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Genuine Authentic Happiness: Possible?
- Thread starter internet
- Start date
I moonlight as a sad sack but I think people make their own happiness, and I think life should be evaluated moment-to-moment rather than as some nebulous whole.
Like, yes, some people do genuinely lead happier lives than others, but at the end of the day what matters is one's mood on an immediate basis. Allowing short-term happiness to be clouded by long-term melancholy is pretty unhealthy, and even when your long term's doing pretty good it's easy to be taken in by an immediate adversity.
Idk maybe I'm just more of a hippie than I thought I was but I feel like it's unproductive and unhealthy to try to repress a good feeling because you feel some vague notion that you shouldn't be feeling that. There's this, like, natural guilt reaction to feeling any sort of positive if your overall situation is negative and it's probably much healthier to try and ignore it.
Dunno if this post makes anything resembling sense but I'm feeling introspective so you put this thread up at a good time.
also i had some really good donuts yesterday which is more in line with what you were looking for i think
Like, yes, some people do genuinely lead happier lives than others, but at the end of the day what matters is one's mood on an immediate basis. Allowing short-term happiness to be clouded by long-term melancholy is pretty unhealthy, and even when your long term's doing pretty good it's easy to be taken in by an immediate adversity.
Idk maybe I'm just more of a hippie than I thought I was but I feel like it's unproductive and unhealthy to try to repress a good feeling because you feel some vague notion that you shouldn't be feeling that. There's this, like, natural guilt reaction to feeling any sort of positive if your overall situation is negative and it's probably much healthier to try and ignore it.
Dunno if this post makes anything resembling sense but I'm feeling introspective so you put this thread up at a good time.
also i had some really good donuts yesterday which is more in line with what you were looking for i think
Freshly-fried donuts with cinnamon+sugar are pretty fucking good TBH. Gotta be careful not to eat too many tho ‘cuz they’re sickly. Other good feels include:
- That feel when you sleep on a normal schedule for the first time in months.
- That feel when you get a few weeks behind on a fucking amazing show and then get caught up on it and remember why you love that show.
- That feel when you eat a crêpe, a good burger, or a breakfast of hotcakes+bacon with syrup drizzled over both.
- Edit: that feel when you eat a sweet potato tempura roll
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I'm not actually that big on bacon as a whole tbh; I usually prefer it as a complementary flavor rather than the focus of the meal (e.g. streaky bacon diced+fried and mixed into bolognese sauce). It's just the way the sweeness of the the syrup complements the saltiness of the bacon perfectly that makes it appealing. Something else that's nice with that meal is to serve it with a sausage or two.
Food can cheer me up when I feel down, here some examples of my favorites meal.
Also music helps me alot when I feel down about somethin and it helps me to focus when I have to work for a project for college, here some examples of my favorites favorites musics (sorry some them are in french):
(Damso - Macarena
( Drowning Pool - Bodies)
( Linkin Park - Numb)
( Isha - Au grand jamais)
( Therapie TAXI ft Rome Elvis - Hit Sale)
Also music helps me alot when I feel down about somethin and it helps me to focus when I have to work for a project for college, here some examples of my favorites favorites musics (sorry some them are in french):
Agreed.
A sorta related good feeling is successfully troubleshooting an issue. Hitting the wall, looking it up, trying a solution, and it just works. Especially in the sea of "nvm fixed it" or "[Unresolved] Posted 3 years ago" or not even finding anything ON your issue.
My opinions on happiness aren't exactly the best but nothing beats a good feeling. Another personal good feel is eating mozzarella sticks.
ive pretty much turned being a sad sack into my 'method'. this is because, as briefly as possible, happiness is supposed to be a self-sustaining state of existence that cannot be defeated by circumstance, but it is 'suffering' that sustains the production of meaning in my life circumstances.
I've cped up passages from a critical perspective on the concept of happiness for your viewing pleasure:
"Of course, we cannot conflate happiness with good feeling. As Darrin McMahon (2006) has argued in his monumental history of happiness, the association of happiness with feeling is a modern one, in circulation from the eighteenth century onward."
