Quality of existence and the push for 'happiness'

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I've always had a rather particular outlook on this topic, mostly from a combination of my own experience with self and with looking at at most of the NT's I know in my life, and while I understand that there's a lot of variance of opinion on what things 'should' be I've found myself somewhat struck by what I don't know if I'd call full lack of awareness of what its really about or full out fundamental disagreement. I guess I'd just like to take an inventory here to see who understands this dynamic - ie. the value of existence in relation to self on a qualitative basis.

It seems like most people I know, while doing what they need to, keeping a stiff upper lip about life (myself included), ultimately have to try incredibly hard to be happy or at least project it. What is happiness? Why should anyone care about it? I really have to debate the people who just say its chasing an emotion, its much bigger and much broader than that. Its really the currency of confidence, the currency of goal attainment, the currency of knowing that you have yourself together and your life is on a path that you would wish to see it on. The more your life veers of that path - the more people have to struggle. Its also a gift we wish to give each other and the desire to give that gift and raise the general level of things is one that has us chasing the desire for self-control, self-awareness, and really disecting what keeps us from being happy - one of my favorite radio show hosts made the analogy that sharing unhappiness is like sharing bad body odor, we shower because we realize the later is offensive but a lot of people have seemed lost to the concept that the former is a very similar kind of thing.

Where I see this in the genetics game, the king-of-the-mountain game when it comes to self-actualization, people hit limits - caps - things they simply can't cross, they spend much of the rest of their natural lives trying to reconcile themselves with where they've landed vs. what they felt that they had in them or what they're heart and subconscious mind ultimately told them that they needed. Our societal norms as well put people in a place where, both logistical purposes and order, people really can't speak openly about these things because - everyone is going through it.

How is the world messed up? How is the situation of the human condition out of wack with the people who exist within it? For a lot of people, I'd have to think quite a large minority if not a slight majority, this world simply doesn't and can't supply them with what they need. Their emotional needs and wants are far above what this world can provide, not simply in selfish ways but they have quite often very benevolent desires that simply can't be fulfilled in the world as it is. Unfortunately an inability to actualize these things will be a constant source of internal friction in their lives as a given - they can't give up their best selves or standards because, there's no one left if they do so, but at the same time if they go on they'll be in constant odds with a largely cynical and nihilistic backdrop. Some atheists seem to wonder how a person could possibly prefer to be dead than alive if it means nothingness - they'd write it down to just ignorance or lack of examination - I'd be much more inclined to say that when people find their core self being misfit to the schema of life that their limitations have put them in - a black void sounds like a far better alternative and, when they really think about it, if we're all going to a big black void, absolutely nothing here really matters, nor do they, nor does hanging on for another 10, 20, or 40 years matter all that much.

I think this is part of where we have such transcendental urges on the whole, why 85 to 90% of people in the world would claim themselves to be anything from deeply religious to spiritual but nonreligious, for many of them their sense of being so fundamentally misfit to this system strikes a chord within them in a way that's difficult to ignore. When looking at it all in a genetic sense you realize that, unfortunately, for the world to work the way it does or as well as it does everything has to happen pretty much exactly as it does - ie. society being built on a highway of shattered dreams. Without that governance things would fly apart just like our biggest natural control and smoothing gradient over the motion of society and nothing overtly bad happening is a result of the fact that people can't exactly be swept up simultaneously into a mania very easily - it has happened occasionally in history but it takes a heck of a lot at very specific times.

In this though I'm in no means trying to argue for a life hereafter or the existence of a human spirit, what I'm really trying to place some verbiage behind is an internal reality to humanity that's very much there. Often enough I get the impression that a lot of people, it could be AS I don't know, literally don't see it.

WOW- that's REALLY heavy! sorry i can't intelligently respond to the whole tamale, i hate to disappoint you because i know you wanted a real debate- but if you please, i can pick single points and maybe ponder on them just a bit, in the manner of an infant mouthing a toy to determine its qualities- "sharing unhappiness is like sharing bad body odor"- if you were to turn this on its head, i.e. "sharing happiness is like sharing good body odor," it would make more clear that effusively happy [obviously successful in life] people can be rrreeeeaaaalllllyy depressing to those of us who are unhappily unsuccessful in life. misery loves company, and the happy outlier can seem as obnoxious as the aroma-numb walking perfume factory in the odoriferous context.
as for the atheistic black void and "nothing really matters as the world is headed for hell in a honeybucket so why bother" meme, some would call this nihilism but the dictionary told me to use another term:

