Originally posted by Moongoose
I think you just get used to it. I havent been properly happy for a prolonged period of time (lets say a week) since...well since i was 14 or something like that. I do generally have a positive outlook on life, but that has nothing do do with being happy.
Yeah, I can relate to that.
MrJiveBoJingles
A note on the presidents: paintings are a different story than photos because a neutral or even slightly sour expression is easier to hold than a smile when you're sitting still in front of an artist for hours. If you look at very old photos for which people had to stand still a long time, you'll also see people looking that way, but it wasn't because looking dour was in fashion or something.
:p
Halcyon+On+On
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Well, by depression I mean the overwhelming feeling to just sit around and ask yourself why you haven't jumped out the window yet... could it mean anything else at all? :conf:
Well actual clinical depression can obviously manifest itself in a variety of different ways, and I apologize if it seems I am coming off as quite pretentious in assuming you haven't felt its tug, but it seems to me that people who have actually experienced it have no positive things to say about the matter. It's the difference between kind of contemplating just why you keep on living, which is something every healthy person should do, and the overwhelming sense that there is absolutely no other option, nothing worth living for, and no exit but the most drastic one. I've never met someone who suffered from real depression who can elaborate on the merits of how it balances out the happy, fleeting moments of their life - depression is an illness, and one that I sincerely hope never afflicts you.
Moongoose
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Yeah, I can relate to that.
I think most adults can. Its hard to be happy when life keeps screwing with you, incidentally the last time i realised holly im actually happy right now was on 22.10.2009 when for a few hours i managed to leave the usual every day crap behind me.
ChemEnhanced
This is truth
Arbiter
The experience of happiness is an evolved trait which functions to reinforce behaviors that led to favorable outcomes.
This mechanism, however, probably worked better for simpler organisms, than it does for human beings. That's because the criteria for what constitute a "favorable outcome" for, e.g., a squirrel are more fixed than they are for a human being. A squirrel has limited goals: avoiding predators, obtaining food, reproducing, et cetera.
Human beings, on the other hand, select their goals from an extremely wide array of choices. We too (usually) possess various survival-related goals, but we also often place value in things that are of no value to our survival and form goals related to obtaining or furthering these things, or otherwise affecting out environment.
Happiness can help reinforce behaviors which lead to favorable outcomes in all of these various pursuits... but, there's a problem: what happens when happiness itself becomes the pursuit? At a minimum, it defeats the entire purpose of the mechanism, depriving the organism of the benefits of that mechanism, but I think there's reason to suspect that it short-circuits the mechanism and causes further impairments to an organism's functioning, such as depression.
Furthermore, I believe that the pursuit of happiness is irrational, because the trigger of happiness, i.e., a "favorable outcome," is purely relative to the underlying expectations. If one's experiences have created an expectation of a "very good outcome," and what results is merely a "modestly good outcome," then that result will not be viewed as "favorable" in the sense that it will be unlikely to produce happiness (rather, you can expect something akin to disappointment.) I distinguish between a "favorable" outcome and a "good" outcome here to illustrate the relational nature of the former with regards to happiness-induction. "Good" outcomes are obviously relative as well: but as I am using the terms here "good" outcomes are those which are preferable relative to the spectrum of possible outcomes, whereas "favorable" outcomes are those which are preferable to the expected outcome.
But a favorable outcome does not only have the effect of producing happiness: it also affects future expectations, necessarily in a way which make it more difficult for happiness to occur in the future (i.e. the Hedonic treadmill). Variations in happiness between individuals, then, are almost entirely attributable to variations in the expected quality of future outcomes and their actual perceived quality when they occur.
As a simple example, consider the individual who, by happenstance, always seems to end up with an outcome slightly better than she got before: each outcome should make her modestly happy because it should exceed her expectation, which is based on her experience (at least, until she recognizes the pattern and adjusts her expectations to it.) In contrast, consider the person whose outcomes, by a stroke of equal coincidence, get marginally worse each time: they will be dissatisfied with all of their outcomes (again, until they internalize the pattern.)
Now, let's add an additional complexity: our expectations are not only shaped by our own experience, but also the experiences of others (the degree of influence is affected by, at a minimum, the salience of the other individual's experience and the perceived comparability between their circumstances and one's own.) Accordingly, someone surrounded by particularly unfortunate individuals might have lower expectations and be more prone to happiness. These patterns, too, can be internalized and no longer bias happiness in either direction. However, since human beings' life spans are finite, the "patterns" we encounter in the real world far more complex, and human beings' capacity for recognizing patterns where they exist is limited, factors like these will affect someone's happiness over the course of their life.
Back to the pursuit of happiness, it should be obvious why none of the ways to actually increase one's happiness matter: because you won't be able to manipulate any of these affects without being aware of them, and if you're aware of them, you have already internalized them into your expectations.
Consequently, I submit there is no rational way to pursue happiness over the long term. Moreover, since happiness essentially results from the combination of "being wrong" and experiencing suboptimal outcomes, it seems irrational to suggest that it's worth pursuing. Wouldn't it always be better to consistently acheive the best possible outcome, even if it caused your expectations to rise and eventually result in extremely little happiness even from the best outcome?
A brief but critical examination of how one would go about pursuing happiness at the highest level of abstraction thus reveals the absurdity of the exercise: if it were possible at all, it would involve trying to consistently be wrong about future outcomes, sabotaging the outcomes of those around you while trying to remain ignorant of your own sabotage, and achieving suboptimal results so as to leave room for more improvement while trying to maintain ignorance of your modulating behavior.
This result should not be surprising in view of the function that happiness serves, but I always get a lot of push-back on these conclusions even though it's rarely based on any objection to the presmises or logic that leads to them. Most people, because they have been socialized to conceive of happiness in a particular way, will have a strong cognitive bias towards reaching a different conclusion. Furthermore, because the topic is complex, and because the dialogue here is in the nature of an exchange of relatively brief posts, the analysis I've presented is necessarily greatly oversimplified. As a result, there will be many things that it doesn't explain, some of which initially seem inconsistent with it. People who are looking to rationalize a contrary position should accordingly find many easy opportunities to do so.
Domesticated
I often wonder what proportion of the world is generally happy/content throughout the duration of their life. We all have periods of depression or sadness, and those of happiness.
However, imagine for a moment that those two emotions are the only feelings any particular human being can experience. Then consider one person's entire life. Measuring purely based on time, which emotion do you think would present itself more frequently?
Call me pessimistic, but I believe that a majority of the world is generally unsatisfied and unhappy. Paradoxically, it seems to me that it's most often those with the best stations in life that are the most unhappy, too.
MrJiveBoJingles
People with the best stations usually take more for granted and expect more out of life, so it's easier to disappoint them.
In some places, simply getting through the month with everyone healthy and fed is a major achievement. But for most people in wealthy countries, those things are expected as a matter of course, so happiness gets tied to all sorts of more elaborate goals.
Viber
Im very lucky that EDM exists, thats all im gonna say.
ChemEnhanced
reality is....the only people that are truly happy are the ones who are miserable.
Unique2701
quote:
Originally posted by Ian
Not happy. Not until I've managed to complete my wishes & tasks in life.
What's there to live for when you've managed to complete your wishes & tasks in life? You'll always have more wishes and tasks and when you don't, that's when you gotta worry (or when you are very old).
pkcRAISTLIN
i gave up on happiness in favour of personal gratification. its kinda the same thing, and easier to come by.
