happiness, please?

[scez.]

I'd like your opinion.
Is happiness quantifiable?
Can we look at someones life, what they have and dont have and make the decision, that yes, they should be happy, or no they shouldn't be.
I believe that happiness comes with the end. Only when your left with nothing but the last moments, for they are the last, can we really understand what is happiness to us. Everything will fade, every moment, memory, relationship, how is we can say that we are happy if the next day everything is different, and yet we still feel happy.. the line is fine. I think content, is a better emotive description, then happy. We can be content, with everything, or nothing, until it is the end, and then we can justify, what happiness is to ourselves. When we have a look at the 'bigger picture', what is and was.
Is that a stupid philosphy?

[Chester]

No scez., I don’t think that’s a stupid philosophy at all. Happiness, at least as most people think of it, is transitory. Life is sorrow as well as joy. Contentment is a good thing to aim for. To be satisfied with oneself. Comfortable. To enjoy an inner peace. This is something to grab a hold of no matter what one’s circumstances are, it seems to me. Happiness has its place, but to fully embrace life means feeling the sorrow as well as the joy

[jgweed]

If by quantifiable you mean that there is a huge "happiness decision table", or scheme of order, and that at the same time this table has exactly the same contents for each individual, then happiness is not quantifiable.For it seems that if everyone generally makes decisions based on increasing their happiness, the definition of happiness varies from one person to the next.

Suppose we take two people, and put them in the exactly same situation (same house, same kittens, same partner, same salary, same coffee pot---you get the idea). Does it seem reasonable to infer that both people would be happy and in the same way and for the same reasons or would this deny that individuals are different (and therefore individuals)?
Could we then go on to say, but they SHOULD both be equally happy or content with their position? Would we say this, for example, if both were heroin addicts?
*****
Green is, we want to say, in a state of happiness. But what if this state was a blanket term for a whole series (or gradations in rank) of specific states or feelings (one of which might be contentment, another of which might be bliss or joy, or satisfastion, etc.)? Then if one were to say that Green was happy, would we not really mean that Green was feeling a certain elation at getting a promotion at work?

[scez.]

weed, i understand what you are saying, but thats not really what i meant.
Especially not by quantifiable.
A smile, or laughter is a symbol of happiness. Almost everyone hides behind their smiles, and laughs to cover up something deeper. yes, it happens when we are happy, granted, but its not necessairily an action of happiness.
I guess what i meant by quantifiable, was something along the lines of,, can we consider ourselves to be happy, in the eyes of someone else looking in, should they, or not, see us as 'happy'.
if that makes no sense, thats me. But I'm happy.
Oh the saddness of that pun.

[jgweed]

But how do I KNOW that you are happy? Isn't that your question?

We learn how to express happiness when we are authentically happy---we smile, we "dance for glee" and perform certain other communicative actions.
But these actions may be inauthentic, and we pretend to be happy, say, to please someone else who desires us to be happy. Vesti la giubba, as it were.

If we assume self-knowledge is possible, then it is privileged in that only I can know it, and its "truth" is only accessible to me. Under most circumstances, I communicate this state transparently through my (learned) actions or verbally, but I may choose to dissemble. If I am talented enough and attend to it, Others will be fooled about my real state.

[blazeofglory]

I'd like your opinion.
Is happiness quantifiable?
Can we look at someones life, what they have and dont have and make the decision, that yes, they should be happy, or no they shouldn't be.
I believe that happiness comes with the end. Only when your left with nothing but the last moments, for they are the last, can we really understand what is happiness to us. Everything will fade, every moment, memory, relationship, how is we can say that we are happy if the next day everything is different, and yet we still feel happy.. the line is fine. I think content, is a better emotive description, then happy. We can be content, with everything, or nothing, until it is the end, and then we can justify, what happiness is to ourselves. When we have a look at the 'bigger picture', what is and was.
Is that a stupid philosphy?

Your ideas stir up lots of ideas and indeed it leads to look into the happiness thing.

I have written somewhere happiness is not a thing to pursue and in our perpetual pursuit of it we distance us from it, for happiness is not what we take it to be.

It is an impulse, an urge and come and go and not an enduring thing despite the fact that some writers Gurus sell it but we are fools to buy.