STINKIN' THINKIN'- OVER GENERALIZATION:
-Viewing an existing negative situation as a never-ending pattern of defeat. "Always" and "never" thinking.-

the world patently sucks, but ask history and it will tell you that, discounting the fact that history is written by the victors, reading between the lines of the winners' propaganda tells one that life sucks a bit less than it did even 100 years ago. it ain't much but it still is progress, despite our undistinguished genetic origins. it is a matter of 2 short halting steps forward, one long step backward- long pause, repeat. things are the way they are because everybody has to start somewhere, usually at the bottom. we are just another race [called "earthings"] who are at the bottom rung of universal civilization, a "hell world" according to much eastern-based thought that i have chewed-on. a sandbox for baby souls to play in without disturbing the rest of the universe. it is up to us all to keep our shoulders at the karmic wheel, as long as it takes. treading water is not an option, for without forward progress, one eventually tires and sinks. the fact that we exist says something deeper than most folk can see without much individual study.
if i missed the point do let me know luv.

Maybe I'm made of different stuff but happiness to me is BS. Every day brings its problems, new insights, interesting ideas and a few hot cups of coffee. If I can handle the problems, learn a few new things, try out some ideas and screw around with what interests me that's all I need. I'm not interested in happiness.

Happiness is the absence of pain.

ruveyn

combined with novel pleasure with which one becomes habituated eventually. so to maintain a level of happiness requires increases or improvements in the nature of the novel pleasure [a new novelty, if you will] every so often.

Happiness is a feeling typically associated with success and luck. It's an effect of gain.

I just saw this, I'm a little rushed for time right now but I'll try to give a good analysis for your questions.

I hope this doesn't sound patronizing but, from everything I've seen of your posts I don't see how my intellect fast outpaces yours, I may have spent a bit more time sorting through and introspecting on certain things but I think that's it.


I'm not recommending gleefulness, that's what annoys people. I think what I'm saying, and what my favorite radio show host was (how he'd explain it); I think a friend's mom told him that the only 'happy' people they see are people who they don't know. Taken into context - everyone has hardships, some attempt to deal with it internally and be strong for others (staying strong and lending strength externally - this helps them inwardly as well) while others wear their problems on their sleeve. That's what I'm recommending - putting on a fulfilled exterior and doing what you have to internally or in your own means of achievement in order to make that state attainable if it currently isn't in a full literal sense (though that's somewhat rare and seldom ever permanent).



I fully agree - right now, in terms of quality of life, is the best time to ever have lived in history for quality of life, and it is always advancing forward. The point that I was trying to make though - I don't understand that some people can almost fetishize 'living' under any circumstances and yet believe that death is oblivion, it seems too logically disjointed to me (and yes - I'm far from a 'little professor' or human computer, I'd have to say on some levels that I'm out past most women in terms of emotional sensitivity, still when I grapple with that issue myself I can't come to any other conclusion when I size it up right; there's nothing to fear in death for atheists especially, as for theists I really think they can lighten up - the concept of omniscience, determinism, and hell bash out to where either the third can't exist or the third really isn't such a bad deal if the first two are fine with the third).

thank you. pretty good reply for a "quick job." i get a little more now. the folk who feel that life is unconditionally liveable while simultaneously believing in post-life oblivion, must see death as just a long sleep into eternity, differing from ordinary night sleep only in degree. absense of paradise is ok with them, as long as it is accompanied by absense of consciousness. as for "the third really isn't such a bad deal if the first two are fine with the third" - hmmm... brain sweating- TILT! does this mean that hell might not be much worse than new jersey? iow, if the script of destiny has already been written, and some folk are going uptown while others are headed down to the docks of the river styx, that the flames of perdition really are just painted art on the walls?