"It is useful to note that the etymology of "happiness" relates precisely to the question of contingency: it is from the Middle English "hap," suggesting chance. The original meaning of happiness preserves the potential of this "hap" to be good or bad. The hap of happiness then gets translated into something good. Happiness relates to the idea of being lucky, or favored by fortune, or being fortunate. Happiness remains about the contingency of what happens, but this "what" becomes something good. Even this meaning may now seem archaic: we may be more used to thinking of happiness as an effect of what you do, as a reward for hard work, rather than as being "simply" what happens to you.
Indeed, Miliary Csikszentmihalyi argues that "happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random choice, it is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and defended privately by each person" (1992, 2). Such a way of understanding happiness could be read as a defense against its contingency. I want to return to the original meaning of happiness as it refocuses our attention on the "worldly" question of happenings. What is the relation between the "what" in "what happens" and the"what" that makes us happy?"
"I would suggest that happiness involves a specific kind of intentionality, which I would describe as "end orientated." It is not just that we can be happy about something, as a feeling in the present, but some things become happy for us, if we imagine they will bring happiness to us. Happiness is often described as "what" we aim for, as an endpoint, or even an end in itself. Classically, happiness has been considered as an end rather than as a means. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes happiness as the Chief Good, as"that which all things aim at" (1998,1). Happiness is what we "choose always for its own sake" (8). Anthony Kenny describes how, for Aristotle, happiness"is not just an end, but a perfect end" (1993,16). The perfect end is the end of all ends, the good that is good always for its own sake. We don't have to agree with the argument that happiness is the perfect end to understand the implications of what it means for happiness to bethought in these terms. If happiness is the end of all ends, then all other things become means to happiness."
"If we think of instrumental goods as objects of happiness then important consequences follow. Things become good, or acquire their value as goods, insofar as they point toward happiness. Objects become "happiness means."Or we could say they become happiness pointers, as if to follow their point would be to find happiness. If objects provide a means for making us happy,then in directing ourselves toward this or that object we are aiming somewhere else: toward a happiness that is presumed to follow."
"We can note here the role that habit plays in arguments about happiness.Returning to Aristotle, his model of happiness relies on habituation, "the result of the repeated doing of acts which have a similar or common quality"(1998, vii). The good man will not only have the right habits, but his feelings will also be directed in the right way: "a man is not a good man at all who feels no pleasure in noble actions; just as no one would call that man just who does not feel pleasure in acting justly" (11). Good habits involve work: we have to work on the body such that the body's immediate reactions, how we are impressed upon by the world, will take us in the "right" direction."
finally, there can be much subtle cruelty in the production or pursuit of the objects that promise happiness:
"A relation of cruel optimism is a double-bind in which your attachment to an object sustains you in life at the same time as that object is actually a threat to your flourishing. So you can’t say that there are objects that have the quality of cruelty or not cruelty, it’s how you have the relationship to them. Like it might be that being in a couple is not a relation of cruel optimism for you, because being in a couple actually makes you feel like you have a grounding in the world, whereas for other people, being in a couple might be, on the one hand, a relief from loneliness, and on the other hand, the overpresence of one person who has to bear the burden of satisfying all your needs. So it’s not the object that’s the problem, but how we learn to be in relation."
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy
I love this comic, "I'm not happy because our definition of happy isn't very good."
I've cped up passages from a critical perspective on the concept of happiness for your viewing pleasure:
"Of course, we cannot conflate happiness with good feeling. As Darrin McMahon (2006) has argued in his monumental history of happiness, the association of happiness with feeling is a modern one, in circulation from the eighteenth century onward."
"It is useful to note that the etymology of "happiness" relates precisely to the question of contingency: it is from the Middle English "hap," suggesting chance. The original meaning of happiness preserves the potential of this "hap" to be good or bad. The hap of happiness then gets translated into something good. Happiness relates to the idea of being lucky, or favored by fortune, or being fortunate. Happiness remains about the contingency of what happens, but this "what" becomes something good. Even this meaning may now seem archaic: we may be more used to thinking of happiness as an effect of what you do, as a reward for hard work, rather than as being "simply" what happens to you.
Indeed, Miliary Csikszentmihalyi argues that "happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random choice, it is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and defended privately by each person" (1992, 2). Such a way of understanding happiness could be read as a defense against its contingency. I want to return to the original meaning of happiness as it refocuses our attention on the "worldly" question of happenings. What is the relation between the "what" in "what happens" and the"what" that makes us happy?"
