Thoughts on Happiness
In response to some of the comments posted to the essay - 'Happiness Versus Suffering' (below) I would like to offer this excerpt from my book: 'Life is Good Even When it's Not':
The idea of life as a project or series of projects may not be unusual, but the deeper significance is interesting: it has made my satisfaction with life tied largely to my level of productivity, rather than my volume of happiness.
Looking at a painting I did sometime in the past, I realized I couldn't remember how I felt when I painted it. Or perhaps I worked on the same painting--one day happy, the next, angry, and a third, melancholy--and all that was left of those moments was the painting. This made the painting of greater importance than how I felt, and I eventually developed the theory (or made the discovery) that the phrase, "man's inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness" in the U.S. Constitution, constitutes a basic flaw in cultural philosophy: a successful life cannot be measured according to the amount or even degree of happiness, but rather by appreciating the drama provided by the range of our emotional life.
The fact that it is possible to be miserable one's whole life does not change the fact it is impossible to always be happy. It probably has something to do with what Chekhov said about happiness being a thing defined in a subtle range of greys--no single one concrete, the same thing that makes you happy today (like someone's company) can make you sad or angry tomorrow--while unhappiness is easily defined in its negative quality as the absence of happiness.
The idea of life as a project or series of projects may not be unusual, but the deeper significance is interesting: it has made my satisfaction with life tied largely to my level of productivity, rather than my volume of happiness.
Looking at a painting I did sometime in the past, I realized I couldn't remember how I felt when I painted it. Or perhaps I worked on the same painting--one day happy, the next, angry, and a third, melancholy--and all that was left of those moments was the painting. This made the painting of greater importance than how I felt, and I eventually developed the theory (or made the discovery) that the phrase, "man's inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness" in the U.S. Constitution, constitutes a basic flaw in cultural philosophy: a successful life cannot be measured according to the amount or even degree of happiness, but rather by appreciating the drama provided by the range of our emotional life.
The fact that it is possible to be miserable one's whole life does not change the fact it is impossible to always be happy. It probably has something to do with what Chekhov said about happiness being a thing defined in a subtle range of greys--no single one concrete, the same thing that makes you happy today (like someone's company) can make you sad or angry tomorrow--while unhappiness is easily defined in its negative quality as the absence of happiness.
posted by Paul Herman | 1:00 PM
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2 Comments:
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Happiness in itself, is a silly, giddy thing. It's the "pursuit" of happiness that has value. I prefer to live in a state of always "becoming".
It would be hard to live a life engaged in the pursuit of misery.
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