when you say you are "out past most women in terms of emotional sensitivity," does this mean you would be tearful watching a movie like "the wild birds of telegraph hill"? [i know i was]. in "telegraph hill" the theme of death is pervasive- the wild parrots live hard lives, subject to attack from both the elements, birds of prey and each other. their deaths are usually not very pleasant. a sick old parrot the protagonist took in to care for, was dying. the caretaker [michael bittner, author of the book "the wild birds of telegraph hill" as well as the subject of the film] related the parrot's sad death- he was holding the bird in a warm blanket on his chest, but since it was late at night and he had to go to bed eventually, he put the parrot down on the ground so he could retire for the night- at this point he immediately felt a sharp sense of regret from the bird [interspecies empathy/telepathy?] which cut to his soul. the bird crawled off to the radiator to warm up [sick tropical birds like heat], and when michael awoke the next morning he found the parrot dead beneath the radiator. he was sorry that he didn't just stay up and comfort the dying parrot until it expired. [sniffle] i know this is a digression, but i hoped to heaven that this animal crossed the rainbow bridge and was happy forever in paradise.
in japan, there is something called the "hare kuyo" [needle shrine] whose sole purpose is to venerate worn and broken sewing machine needles, who have "lived" tough "lives" working hard for their owners, and as a reward for many useful years of service they are henceforth kept in vats of soft tofu, prayed-over by shinto priests. with this in mind, which kind of "afterlife" do you believe in?

what a tangent! anyways, "staying strong and lending strength externally - this helps them inwardly as well" sounds lot like "suffering is good for the soul." but having my custom mix of AS and stendahl's syndrome makes it almost impossible to hide my emotional overload from folk, i have to run and hide. not a whole lot have the constitutional "right stuff" to simultaneously front a brave face while aching inside. it is all i can do to appear stoic for a short while. knowing this, i am much more tolerant of folk who are even less even-keeled than me.

It depends upon how you characterize sleep. Do you consider you were asleep before you were born? That's how you'll be when you die. If so, I slept pretty well through the age of the dinosaurs even though they were rather noisy.

lol:+) i like people of-and-with good humor.
i myself believe i have existed in spirit since before the dinosaurs. as for the future, benjamin franklin said it best on his tombstone:

"The Body of B. Franklin Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, Its Contents torn out, And stript of its Lettering and Gilding, Lies here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be wholly lost: For it will, as he believ'd, appear once more, In a new & more perfect Edition, Corrected and Amended By the Author."

correction- this was his proposed tombstone inscription as conceived by him at age 22. the actual inscription:

"Benjamin and Deborah Franklin."

As one who has gone through the process I can assure you one matures quite a bit after the age of 22.

some of us, anyways. in my process of exceeding age 22 i seem often to have gone in a different direction;+)

Just to stir it up a trifle:

Solon reported by Herodotus > Judge no man happy before his death.

For me, happiness is not success nor freedom from pain, nor yet the positive reactions of my peers, nor even having done right. All of those are good, but it is rather, even when losing and in pain and despised and stupid, I am aware that there IS awaiting me playing under the forsythia, working in the museum, doing the go to sleep dance - that the pain [and in a world of sensations who is ever TRULY free from pain] is not the whole reality.

Pain seems to be the focus of attention on this thread. I am not sure how unusual I am but pain in my life is negligible. People live, people die, but life goes on. I have other things to worry about than pain and the struggle to overcome them is interesting and makes life worthwhile. I don't want to be in a situation where I don't have to use all my resources to maintain myself.

And then there is St Francis' definition:

"Suppose a messenger comes and tells me that all the Masters in the University of Paris have come to join the order: that is not true happiness. Suppose that all the prelates beyond the Alps, all the archbishops and bishops have come to join the order, suppose that the kings of France and of England have come too: that is not true happiness. Suppose that my brethren have gone to the unbelievers and converted them all to the faith; suppose that I have such grace from God that I heal the sick and work many miracles: I tell you that in all of these true happiness does not reside. So what is true happiness? I am on my way back from Perugia and I arrive here late at night, and it is the muddy time of winter and so cold that there are icicles hanging from the bottom of my tunic, which keep striking my legs so that they are wounded and bleeding. All muddy and cold and covered in ice, I arrive at the door and when I have knocked at the door and shouted for a long time, at last the brother comes and asks, 'Who is it?' I reply, It's brother Francis.' He says, 'Go away, this is no time for travelling. You can't come in.' I plead with him, but he repeats, 'Go away; you're an ignorant simpleton. You are certainly not going to come in here with us; we have quite enough people here and they are quite good enough, we do not need you.' Once more I stand at the door, saying 'For the love of God, take me in just for this night.' But he says, I won't. Go to the Crutched Friars and ask there.' I tell you, if I have patience and am not upset, this is where true happiness lies and true virtue and the salvation of my soul."