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blazeofglory
07-24-2008, 10:26 AM
This is beguilingly a very disturbing question. Nevertheless, I immerse you in such a way you will come upon reality and do not reproach me.

We have few moments of happiness. What is happiness in substance? The answer to this question varies, swerves and vacillates from person to person, and quite a great number of philosophers, thinkers, spiritualists tried to define and explain away it. In so doing all they predicate on is rationalization along lines of their understanding of things. People try to understand being confined within certain phenomena and they cannot think keeping themselves outside the box of conventions, preoccupations with the past. All I take the meaning of happiness, not alluding to patterns or sets of theories notwithstanding the fact that I am well-read in them, I undo myself and try to arrive at truth. You may deem me wrong, but that is your problem.
Happiness as I understand is quivers, tremors we make responding to a particular circumstance and nothing else. There is nothing called lasing happiness in the world. Happiness cannot last longer than a specific time length and after that it fleets. You are hungry, and eat something you will be happy while eating. You needed a job and you got it, and first your mind will see brighter sides of things and a day will come you will tend to behave as if you have got nothing to relish in. A sexual urge rises within your brain, and judders or jerks happen shaking your physiques and once you immerse in sexual performances and will be lost to it, but the moment it is over the joy is gone save the memory of it.
Yet you despite fleeting or passing moments of joys you live in, the fact of life is something far from what we take it to be. It is a desire, a desire of finding a beautiful chick, of making a million, of building monument, of buying acres of land, of pursuing higher goals, of being promoted into a high-ranking official and the like. Indeed we have a chain of desires. Every morning we wake up to spin a thousand and one dreams and world hard up to this.
Our dreams, desires and hopes are what float us over the ocean of life. And happiness is second to life, that is, happiness is weaker and lacking strength of character quintessentially. Hope and desire prop up our statures.
The single objective I have in mind in writing this essay is to delineate the fact that happiness or eternal happiness is something we run after is nothing in essences but an illusion. And from this notion to substantiate my point that man does not commit suicides immersing his mind in waves of desires, powerful desires of the next best things.
We are so occupied with dreaming or with spinning beautiful tomorrows notwithstanding the fact we never come upon them in reality. And the reason why we defer or do not commit suicides is the mighty desire of something bright ahead.
Happiness is an impulse, an urge and desire is yet a stronger motive that outshines happiness and keeps on livening up life.

Intriguing, isn't it. Life is like that. That to quote Einstein "Reality is an illusion" gives some idea or validates what have been written.
We see life from different angles, and more often than not we camouflage ourselves and move conditioned by what we agree with. We are accustomed to patterns or traditions and it is so easy to do so. We choose a trodden track, foe the untrodden is full of challenges.

I do not believe that there is anything called pure and untainted happiness. And everyone is a different being, a different universe, a different reality despite that everyone relates to one another or strung by the threat of some unseen reality. And our endeavors to uncompromisingly and unconditionally live together, or feel at ease with one another is something unthinkable. Marriage is something forced and the ideal of it is imposed upon us. That is why wherever man manifests his full-blown nature all conventions evaporate.
And that is why where individuality is in its entirety marriages go broken and that is in developed economies and free societies divorces are a common phenomenon.

I seem to have diverged but going back to the point all I want to say is what we idealize or present as happiness is sheer mirage and we are deluded by others.

The fact is life engages us, for the force of life is so powerful and one of the strongest forces that vitalizes life and saves us or salvage the boat against the storm is desire.

Desire is an impulse and all our activities including living is a positive reaction to it.

I write this with an objective to arrive at the truth or meaning of living through a different perspective. I want to see what others view it or love to read and react to what you have to say.

Scheherazade
07-24-2008, 01:08 PM
Oh, we do commit suicide. Maybe not so obviously but don't we drink, smoke, eat and drug ourselves silly?

Sweets America
07-24-2008, 01:27 PM
In my view, I don't think the examples you give about happiness are accurate for everyone (finding a nice guy or girl, a job, being high on a social scale, winning a billion dollars...). Those tend to be causes of unhappiness to me. Because they are all based on the idea of attachement. And desire, as you say.

Maybe there is no need to commit suicide because we're already dead. That's not negative, I find it enlightening. To me, finding happiness, peace and rest might be achieved by detaching myself from everything and realizing that everything is an illusion.

The way humans live in this world does not appeal to me at all, the materialistic way, the desire to possess everything, and how they destroy everything around. That is difficult to detach ourselves from desire but I have the feeling that for me anyway, it is the right way even if I'm still not able to entirely do so.

The problem humans have is that they attach themselves to impermanet things (a lover, material things or else). Realizing that nothing exists but emptiness makes me feel better. Everything is ok because nothing exists. I like being part of a void, being a void myself, seeking no purpose on a human scale. I think my way of being happy would not be by being with a lover, or finding a job or having tons of money or a beautiful house. Deep inside, I don't care about this. I'd rather go to the moutains, alone in a cabin and meditate.

