It was one of my absolute
favorite lines from The Simpsons, America
Being found superior in the
competitions and comparisons of ability is no assurance of happiness. At a first glance it would seem a contrary
thing to say, but a second and slightly deeper look reveals the truth of the
matter. The attributes such comparisons
address are matters of the outer reality of facts while happiness, almost certainly a matter of unperceived
emotional balances, is a thing residing in the inner reality of the self. It’s fair to say the higher degrees of
ability facilitate a great many positive things for those in possession of them,
for the sake of brevity call these things enhanced survivability, and yet the testimony
of history does not support any direct correlation between ability and
happiness, and less than no correlation between the material things enabled by
such abilities and the state of life called happiness.
If it be true that genuine
happiness is a matter of an intrinsic balance
in emotional things… stop now, lock that
thought… it then becomes almost transparent, almost, how and why the error and
the lie of happiness as a function of the outer reality has endured.
…to be continued…
with more mental ability, can go the awareness of how much better things in societies and the world could and should be. that the world cannot seem to conform, is frustrating. frustration inhibits to varying degree our enjoyment of life. ;)
ReplyDelete[i was beginning to wonder where you'd gone off to, 'nos.]
Yup... we be on parallel trajectories... and off to? Just spread a bit thin the last couple of weeks dealing with worl things... moving, condensing, cleaning, cleansing, disposing and in a few cases destroying... yea, and that's just the western front... ;-)
DeleteTrying to define happiness is a worthy goal, but I think your timing might be a bit off, considering the big picture. My take on it is that Gandalf was speaking to our times when he said "All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us." Might be time for you to watch "Swing Kids." Not sure we have time to pursue "happiness," which at a minimum is a subjective feeling, subject to the whims and wild winds of life. Something to be appreciated, but probably not part of the bedrock of life.
ReplyDelete*chuckle* Swing kids? As in the movie about the German youth trapped between the insanity of the wars? They who pursued happiness above all else? The one’s who loved to dance, and loved the jazz they danced to? Those whose love of music and dance insulated them from and inoculated them against the contagious insanity of blind nationalism consuming the remainder of their culture, but left them vulnerable to being manipulated (more by their own ignorance of the true nature of their goal than anything else) into the political impotence that allowed the insanity to progress and expand? If so then I should think a better understanding of what happiness is (and really isn’t) would be one of the better ways to prevent the youth and culture of today from suffering the same fate.
Delete“Happiness” has always been exploited by society as both whip and fulcrum in the collective’s efforts to assimilate and annihilate the individual: the goal, the prize to be won, the ultimate victory, the dream made real. Of course society, in order to continue exploiting the idea of “Happiness” as it always has must spare no effort in making sure that “Happiness” is the impossible dream, made impossible by the lie that “Happiness” is a thing of the outer reality (where the concept is set as compliance to such genuine gems… sarcasm dripping… as materialism and popularity) rather than a rational balance in and of the emotional structures of the inner self.
I for one would love to deprive the enemy of a weapon history shows as one of the most successful strategies for maintaining the immense amounts of genuine sin and misery found in the human condition, the standing assumption that un-happiness is the default and natural state of humanity.
Thanks for the read, and thanks for taking the time to comment. This series is far from over, hope we can continue the discussion.
Yes - that movie, since it appears we're once again headed the same direction, with WWIII on the horizon. I agree that materialism and popularity are signposts to nowhere on the path to happiness. But I don't think "happiness" for individuals can co-exist within a larger context of war, conflict, oppression and extreme insecurity. There are some individual inner states that can be separated from the outer - such as dignity, moral fortitude and the like. I'm not at all sure that happiness is an inner state that can ever be separated from outer reality, except in cases of mental illness,where inner reality is the only conscious "reality." As far as the swing kids are concerned - not sure the pursuit of happiness is the same thing as actually being happy. Humans are able to come up with all sorts of diversions and mental escapes when trying to avoid unpleasant features of external reality. But maybe the swing kids really were happy - temporarily - and that is the primary feature of happiness - the fact that it's transitory. But if that is the case, it should be noted that even that temporary state was only accomplished by deliberately separating themselves from the external picture.
ReplyDeleteYou make several good points here, quite pivotal points actually. Perhaps the most critical question you raise concerns the impact of observed events from the outer reality on the structures of the inner self, the influence those events are allowed on the functional interactions of the emotional components within the inner self.
DeleteSuch is truly critical to the question at hand: is the state of “Happiness” a binary function, some black and white matter of a yes/no-go/noGo division, some abstraction of perfection where the one exception found defaults the entire system to the negative state; or, should “Happiness” be treated with as a more flexible condition where the concept of ratio applies such that the ultimate state of an individual (as existing in a state of “Happiness”, or not) becomes a matter of some perceived threshold value of said fraction? For obvious reasons the coercive and manipulative collectives (of society) would prefer the former definition while it is equally obvious that the latter definition better serves the cause of enduring mental health and personal freedom.
Gentle reader, if it should please you I would welcome a nom de plume, that our conversation here in the pixel forest might approximate that of a chance conversation at some public place, say an afternoon coffee shop or pub.
Hmmm... In the attempt to define "good," Plato found it necessary to postulate a good *society* and develop its aspects through a typical dialogue. Individual "goodness" seemed to be a null concept for him...
DeleteInstead of using the Swing Kids as an example, it would have been simpler if I had just used the Jews and the Holocaust to illustrate my point. After all, they were the ones being starved and thrown into ditches while the Swing Kids were dancing..... My point is that there are higher goals than happiness - and that happiness for an individual is very dependent on external circumstances. Other states of "being" such as courage, fortitude, loyalty, etc. cannot - at least not in all individuals - be destroyed by external circumstances. WWII is a treasure trove of such examples. So - these might be more worthy of contemplation. There are those who say we create our own reality - Oprah, et al. I say bullshit. What we create and/or maintain is our character and to a large extent, our lives - not REALITY,
ReplyDeleteexcept perhaps for narcissists who don't perceive any reality outside themselves. As far as meeting for a conversation - that's a possibility for some time in the future. I'm pretty tied up right now with "unhappy" things that have to be dealt with.