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...are we ?
Whoever we are whatever we do are we actually happy ? Content ?
I don’t think we are, perhaps nothing is, animal kingdom happy ? Probably not.
Everyone has their story of whoe, on a daily basis we probably believe we’re happy but deeper down, we’re all angry or disappointed, disgruntled, frustrated full of anxiety.
If our main purpose on earth is to repopulate then I tick the box, doesn’t make you happy...
We are all fumbling around in the dark without a clue - then you die.
Discuss?
Happiness is a fleeting extreme. It's not normal.
We'd still be sitting in a cave covered in our own shit and eating our neighbours if happiness was normal.
Simples
"Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world where none suffered, where everyone would be happy? ... But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering. So the perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from"
My mood varies, I'm generally happy. I can't speak for the rest of humanity.
A recent survey found that 6 out of 7 Dwarfs weren't happy.
What 5thelephant said - Happiness doesn't, and shouldn't, exist outside of reception class at primary school and homes for the aged and infirm. It is not ever a steady state of being for adults of sound mind.
Happy is the wrong word I think, as others have said it's a bit extreme for a constant state.
Content a bit closer but again, if we were always content there'd be no ambition or progress.
Can't think of a better word though!
sitting in a cave covered in our own shit and eating our neighbours
Is that some kind of Brexit analogy?
Maslow hierarchy of needs innit.
Is that some kind of Brexit analogy?
House of Commons?
I would say I am content and generally happy. There are moments of anger, anxiety etc,. but not sure how you could live a life without those and expecting to is not going to help with happiness.
I've got a pretty good life I appreciate it but it's impossible to be happy all of the time.
That's all there is to it nothing philosophical about it.
I'm normally happy, unless my girlfriend is being nuts about something.
But I only work a couple of days a week, have two great cats and don't have a mortgage.
I'm rarely happy.
Mostly due to the barely repressed ball of white-hot rage which bubbles constantly within me.
I hide it beneath a jovial exterior so that my eventual victims won't suspect anything until it's too late.
Happiness is a fleeting extreme. It’s not normal.
This, sadly.
We're not really designed to be happy all the time, happy is a bit like drunk, it's great now and then, but you'd get nothing done if you were like it all the time.
The problem I think is that human beings are by their nature, greedy. It's driven our evolution for millions of years. Every other animal on the planet lives in a slowly shifting state of harmony with everything else. We don't, we're always looking for more.
You can see this represented in the way we consume 'stuff'. Henry IV (of France) said " want there to be no peasant in my realm so poor that he will not have a chicken in his pot every Sunday" By the time that Hoover was running for President in the 20s he promised a Chicken in every pot (not just Sunday) and a Car in every Garage, so about 100 years ago this was seen as an inspirational dream of a brighter future. Fast forward to today, if a Polition promised us the same we'd likely think "duh, we've got 2 cars, a freezer full of chicken, Sky, a couple if iPhones, a trip to Spain booked and a 50' 4k TV - what else you got?".
If we were happy, we'd still be glad we could have a chicken on a Sunday.
Every other animal on the planet lives in a slowly shifting state of harmony with everything else.
At a species level yes - individually the natural state of wild animals is to be hungry and scared
Every other animal on the planet lives in a slowly shifting state of harmony with everything else.
In some sort of circle?
All it needs is a single speed and a hill.
Pretty hard to feel miserable after cleaning a hard climb... 🙂
As has been mentioned already, unhappiness is our genetic/evolutionary "advantage". Being unhappy with our lot has driven everything the human race has ever achieved, for better or worse.
All it needs is a single speed and a hill.Pretty hard to feel miserable after cleaning a hard climb… 🙂
That's just the absence of the misery of the hard hill...
See also: hitting your head against a brick wall.
If my main purpose on earth was to repopulate it I'd be happy (although quite sore).
I have noted over my life that periods when I am most content mean I have least ambition; but then again I'm begining to think we'd be a lot better off if we switched from thinking 'ambition is critical' to 'ambition is pitiful'
sitting in a cave covered in our own shit and eating our neighbours
Is that some kind of Brexit analogy?
Anyone else already drawn up a list of who to eat first?
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mostly happy. sometimes gloomy. often grumpy.
moods are like seasons, the change is good.
As a Human i'm happy, its the Social environment that gets me down.
Life is pain highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something
What 5thelephant said – Happiness doesn’t, and shouldn’t, exist outside of reception class at primary school and homes for the aged and infirm. It is not ever a steady state of being for adults of sound mind.
This is a very extreme but typically British attitude.
A lot of countries outside the UK are a lot happier and warmer than the British are, trying to be happy or worrying that you are not happy enough is not normal - but there are plenty of places where people are more content and happier than here. The British spend their time either morose or worrying that they should be happier. Which is a strange place to be.
My two pence worth:
Modern western societies are relatively unhappy, as they define happiness as a future state/event, e.g. buying that new car, taking that once in a lifetime trip, in other words happiness is thought of as external.
It's a cliche but many less "developed" countries have a better attitude and do not necessarily define happiness as external, the unhappiness that does exist is mainly related to economic and political insecurity.
So modern western societies need to learn to be less materialistic, whilst poorer countries need to be supported and helped to improve their internal economic and political security.
The people who are most content in my experience practice a very simple rule, that altruistic behaviour is its own reward.
My own unhappiness is based on the fact that the solution is fairly obvious, societies need to be more generous and individuals need to be less self-obsessed, but I don't see any leadership out there willing to adopt it; instead it looks like we are returning to the old animal instincts and reverting to tribal responses, whereas we need global joined up thinking. There is a super writer called Pitirim Sorokin who predicted pretty much all our contemporary problems many years back; he said humankind has to learn creative altruism, and even set up a centre to study creative altruism, but no-one really knows about him now.
I don’t understand the question. You make happiness sound like a binary choice - ‘either you’re happy or you’re not’. Surely happiness is a state that sometimes you’re in, and sometimes you’re not. If you were happy all the time then, somewhat bizarrely, it would probably be quite depressing, as you wouldn’t appreciate it...