Nice thread, by the way!

~Sado
07-24-2008, 02:31 PM
It seems to me that happiness as you describe it is nothing but the situationist idea which holds that happiness arises as a kind of by-product of a certain circumstance. It seems that, if the trodden path is ultimately undesirable, one should persist in walking down the untrodden ones, and to never settle for any kind of passitivity, but rather seek out activity. So, in your example of marriage, it is easy to see the principe of passitivity at work: marriage is love settled down into something contractual. The active kind of love would be the sheer passion that is experienced before the first attempts to bind the other unto oneself (by, for example, telling the other that you love them, in the hope they will reciprocate, so that the first sentences of the contract are written down).

It seems that by only demanding the impossible (since ultimate happiness, love, knowledge, do not exist), we can gain something substantial, though this may not always be happiness... But rather, inspiration (in my life, I love the moments where I'm totally locked into desperation, when suddenly, I feel a kind of uplifting force elevating me back to emotional heights from which I can navigate my way to more pleasant modes of being). We may never attain the impossible, but really, do we even want it? Because, in the end, suicide is another impossible ideal: we want 'it', but we know we can never get it, since we are never powerful enough to perform the act.

This reminds me of the film 'Fight Club', where one of the supporting characters (a depressed woman) is basically constantly cheating death (she crosses the street without any regard for speeding cars, she smokes without regard for her health, steals, emotionally abuses herself, etc), however, her true tragedy is that she never actually is killed. And she knows she can't do suicide, but it is actually all she wants.

Which makes another important point about free will: we can will everything, but ultimately, the active choice is dependent, in a sense, of external factors. Anybody can will to fly, but airplanes will have to be built. This is the tragedy of freedom: one is free to dream, but never to do.

Bakiryu
07-24-2008, 02:37 PM
I agree with you completely. I do not commit suicide because it would hurt those I leave behind :( There's no such thing as happiness, only the idea of happiness.

Besides, life is amusing. It is also know, who knows what may life after death?
Hell, Heaven or worse of all...Nothing!

aBIGsheep
07-24-2008, 02:56 PM
You guys sure are debbie downers. Didn't read a single word of the original post but I gotta be honest... I laughed at it. Its my opinion but its probably one of the silliest things I've ever heard. I can answer your question pretty easily by just looking at the title: I don't wanna die.

I don't understand why you can't enjoy life without pointing out every little fallacy. You're only here for a short period of time. Why cut corners and commit seppeku or waste time missing when you could be enjoying yourself? Everyone has their little perks and opinions. And I think that's the joy of it. Happiness can be found everywhere.

Virgil
07-24-2008, 03:23 PM
You guys sure are debbie downers. Didn't read a single word of the original post but I gotta be honest... I laughed at it. Its my opinion but its probably one of the silliest things I've ever heard. I can answer your question pretty easily by just looking at the title: I don't wanna die.

:lol: Fabulous response.



I don't understand why you can't enjoy life without pointing out every little fallacy. You're only here for a short period of time. Why cut corners and commit seppeku or waste time missing when you could be enjoying yourself? Everyone has their little perks and opinions. And I think that's the joy of it. Happiness can be found everywhere.
Absolutely. Tonight when I get home from a hard day's work and I pour myself a glass of wine, my wife gives me a kiss, and my dog lays down at my feet and is happy to see me, I'm going sip that glass of wine and say life is good. I don't want all the material possessions of the world, but i do want some, and those make me happy. And then I'll look to God and say thank you for this life.

Sweets America
07-24-2008, 03:24 PM
You guys sure are debbie downers. Didn't read a single word of the original post but I gotta be honest... I laughed at it.

:eek: That just doesn't make sense.

aBIGsheep
07-24-2008, 03:50 PM
:eek: That just doesn't make sense.

Uhhhh... I looked at the ubercanuber epic long post and I found it amazing how someone can drone on about something that has such a simple answer.



Absolutely. Tonight when I get home from a hard day's work and I pour myself a glass of wine, my wife gives me a kiss, and my dog lays down at my feet and is happy to see me, I'm going sip that glass of wine and say life is good. I don't want all the material possessions of the world, but i do want some, and those make me happy. And then I'll look to God and say thank you for this life.

You know what? ^5

vheissu
07-24-2008, 04:19 PM
Blazeofglory:Happiness as I understand is quivers, tremors we make responding to a particular circumstance and nothing else. There is nothing called lasing happiness in the world. Happiness cannot last longer than a specific time length and after that it fleets.

But then, isn't every human emotion a response to a particular circumstance? Not just happiness?



Blazeofglory: And that is why where individuality is in its entirety marriages go broken and that is in developed economies and free societies divorces are a common phenomenon.

I'm not really following your argument here...:confused:



To answer your question...well, I guess us humans (or any species if you really think about it) want to actually live rather than just commit suicide or think about suicide just because we are not happy (no one is happy all the time, that's just weird).

