometimes. The very nature of the subject matter makes it impossible for me to shorten it down and still have meaning. I could have shortened my post down to "The secret of happiness is having friends, working hard, and doing things that you love." But that would have been pointless, we all know that already. The purpose of the post was for the reader to figure that out on their own. I gave examples and stories as a way to connect with everyone somehow and to give them time to really figure the concept out for themselves before I pulled their mind away to the next paragraph.

 

But the critics of my writing style do have a point (as the saying goes "If you make a paper 20% shorter, it will be 20% better"), I am still one who likes to provide examples and little stories in the midst of my paragraphs.

[____]

Supporting agruements and evidence is the soul of a paper. Making something 20% shorter doesn't make it 20% better unless that 20% loss came in the form of more efficient structure.

[Zierro]

(3) True happiness can come from both production and consumption. For me, kicking back with a beer and/or a joint and "consuming" the beautiful view of an open lake brings me a great deal of happiness. Others may prefer to "consume" artificial imagery on a television screen. Who are you to tell me that these feelings of happiness are "not real"? :lol:

 

 

 

Of course both consumption and production bring us happiness - that's what keeps the world going around (because then there is a supply and demand). I'd have to say that our natural urges for accomplishments outweigh our urges for usage in most cases though. People just like to be helpful. I do agree with you that it was a bit too long though.

[trapical]

Supporting agruements and evidence is the soul of a paper. Making something 20% shorter doesn't make it 20% better unless that 20% loss came in the form of more efficient structure.

 

Good point, when my sophomore year English teacher told the class that quote I'm pretty sure she was seeing a lot of fluff and not much substance. Ah the things we all did to make our paper meet the page requirement :lol:

[dusqi]

I didn't read all of this thread, but I skimmed it and couldn't see any numbers. I think that some evidence is needed to back up (or not) the philosophical ideas. Here are a couple:

 

 

 

Around 30% of your satisfaction with life is accounted for by your personality. In other words, some people are born to be dissatisfied whatever happens.

 

 

 

Concerning things you actually have control over, the best predictor of satisfaction with life is health.

 

 

 

You don't even bother to read the words that he wrote, yet you criticize him because you didn't see any numbers in the text? Wow, don't even bother replying if you don't know what other people are talking about.

 

 

 

 

 

Please tell me why my point (that the assertions in this post are without evidence backing them up) is incorrect. I know a bit about research into happiness (having done some myself), and I know that lots of studies have been done which give us some good insight into it. It is a shame to ignore the evidence and instead rely on philosophical wanderings in a post which obviously had a lot of time and thought put into it.

[Rebdragon]

But the critics of my writing style do have a point (as the saying goes "If you make a paper 20% shorter, it will be 20% better"), I am still one who likes to provide examples and little stories in the midst of my paragraphs.

 

Going along that train of logic if you made it a 100% shorter it'd be 100% better :lol: .

[Zierro]

But the critics of my writing style do have a point (as the saying goes "If you make a paper 20% shorter, it will be 20% better"), I am still one who likes to provide examples and little stories in the midst of my paragraphs.

 

Going along that train of logic if you made it a 100% shorter it'd be 100% better :lol: .

 

 

 

Exactly, because ignorance is bliss.

[trapical]

I didn't read all of this thread, but I skimmed it and couldn't see any numbers. I think that some evidence is needed to back up (or not) the philosophical ideas. Here are a couple:

 

 

 

Around 30% of your satisfaction with life is accounted for by your personality. In other words, some people are born to be dissatisfied whatever happens.

 

 

 

Concerning things you actually have control over, the best predictor of satisfaction with life is health.

 

 

 

You don't even bother to read the words that he wrote, yet you criticize him because you didn't see any numbers in the text? Wow, don't even bother replying if you don't know what other people are talking about.

 

 

 

 

 

Please tell me why my point (that the assertions in this post are without evidence backing them up) is incorrect. I know a bit about research into happiness (having done some myself), and I know that lots of studies have been done which give us some good insight into it. It is a shame to ignore the evidence and instead rely on philosophical wanderings in a post which obviously had a lot of time and thought put into it.

 

Dusqi, its been awhile :)

 

You have a very good point, and yes there are plenty of statistics and studies done on happiness. But even being a biologist and a chemist, and having a ratio of science classes taken to philosophy classes taken being about a thousand to one... I don't know know, I just feel that philosophy is better suited at explaining something like happiness. Its just such a intangible concept. How can you really measure with statistics such an abstract thing, especially when happiness can mean so many things to people? Is happiness from friendship and good fortunes measured the same as the satisfaction of building a fence? Do people feel more happiness from love than from their best friend? These are such qualitative concepts that even a science minded guy like myself turns to philosophy to get the truth here. Though I admit, I should have at least mentioned the quantitative studies somewhere in my post -.-

[Cup Lion]

In my opinion, the post seemed less formal and more personal without statistics, which helped me connect with it better. It would have been like a lecture or a research article if it had been filled with statistics. I don't really want to read that.

