The route to Happiness.

[Wookey]

I gave Happiness a capital 'H' there, did you see? I've been reading too many self-help books.

Listen, right, we've had a to-do tonight regarding the whole 'meaning of life' thang - and I was wondering how many people would agree with me, in a bid to bolster my lowly ego and make me feel better.

So, here are the two choices: Wookey (in the Red Corner) believes that true Happiness (capitalised) comes from within, that is to say that external riches, and externalised satisfaction, is not the route to Happiness. Rather, finding joy in small things is the way to realise the self. Instead of desensitising ourselves to beauty with ever more elaborate and expensive baubles, we should find beauty, resolution, peace and Happiness in the tiny indications of life, such as a rainstorm, a laugh, or a perfect sunflower. When we can realise our own individual, infinitesimal minuteness, the speck of dust we represent on the mantlepiece of time, then finding joy in the minute (in both prununciations), and living each second without the encumbrance of bank accounts and mortgages and careers and ambitions is the way to find an honest relationship with this bizarre, random, joyous but short-lived thing we call 'life'.

In the Blue Corner, we have Mr Stibs, who (if I can paraphrase his bruising rhetoric) believes that it is a Darwinian truth that acquisition of property, riches, success and 'belongings' are the true route to Happiness, because these will most likely result in the ultimate goal of the desemination of ones genes. Mmm.

The instigator for this debate was Gok Wan's 'How to Look Gook Naked' - so never let it be said that cheap telly can't be thought provoking....

When watching the (admirable) Mr Wan tell his ladies that 'You don't need plastic surgery to be happy and content with yourselves, you just need a hair-do, make-over, new wardrobe and ego-massaging Gay best Friend, and you'll be fine....' when I (in the Red Corner you'll remember) said that it would be much more impressive if Mr Wan could get the ladies sitting their in their worst knickers, hair bedraggled, smelling of yesterday's socks, and still feel great about themselves.

A hair-do, new wardrobe and make-over is again relying on outside elements to provide Happiness (outside opinions, the image we portray) which is not, and can never be, a permanant and lasting solution....we all age.

Mr Stibs, meanwhile, says that looking good, and attracting a mate, is the Darwinian imperitive. We are bound to feel better when we are more attractive, and we are more attractive the better we look, and the more things we own...

I can't get through to him the way in which we need to supercede the ego to find Happiness, and reduce the demands we make on our lives to more manageable (and enjoyable) proportions. He insists that ego and social positioning and riches are Darwinian measures of 'success' - whereas I see 'success' as coming from a completely different place - the ability to need nothing.

So, in this contrived boxing match of philosophies sparked by an episode of a weekday evening lifestyle show, what say you?

Who is on the right route to Happiness - Red, Blue, or are we both marooned?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The instigator for this debate was Gok Wan's 'How to Look Gook Naked' - so never let it be said that cheap telly can't be thought provoking....

That is a thought provoking idea.

I'd agree with you, not Mr. Stibs, but with one caveat.

As Tom Robbins said, 'It's a hell of a lot easier to realize one's Buddha-nature, when one has a million dollars in the bank.'

 

[Wookey]

That is a thought provoking idea.

I'd agree with you, not Mr. Stibs, but with one caveat.

As Tom Robbins said, 'It's a hell of a lot easier to realize one's Buddha-nature, when one has a million dollars in the bank.'

But surely that would be a faux Buddhism without the reality of destitution to remind one of one's true priorities?

 

[Wookey]

That is a thought provoking idea.

A Freudian Slurp if ever I saw one.

 

[fela fan]

we should find beauty, resolution, peace and Happiness in the tiny indications of life, such as a rainstorm, a laugh, or a perfect sunflower.

which are external things!! I agree with you though, it is how our inner is working that depends on the happiness level we have. And happiness is a state, not the reaction to an event, which lends further support to your views.

All those trappings of 'success' have left innumerable people wondering what life is all about, because they have it all, yet still can't find happiness. Trouble with material goods is that you can never get enough, you never stop wanting more.

Happiness comes to those that are best able to live the moment, to be in the now, to live without time's dictats.

 

[fela fan]

But surely that would be a faux Buddhism without the reality of destitution to remind one of one's true priorities?

If i had one million dollars in the bank, then that would mean i could retire from work forever. That indeed will make things whole heaps easier to achiever my inner harmony!

 

[Diamond Dog]

Happiness is wanting what you get, not getting what you want.

Without the nice rhetorical effect of the word reversal, what I'm saying is that to be happy you have to stop desire, the desire to get something else, something 'better', the desire to transcend. You should be happy with what you have, whatever that is; to know how to appreciate whatever you have.

In this ephemeral and transient world with its constantly shifting values, beliefs and 'certainties', where something that appeared universal and solid will eventually melt into air, perhaps this notion of 'happiness' is the closest we can get to fulfillment.