DapperDrake
07-24-2008, 04:46 PM
Oh, we do commit suicide. Maybe not so obviously but don't we drink, smoke, eat and drug ourselves silly?

I know I do! :lol:

(couldn't resist :))

Chester
07-24-2008, 08:47 PM
Absolutely. Tonight when I get home from a hard day's work and I pour myself a glass of wine, my wife gives me a kiss, and my dog lays down at my feet and is happy to see me, I'm going sip that glass of wine and say life is good. I don't want all the material possessions of the world, but i do want some, and those make me happy. And then I'll look to God and say thank you for this life.
Mine was a cold beer poured into one of the frosted mugs I keep in the freezer. Either way, this is a sentiment I can really appreciate. Well said.

Dori
07-24-2008, 09:34 PM
There's no such thing as happiness, only the idea of happiness.

Most human beings are capable of emotion, despite your silly statement. :p


Oh, we do commit suicide. Maybe not so obviously but don't we drink, smoke, eat and drug ourselves silly?

Collectively, perhaps, but I for one don't do three of the four of those. And the fourth (eating myself silly!) is kept in check by plenty of exercise.


I too laughed at the monstrous wall of text. :D But I did read it.

Bakiryu
07-24-2008, 11:07 PM
Most human beings are capable of emotion, despite your silly statement. :p


I never said the were not. Only that it's not long lasting.

aBIGsheep
07-24-2008, 11:23 PM
Collectively, perhaps, but I for one don't do three of the four of those. And the fourth (eating myself silly!) is kept in check by plenty of exercise.


But you're still gonna die, friend.
:DD

Jozanny
07-24-2008, 11:58 PM
I am not sure quite how to post this without making the topic too heavy, but I have a fear about dying in a nursing home, like the poet Vassar Miller, who shares my disease but gained a greater recognition than I have yet.

http://www.stevenfordbrown.com/vassarmiller.htm

I know something about her last years, and I'm not sure how she had the strength to bear it, just as I am not sure how I'm going to avoid her fate. Since my late 30's it has been an increasing worry--stemming in part from the fact that my parents did institutionalize me, hoping orthopedic doctors would make me walk.

That didn't happen, but they did weaken me further, as is usually the case with physicians, unless you happen to be David Letterman.

I've told myself to wait a few years, try to achieve a few more writing goals, but by the time I hit 55, I'm going to be facing some hard choices.

It sounds just like an episode of ER, right?:crash:

Sweets America
07-25-2008, 12:48 AM
Uhhhh... I looked at the ubercanuber epic long post and I found it amazing how someone can drone on about something that has such a simple answer.

Maybe the answer is simple for you, but please accept that others might have more things to say about the subject.

Maybe some people just search for another kind of happiness than the one(s) usually described by the human way of seeing the world.

NikolaiI
07-25-2008, 04:21 PM
Virgil, you seem to have a balanced and healthy view :)

Blaze, try not to be so negative!

You say you try to undo youreslf to arrive at truth, and this is what has merit in your thread-post. It seems that what you are seeking could be termed spiritual maturity. You say undo yourself to arrive at truth, by spiritual maturity I mean something similar to this. Indeed spiritual maturity is something rare, in fact only the best of us attain it, but that is not a reason to despair into the negative or nihilistic tendencies you have grown accustomed to. While I was contemplating your answer, it kept me up way too late, since I was supposed to get up at 4! But I have the answer for you. Indeed this spiritual maturity is rare, but again; do not despair, for if you seek it, you will find it. It's a state of peace, a state of knowledge and spiritual joy, one which is not found in temporary means. It comes from deep within, and it can only be accessed when one is wholly surrendered to the Divine. If we create obstacles and negative vibrations, then we basically blind ourselves to anything genuinely spiritual. But if we are always immersed in spiritual vibrations, and good formations, then we will awaken spirituality. This spirituality or sense of ramana is what you are looking for. The key here is multifold: on one hand, it means that you see things as they are. This is possible, and if you say it is not possible, you are blocking yourself. It is also mindfulness, and readiness to act, for your ideals: it is not meditation or action alone, but action and meditation both. If you follow this you will come to a spiritual idea, one which breaks apart all karmic bonds. This is spiritual joy and bliss, it is the highest achievement possible, although presumably there is something beyond this. If you have attained this, my dear Blaze, then you will not be understood by anyone. Not in philosophical discussion and speculation. Yet in day to day activities it is nothing more than the right attitude, and being mindful. What you ought to are two things: The here and now, and also seeing things as they are. Good luck.

Petronius
07-25-2008, 05:05 PM
We don't commit suicide because we're curious to see what happens next... Sometimes even suffering seems like a small price to pay, if it doesn't outright trigger some innate masochistic tendencies that would make it in itself a worthy field of exploration.

Curiosity doesn't allways kill the cat.