Being Happy

Ebon Muse from Dailight Atheism is pondering on what makes people happy and comes to a conclusion that is quite close to my own thinking:

Instead, I believe that goodness in life consists in gaining experience, having love and friendship, the acquisition of knowledge, the pleasure of creating things through artistry or craft, the practice of virtue toward others, and participation in meaningful and satisfying work.

The only thing I would disagree is that acquiring knowledge or being creative etc is a step for happiness. These are all things that different people might want and not an definite guide.

Instead I find that the way to achieve it is simply to have the capability to do whatever you wish, when you wish it. To achieve that one needs to only have the basics covered and those are the things that you need to fill first before one can start doing anything further.

ekuverikamakee, gadha fadha baareh
Image by notsogood via Flickr

Ebon Muse from Dailight Atheism is pondering on what makes people happy and comes to a conclusion that is quite close to my own thinking:

Instead, I believe that goodness in life consists in gaining experience, having love and friendship, the acquisition of knowledge, the pleasure of creating things through artistry or craft, the practice of virtue toward others, and participation in meaningful and satisfying work.

The only thing I would disagree is that acquiring knowledge or being creative etc is a step for happiness. These are all things that different people might want and not an definite guide.

Instead I find that the way to achieve it is simply to have the capability to do whatever you wish, when you wish it. To achieve that one needs to only have the basics covered and those are the things that you need to fill first before one can start doing anything further.

Food, friends and shelter and the absence of pain.

One cannot pursue knowledge if one is starving and one will not care about satisfying work if he is living in solitude. These things are the prerequisites of any further action one can take. However these things are our only needs. One needs simply to have these four to be content with life. Further achievements can then be pursued if they do not contrast the basic four and add more spice to life but even when they cannot, they are not necessary.

Ebon Muse also seems to be at a loss to give a name to this philosophy of life. But a name for such a philosophy already exist and has done for more than 2000 years. Epicurism.

This is the philosophy that explains how striving for material wealth, fame, power etc is a recipe for disappointment. What is difficult to achieve never gets one happy for in the course of achieving it, the four pillars are eroded in one way of another. Thus one becomes powerful and friendless, or famous and sick from the stress.

Not only that, but because these four are so easy to achieve (compared to any other goal), it is the easiest thing for people to become happy in their life. Once one reaches this level, more flavour in one’s life can easily be added through altruistic objectives. For example, one’s meaningfull work can put towards helping more people reach this level as well, thus slowly improving the whole society.

I find it a bit sad that so many people in the world must rediscover Epicurism through “reinventing the wheel” through the ages. He was not simply of the first Atheists ((Well, Deist really but pretty close)) but also taught skepticism, materialism, tolerance through the only life philosophy that works. And this is something that many Humanists should study.

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6 thoughts on “Being Happy”

  1. "Food.."

    Yesssss… Delicious and various if possible. And yeah.. quite a lot of it. There are many tasty plants and animals out there! 😀

    "..absence of pain."

    You know I do not agree. But last time we did not have the time to talk about it much, so here the missing link.. Pain is the best teacher to some, to others a drug, to others motivation, to others inspiration. I do not only miss the point in absence of pain, I think I would not want to live a life without it. Pain, suffering and problems made quite a contribution to who I am now and I love it. And I look forward to more of it once in a while. Love without a bit of pain would certainly bore me to death. Inner suffering and solitude, pain and sadness in the own mind/soul is most inspirating for any kind of creative work, be it writing, pain-ting ( 😛 ) or composing music. The calm happiness of letting go is worth nothing without the pain one feels from the side that does not want to. Some people feel numb and not alive without it (though I am not on that path).

    No, dear friend, without pain.. no way! Life to me would seem dull to me.

    Hehe.. just as Mr.Smith said in Matrix.. The first Matrix was a perfect world but people started rejecting it and it collapsed, because they did not accept a world without suffering and pain. There is more truth in these words than one might think.. 😉

    "Power" is too coined to the use in politics and influence, finance and so on, that is why I dislike this term. I think power is the possibility to enforce one's will upon reality (general definition) by whatever means necessary. So if you have power (not in volt) you have the possibility to do what you wish when you wish to do it. Having power is the opposite of being helpless. And being helpless is what I am willing to avoid. And as I remember you defined happiness as "being capable.." – and in my opinion it is not far from what I consider is power. Now back to more power metal.. read you later. 😉

  2. "The only thing I would disagree is that acquiring knowledge or being creative etc is a step for happiness. These are all things that different people might want and not an definite guide.

    Instead I find that the way to achieve it is simply to have the capability to do whatever you wish, when you wish it. To achieve that one needs to only have the basics covered and those are the things that you need to fill first before one can start doing anything further."

    My FRIEND ! HATS OFF TO YOU !
    By far the most profound and advanced philosophy available. The only place where I've seen a philosophy that came close to this level of profundity, was National Geographic, where a bunch of chimps were actually bordering your depthness. However, I sadly find that even they organize in communities, and have certain rules that they follow instinctualy. It seems that we must go even more steps, bellow the chimp condition, in order to reach the socialist ideal !!!

    1. Do you have a point to make, or do you just go from blog to blog, vomiting your nonsensical rants?

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