"I would suggest that happiness involves a specific kind of intentionality, which I would describe as "end orientated." It is not just that we can be happy about something, as a feeling in the present, but some things become happy for us, if we imagine they will bring happiness to us. Happiness is often described as "what" we aim for, as an endpoint, or even an end in itself. Classically, happiness has been considered as an end rather than as a means. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes happiness as the Chief Good, as"that which all things aim at" (1998,1). Happiness is what we "choose always for its own sake" (8). Anthony Kenny describes how, for Aristotle, happiness"is not just an end, but a perfect end" (1993,16). The perfect end is the end of all ends, the good that is good always for its own sake. We don't have to agree with the argument that happiness is the perfect end to understand the implications of what it means for happiness to bethought in these terms. If happiness is the end of all ends, then all other things become means to happiness."
"If we think of instrumental goods as objects of happiness then important consequences follow. Things become good, or acquire their value as goods, insofar as they point toward happiness. Objects become "happiness means."Or we could say they become happiness pointers, as if to follow their point would be to find happiness. If objects provide a means for making us happy,then in directing ourselves toward this or that object we are aiming somewhere else: toward a happiness that is presumed to follow."
"We can note here the role that habit plays in arguments about happiness.Returning to Aristotle, his model of happiness relies on habituation, "the result of the repeated doing of acts which have a similar or common quality"(1998, vii). The good man will not only have the right habits, but his feelings will also be directed in the right way: "a man is not a good man at all who feels no pleasure in noble actions; just as no one would call that man just who does not feel pleasure in acting justly" (11). Good habits involve work: we have to work on the body such that the body's immediate reactions, how we are impressed upon by the world, will take us in the "right" direction."
finally, there can be much subtle cruelty in the production or pursuit of the objects that promise happiness:
"A relation of cruel optimism is a double-bind in which your attachment to an object sustains you in life at the same time as that object is actually a threat to your flourishing. So you can’t say that there are objects that have the quality of cruelty or not cruelty, it’s how you have the relationship to them. Like it might be that being in a couple is not a relation of cruel optimism for you, because being in a couple actually makes you feel like you have a grounding in the world, whereas for other people, being in a couple might be, on the one hand, a relief from loneliness, and on the other hand, the overpresence of one person who has to bear the burden of satisfying all your needs. So it’s not the object that’s the problem, but how we learn to be in relation."
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/unhappy
I love this comic, "I'm not happy because our definition of happy isn't very good."
"authentic" is a word attached to happiness by the sad sacks of the world to discredit it when people who don't spend all their time deliberately suffering describe themselves as happy. I'm reclaiming the term, any good feel is authentic happiness, and you don't need to think harder on it. Just appreciate the good feels. And appreciate the bad feels, you have friends to worry about, a fulfilling job, study, or hobby project to stress about, and money to regret spending on bull shit. Those are things that make me happy too, when I look back on the stress or regret. Maybe I haven't reached incontestable, indestructible happiness, but it is authentic and genuine. They are inherent properties of happiness.
Usually when I see this image it's always surprising, like Bob Ross, why was he sad? He was so happy in all the paintings! But this pic doesn't sum up the whole life. For every bit where you're waiting on the good times, a while later life is all right. When bad times are over you really do get to experience how awesome and radical life is.
Btw to keep on the subject of food, I made myself a pizza yesterday, and even though I've had this same recipe like 100 times among my family, yesterday's pizza was the most tastiest one I ever had. Probably because I made it for myself...but that doesn't have to be the case. Tonight I decided I didn't want to do any work so I just watched 5 hours of youtube and ordered takeout. I feel like I'm on cruise control in life right now where everything is in place for me. I've been happy in the past and thought life couldn't get any better, but it does. Sometimes life gets worse and I'm stressed out and busy, and I know that later I'll be stressed and busy about something else, but I don't care, because that's just going to make times like right now even better.
that sounds cool man.
OLD GREGG (im back baby)
old gregg for life
Happiness and sadness...both are fleeting. What makes me truly happy is being content with my life choices. I wasn't so conent with the choices I made when I was a teen/young adult. That discontent drove me to make better choices; which is a direct result of bad choices. So, you see, it is important to acknowledge and appreciate both the good and bad. Knowing you did good is one of the best feels imo.
You forgot the part when you woke up, take a breakfast and then go back to bed!