What is true happiness?

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Didn't we have this discussion a few weeks ago?

Happiness, first, is not a quantitive emotion. You cannot have more or less of it than any other person. You can be happy more or less often than other people, but you cannot obtain a greater amount.

Secondly, happiness comes from having everything that you care about. This can come in two forms:

1. You obtain everything you want.

The problem with this approach is that when you obtain something you want, you will end up wanting more, or else you will fear losing it (and so want to be rid of that fear). Therefore, obtaining the things you want ends up making happiness more difficult.

2. Removal of wanting.

This is the approach I have taken. It seems complicated, but it really isn't. Don't want things you don't need. No, I am not perfect. There are still things that I want that I don't need (my laptop would be one, but I don't worry about it, so having it is not as much of a problem as it would be for most people, but another is wanting to not be touched, which is broken far too often for my tastes), but I am far closer to this than most people. I am also happier than most people. Confucius once said, "Those who seek only coarse food to eat, water to drink, and bent arm for pillow, will without looking for it find happiness to boot."

The key to happiness, then, is to not fight it and not seek it. By seeking it, you force it, by forcing it, it moves away from you. Do not wade into a river in an attempt to correct its course. Let it move as it pleases and you shall have all the water you can drink.

Happiness is living in the moment.

Sand, true as in "My aim shall be true". Think of it as close to perfection / pure.

The Best is the Enemy of the Good (enough).

ruveyn

You are attempting to define one piece of nonsense with two other pieces of nonsense. Perfection towards what? Pure what?

God

why is true happiness a goal in itself?

Temporary true happiness can more sensibly be obtained through cocaine or meth which are, at least, real although the stupidity involved in doing so is no greater that attempting some sort of subjugation to a hugely undefined totally misunderstood fantasy that historically has cause horrific misery throughout human history. I do not expect a sensible response, considering the source.

Happiness is not always true topic

I have no idea of what "happiness" is, but I know I just solved a difficult problem and I feel good about it. I suppose I could say I was happy. But this is a fleeting thing. I am not satisfied by my one accomplishment. I have other problems now to solve. Laurels are not a crutch.

To me, nothing is absolute or complete. Always something more to do. Keeps me busy and out of trouble.

When people talk about happiness, I always wonder whether they're talking about a distinct emotion, or simply sustained satisfaction.

Wait I change my mind...

<------because of this fellow.

My happiness relies on those I love or care about such as my family and pets. Without love, there are no happy memories or things to care about....and that makes me unhappy...

Yeah I know this sounds cliche and sappy......


Anyway, happiness is based off human perception and hard to define like love imo....just chemistries in the brain that affect such feelings to perceptions like dopamine.

Great thing about animals is they don't think too deeply about defining feelings....that we know of......

john wrote that part of the song about heroin.

the warm gun is the freshly fired heroin needle. bang bang SHOOT SHOOT.

Discussions of happiness run into difficulties deciding exactly what happiness might be. Humans, like any other living thing, are organic mechanisms designed by evolution to fulfill a program of maintenance, maturation, propagation and death. There are various mechanical requirements for success in each of these efforts and humanity, like many other forms of life, has developed emotional adjuncts to promote and succeed in each of these stages. Emotions such as exhilaration, depression, fear, satisfaction, anger, etc. accompany many living activities and stimulate various hormonal secretions that have many effects on body and mental structures. They can increase or decrease blood flow and preparation for violent response; they can cause major activity in energy preparation for focusing thinking etc.

A conscious mind experiences each of these excursions from normal homeostasis as emotions and normally, once the extraordinary requirements for the proper reaction are over, the normal return to a central, more or less neutral, emotional state is the healthy action of a living body. To be held continuously in a state of anger, fear, exhilaration, depression puts the body and mind mechanisms into strain that can eventually widely distort standard functions.

Drugs or extreme situations or misapprehension of normal situations can each place the human mechanism into extreme activity that, in the long run, can be physically and emotionally damaging. To be continuously “happy” or angry or fearful or depressed is abnormal and not healthy. Unfortunate individuals with bipolar disease swing back and forth between emotional extremes which can destroy a person physically and mentally.

To be emotionally neutral leaves one with the capability to move temporarily in various directions and react properly to extreme situations.

happines is.... subjective.. but from my point of view reading a good book and having philosophical debatesl

Too often happiness is something that I will notice later on when it's over. Many times it's just difficult to recognize happiness when it actually happens. Perhaps because when I'm happy, I'm often doing something, concentrating to do something so much that happiness changes to trivial thing, something that runs on the background. I also see the paradox with it: if I am not able to complain about something I will not be happy. Life would be very miserable if there wouldn't been anything to complain about.

Of course some moments feel more happy than others. One thing that cause a lot of happiness to me is the feeling that I don't need anything and I have everything I need. It's a wonderful feeling in the world where people always want something, landfill sites getting full of stuff people have abandoned.

0

According to Webster, perfect happiness is not attainable in this life ... and I think he says that simply because there is always going to be a bit of pain ...

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Happiness, n. (Webster)
The agreeable sensations which spring from the enjoyment of good; that state of a being in which his desires are gratified, by the enjoyment of pleasure without pain; felicity; but happiness usually expresses less than felicity, and felicity less than bliss.

Happiness is comparative. To a person distressed with pain, relief from that pain affords happiness; in other cases we give the name happiness to positive pleasure or an excitement of agreeable sensations. Happiness therefore admits of indefinite degrees of increase in enjoyment, or gratification of desires. Perfect happiness, or pleasure unalloyed with pain, is not attainable in this life.
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