[BlueLancer]

It's just one temporary emotion amongst others. Funny how in popular culture it's made into a mythical end-it-all emotion which upon achieving, you acquire earthly bliss and inner peace.

 

 

 

At least the american constitution makes it clear, every person has the right to a pursuit of happiness, not to happiness itself. How could everyone be guaranteed an emotion? They come and go depending on your life situation.

 

 

 

Can you 'achieve' anger by hitting someone? Can you 'achieve' fear by being robbed? No, so how can you 'achieve' happiness if, say, your child is born or you recieve a present/meet with an old friend? You're experiencing emotions, not 'achieving' them.

 

 

 

Then again, I guess it sounds better than "pursuit of wrath" or jealousy. You can't be happy all the time.. You can't be sad, envious or angry all the time. Your life changes, and so do your emotions.. Make the best of them and enjoy the happy moments while you can.

[dusqi]

In my opinion, the post seemed less formal and more personal without statistics, which helped me connect with it better. It would have been like a lecture or a research article if it had been filled with statistics. I don't really want to read that.

 

 

 

It didn't have to be filled with statistics. A few anecdotes, some witticisms, some nice rolling phrases, and some facts thrown in too. Sorry, but this just happens to be a recent pet peeve of mine. I think that people are too afraid of facts, as if they're too difficult. Without facts, you can say anything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dusqi, its been awhile :)

 

You have a very good point, and yes there are plenty of statistics and studies done on happiness. But even being a biologist and a chemist, and having a ratio of science classes taken to philosophy classes taken being about a thousand to one... I don't know know, I just feel that philosophy is better suited at explaining something like happiness. Its just such a intangible concept. How can you really measure with statistics such an abstract thing, especially when happiness can mean so many things to people? Is happiness from friendship and good fortunes measured the same as the satisfaction of building a fence? Do people feel more happiness from love than from their best friend? These are such qualitative concepts that even a science minded guy like myself turns to philosophy to get the truth here.

 

 

 

 

Hi trapical! :o) I saw in your other post that you're 22... I recently hit 23.. we're old!! You should stick around, I find that tip.it is a good place for testing out extreme statements/arguments that I wouldn't say in real life yet ;)

 

 

 

 

 

One of the major ways that psychology (and economics) looks at happiness is by just basically asking people how satisfied with their life they are. By making the question general, it allows people to prioritise however they want. If they are feeling satisfied with their life because they just built a fence, or because they are in love, then they rate it highly. If they have a job that they hate but a good home life, then if their home life is more important to them then they'll still say they're satisfied.

 

 

 

Then, you can try and break down their satisfaction rating by asking a bunch of people questions like how much money they're earning, whether they're married, etc.etc. and you can see how the factors are related to their satisfaction with life.

 

 

 

This way, we assume that people don't actually know what makes them happy, but that they know whether they're happy or not (which seems fair to me). So they rate their happiness, and then we can go ahead and find out the likely causes of it. I would say that this is a better method than introspecting.

[Cyco_Reborn]

tl:dr

 

In this modern world of corruption, Money = Happiness, but there are a few exceptions, like Friends, Family and Nature. I think we will all find happiness someday, even though we may not realise it.

[Rebdragon]

tl:dr

 

In this modern world of corruption, Money = Happiness, but there are a few exceptions, like Friends, Family and Nature. I think we will all find happiness someday, even though we may not realise it.

 

Is your soul philosophically dead or what? You've got that first sentence backwards, and no justification for the second.

[Cup Lion]

tl:dr

 

In this modern world of corruption, Money = Happiness, but there are a few exceptions, like Friends, Family and Nature. I think we will all find happiness someday, even though we may not realise it.

 

I think Trapical made it pretty clear how money does not equal "true" happiness, if you will.

[Guest]

Welcome back, trapical.

 

In my opinion, happyness is the one thing everyone wants, yet few has actully acheived. But lets think about it; what is happiness?

 

 

 

It is a state of mind, acheived only temporaraly. It cannot be obtained without a strong mind, and a bit of optimism. It needs to be fueled. It is like a fire: If it runs out of wood, it will go out. In the case of happiness, the wood is just friends. In my opinion, it is hard to be happy by yourself. Friends are the people who you laugh with, who you can confess secrets and just hang out with and enjoy life.