 

[gorski]

Conformism as happiness?? I vehemently disagree!

My mum keeps telling me that and I hit the roof, every time, without fail!

That's determinism and in it there's no space for freedom, since desire is fettered, strictly rooted in that which merely is.

How come we have come so far? Before us they managed to want/desire something New and now we are forbidden from doing the same thing? I don't think anyone can claim such a thing with a straight face, although some bourgeois "thinkers" do claim exactly that!

Well, they wish we do not wish!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

But surely that would be a faux Buddhism without the reality of destitution to remind one of one's true priorities?

Buddha nature doesn't require destitution.

 

[Jonti]

Yeah, the point of the Buddha story is that the Middle Way -- between riches and mortification -- is the right path.

 

[Barking_Mad]

"Modern man, if he dared to be articulate about his concept of heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest department store in the world, showing new things and gadgets, and himself having plenty of money with which to buy them. He would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven of gadgets and commodities, provided only that there were ever more and newer things to buy, and perhaps that his neighbors were just a little less privileged than he."

"If a man work without genuine relatedness to what he is doing, if he buys and consumes commodities in an abstractified and alienated way, how can he make use of his leisure time in an active and meaningful way? He always remains the passive and alienated consumer. He "consumes" ball games, moving pictures, newspapers and magazines, books, lectures, natural scenery, social gatherings, in the same alienated and abstractified way in which he consumes the commodities he has bought....He is not free to enjoy "his" leisure; his leisure-time consumption is determined by industry, as are the commodities he buys; his taste is manipulated, he wants to see and to hear what he is conditioned to want to see and to hear; entertainment is an industry like any other, the customer is made to buy fun as he is made to buy dresses and shoes. The value of the fun is determined by its success on the market, not by anything which could be measured in human terms."

 

[muckypup]

... it would be much more impressive if Mr Wan could get the ladies sitting their in their worst knickers, hair bedraggled, smelling of yesterday's socks, and still feel great about themselves

How about showering, washing and combing your hair and slapping on a par of cleanly washed but old knickers ?

 

[gorski]

"Modern man, if he dared to be articulate about his concept of heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest department store in the world, showing new things and gadgets, and himself having plenty of money with which to buy them. He would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven of gadgets and commodities, provided only that there were ever more and newer things to buy, and perhaps that his neighbors were just a little less privileged than he."

"If a man work without genuine relatedness to what he is doing, if he buys and consumes commodities in an abstractified and alienated way, how can he make use of his leisure time in an active and meaningful way? He always remains the passive and alienated consumer. He "consumes" ball games, moving pictures, newspapers and magazines, books, lectures, natural scenery, social gatherings, in the same alienated and abstractified way in which he consumes the commodities he has bought....He is not free to enjoy "his" leisure; his leisure-time consumption is determined by industry, as are the commodities he buys; his taste is manipulated, he wants to see and to hear what he is conditioned to want to see and to hear; entertainment is an industry like any other, the customer is made to buy fun as he is made to buy dresses and shoes. The value of the fun is determined by its success on the market, not by anything which could be measured in human terms."

You are mad! How dare you, sir! We were blissfully unmindful before your rather unhelpful intervention! Now we have to re-think! And that's really hard...

 

[untethered]

Work hard and obey the law rather than pursue an egocentric quest for satisfaction.

 

[jonH]

if you're not up to making yourself feelings of bliss and intense joy................................. maybe you'd be better off feathering your nest and keeping safe until you can

 

[Barking_Mad]

You are mad! How dare you, sir! We were blissfully unmindful before your rather unhelpful intervention! Now we have to re-think! And that's really hard...

If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?

 

[Wookey]

"Modern man, if he dared to be articulate about his concept of heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest department store in the world, showing new things and gadgets, and himself having plenty of money with which to buy them. He would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven of gadgets and commodities, provided only that there were ever more and newer things to buy, and perhaps that his neighbors were just a little less privileged than he."

"If a man work without genuine relatedness to what he is doing, if he buys and consumes commodities in an abstractified and alienated way, how can he make use of his leisure time in an active and meaningful way? He always remains the passive and alienated consumer. He "consumes" ball games, moving pictures, newspapers and magazines, books, lectures, natural scenery, social gatherings, in the same alienated and abstractified way in which he consumes the commodities he has bought....He is not free to enjoy "his" leisure; his leisure-time consumption is determined by industry, as are the commodities he buys; his taste is manipulated, he wants to see and to hear what he is conditioned to want to see and to hear; entertainment is an industry like any other, the customer is made to buy fun as he is made to buy dresses and shoes. The value of the fun is determined by its success on the market, not by anything which could be measured in human terms."

God Bless Fromm.

