I think too many words have lost their meaning. I shall try to reel back in three of them.
Happiness
I think happiness has taken on a purely emotional form in present day society (at least the society I'm surrounded by). It appears to be the end pursuit for nearly any person and everything else seems to be a means to it. Ultimately it seems that it is any state in which that person does not wish for anything to be different. Typically, they won't be consciously aware of this, they simply are in that moment and content.
I do feel this applies, but isn't really sufficient...or even necessary for that matter. Some of the earliest philosophers--and communities as a whole, for that matter--understood happiness thusly:
Happiness (Greek: eudaimonia) was understood as a life of virtue, and
the successful person was one who knew how to live life well according
to what we are by nature due to the creative design of God...So
understood, happiness involves suffering, endurance, and patience
because of these are important means to becoming a good person who lives
the good life. (J.P. Moreland)
I tend to agree that this is what happiness SHOULD be. I do find myself having a hard time uprooting the common understanding of what happiness is now though. My instincts tell me that I should limit happiness to just an emotion and that if I want anything more than an emotion, then happiness isn't exactly the word I'd be looking for. I don't think agree with that though.
I find it a hard pill to swallow that happiness would be so self-centered, so inward pointing. It seems to be a much grander word, and such a word would seemingly want to start inside and point outward...not the other way around.
Happiness is elusive, but it is worth taking the journey to find out what it is. I shall continue journeying.
Freedom
This will be short. Too many people think freedom is ability to do whatever you desire. I believe that is wrong. I believe freedom is the ability to do whatever you feel you SHOULD do. WHAT you feel you should do is another story. However, for the time being. Freedom is not letting your every whim run rampant on the world. That is chaos and will ultimately lead to lack of "freedom". If you feel you SHOULD pray, freedom is being able to do that whenever you want. If you feel you SHOULD speak up for or against something, freedom is being able to do so. Etc.
Tolerance
Moreland put it best:
Traditionally, tolerance of other viewpoints meant that even
though I think those viewpoints are dead wrong and will argue against
them fervently, nevertheless, I will defend your right to argue your own
case. Just as importantly, I will treat you with respect as an image
bearer of God, even though your views are abhorrent to me.
You can hear his fuse running low with society's view on tolerance; I love it.
Too many people have come to think that tolerance is being able to do whatever you want and other people having to accept it and be okay with it and to believe you are right. No. I won't treat you any differently, but I do not have to believe what you do is right. I would be a coward if I gave in to every single person's opinion on what is right and I would lose all sense of identity. I would simply be changing what is right minute by minute and ultimately you would have to do the same. Unfortunately that really just leads to no one thinking anything is right since everyone would be waiting on everyone else to see what is right. It's simply an irrational point of view that holds absolutely no solid foundation whatsoever.
You're gay? I'm 100% okay with that and I will love you no different than anyone else who isn't gay. I don't agree that it is morally correct though. You think we all evolved from a gooey soup that itself popped out of thin air (thin air that couldn't have existed already anyway)? Fine! You're allowed to back that view until the day you die and I will fight for your right to do so right along side of you, but I disagree with you and think it's an incredibly weak stance :) You get the point. I will not form a full framework of my believes.
I didn't end up really supporting different definitions of any of these words. I simply recorded thoughts on them. Oh well. If you read this far, you obviously are bored or somehow I have done something else in my life that has convinced you I'm interesting and you gave this post the benefit of the doubt. I hope you can do that for the rest of my oncoming posts too!
A very unWeemo post. It's Weems, but not Weemo.
ReplyDeleteHappiness. That is what I want to discuss. Mostly because I have been researching the topic my whole life and partly because I am procrastinating insofar as work I should be actually be doing.
ReplyDeleteI've collected some data over the years. I enjoy these quotes by the following wordsmiths because they bring up some good points referencing what I have always felt but couldn't articulate. I do not agree with every aspect of each statement, however.
"Life isn't supposed to be an all or nothing battle between
misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be a battle at all.
And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just
okay, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes
boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's
not a failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day."
-- Barbara Sher
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "universe," limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons close to us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all humanity and the whole of nature in its beauty." -- Albert Einstein
"I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be 'happy.' I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all." Leo C. Rosten
Food for thought. In my own words, I believe that happiness is when your desires and actions become harmonized. I also agree with you that it is imperative to note the difference between what happiness should be and how it is usually perceived.
As far as I'm concerned, I think this post was a swing and a solid connect on the reeling in on some topics that are important to you. Keep up the good reeling. The best things in life will seem elusive!
Insofar as the first two quotes are concerned, I agree that that's how things 'should' be. I, however, also believe they are pipe dreams.
DeleteThe human condition disallows us to not 'fight' against misery and for happiness. By the nature of how they affect us, and our instinctual reactions to pain and pleasure, we will always battle for happiness.
There IS a much larger universe than the small world we are privy to. The very fact that so much of it is vast and unknown not only to our personal perception, but the perception of man as a whole is both awesome (in the very truest sense of the word) and the reason that we are restricted to our personal desires. What we know is all that can motivate us.
But, to Einstein's credit, it truly IS our task to accomplish exactly what he says. Unfortunately, whenever we accomplish it, we still suffer from the very same problem he wishes to avoid. Even if we expand our compassion and embrace, we are still only being motivated by our personal world, it's just a little bit bigger. The Universe, by design, will never allow us to see all of it.
Leo is 100% right.
All in all, these are good quotes, but I do not believe they really shed light on what happiness IS. They merely seem to just hint at some objective moral standard that we SHOULD come to accept and ultimately obey.