That's quite brilliantly put, and gets to the core of the disquiet I've always felt about modern life - that it is being provided for me from a mauve palette, rather than being carved by me alone. The increasing resentment and alienation I feel for the television typifies this, even as I watch it. I'm starving, and I'm eating empty sandwiches with no bread.

 

[Wookey]

How about showering, washing and combing your hair and slapping on a par of cleanly washed but old knickers ?

That would do! He appears to espouse a philosophy of self-contentment, but really his ethos is about improving one's looks in a way which subscribes to the fashion tastes of the day....is there not a truer Happiness and confidence we can find without the fripperies and the baubles and the svelte outline? One that comes from within, and works no matter how life makes us look?

 

[Barking_Mad]

God Bless Fromm.

That's quite brilliantly put, and gets to the core of the disquiet I've always felt about modern life - that it is being provided for me from a mauve palette, rather than being carved by me alone. The increasing resentment and alienation I feel for the television typifies this, even as I watch it. I'm starving, and I'm eating empty sandwiches with no bread.

A small but important chunk of how I look at the world came from reading Fromm, worldview changing thinker whose books are much under read, despite being more relevant now than they were back in the 50's and 60's. One of the first men to put the whole of society on the psychiatric couch and make observations on it, but in a manner that was wonderfully warm and human, unlike many other psychologists who it seems see humans as robots to be de-programmed and re-programmed......

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas or feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is further from the truth... Just as there is a 'Folie à deux' there is a 'folie à millions.' The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.

Which cuts to the very heart of your original post. Maybe in many ways, society truly is insane?

 

[gorski]

I started a thread on "The Art of Loving" - to no much avail...

 

[bodach]

If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?

You're a numpty

 

[Idaho]

Work hard and obey the law rather than pursue an egocentric quest for satisfaction.

That's no philosophy! That's crap advice from a Protestant

 

[kyser_soze]

The route to happiness? Well, first off you have to have uncovered the fact that what you think will make you happy doesn't (usually compressible into 'Be careful what you wish for, you might get it'); this may involve externalities, it may be that you've already rejected crass ideas of consumerism and plunged into somethinig spiritually meaningful and rejected that.

I don't think anyone can really say 'X or Y' will make me happy; happiness comes to you, in the meeting of new friend; the discovery of a skill or the joy of learning something new; having kids seems to be a pretty large part of many people's happiness...

I think consumerism is something that needs to be gone through to some extent - it's like parent's telling you 'Don't climb a tree because you can fall out and injure yourself' - you still do it, indeed you'll probably go back and do it again, but in a more circumspect and cautious way. That there are a lot of people who don't grow out of it is sad, but who nows, perhaps the ultra-consumerist phase we have at the moment (which is the continuance of consumption patterns that are millenia old, but accelerated and writ large over a wider spread of population) is the same...altho the fall from the tree for the planet will be slightly more significant that just a small graze and a bruise...

 

[Barking_Mad]

I started a thread on "The Art of Loving" - to no much avail...

I remember it well.

 

[Barking_Mad]

You're a numpty

PAH! The devil take you!

 

[fela fan]

Which cuts to the very heart of your original post. Maybe in many ways, society truly is insane?

This is my conclusion BM. When being a member of society we are practising insanity (and truly, it really is insanity); while when being an individual we are venturing into areas of sanity.

And happiness can only be to do with sanity, being in a bubble of insanity cannot possibly have anything to do with happiness. Happiness is a state, not a reaction to single events.

Society is the enemy of freedom, sanity, and happiness. Society does its best to make one buy and buy and conform and obey.

Don't desire, don't conform, don't obey, be happy.

 

[kyser_soze]

don't obey, be happy.

Ah, so if I go out and murder someone and that makes me happy I'm OK doing that?

 

[untethered]

That's no philosophy! That's crap advice from a Protestant

It has stood the test of time.

 

[fela fan]

Ah, so if I go out and murder someone and that makes me happy I'm OK doing that?

No.

But what's that got to do with anything i said?

 

[CJohn]

- The whole notion of ‘the self’ and ‘happiness’ are products of the modern world, they are not ahistoical and have a development we can trace.

- The relentless pursuit of happiness and the expectation to be happy rarely produces this state. The demand we place on ourselves to be happy is stifling. The question is therefore, as Zizek puts it, how do we overcome this injunction to enjoy?

- The internal and external worlds are not easily separable, and the self does not exist in isolation from the world; happiness may thus come from a certain stance and engagement with the external world, thus implying both an internal and external componenet (if we are to crave up the totality of experience in this fashion).

- Human existence also entails struggle, conflict, anxiety, crisis, depression, guilt, shame, remorse, loss and many other negative emotions. With this in mind I follow Ian Craib’s notion that good psychotherapy should enable us to suffer (that is, without recluse to primitive / manic defences).

A focus on choice - that is on how to live ones life, what values to commit oneself to, or how to be authentic etc. - might be more rewarding.