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Topic: Happiness: A Modern Cliché
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infoterror
VoivodFan
Member # 568
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posted May 24, 2005 23:17
    
Happiness – A Modern Cliché?
A 100% subjective essay by Ådne ØslebyIn these modern times we live in a likely scenario to occur might be someone asking ”what is the meaning of life?”, and getting ”happiness” as a reply. To day there is such a big emphasis on being happy. We have movies regarding the subject and commercials are almost exclusively about happiness. About every commercial there is tells you that you will be happy as soon as you buy their product. Hell, we even have books on the subject of how to achieve the magnificent state that happiness is. Our constant obsession with happiness is very much reflected from photographs. When someone is to take a portrait of someone it’s important for us to smile and look happy, in order for others to see how happy we are. Happiness has become something prestigious. What is happiness? The happiness that is being preached by media is about being content. When you are happy you are satisfied with your life, and how it has turned out. You have climbed to the top of Maslow’s pyramid of needs. The stereotype happy man today is someone with a good career, thus having a pretty good income of money. Not too much, but enough to have a nice holiday every now and then. You have a loving and faithful wife that is your one true sole mate. Also you have 2 kids, one boy and one girl that you live together with preferably on the countryside. Now, this man is according to the myth happy, but I care to disagree. The moment you declare your happiness, you have nothing to strive for anymore. Both my self and books regarding psychology agrees to humans being designed to focus more on antipathies, to find negative aspects of your life and to get rid of them. And thus it is in man’s nature to struggle, to fight against one self and to become a better man. We are not meant to be content, we are meant to improve our selves. This might be intellectually, physicly or even through status from ones peers. I prefer the two first suggestions, as I disagree with having the right material possessions makes you a better man. Because that is what status is in modern society, although that is a slight digression from the topic discussed. What I am trying to articulate is that “happiness” is a false virtue. In fact it’s a non-existant virtue. It is not natural to feel a constant happiness as this one of many modern society’s myths claim. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote “aim your arrows the sky”. If you aim your arrows towards the sky (something you most definatly should since it’s in our very nature) you can not be happy. The moment you are happy, you will put the bow and arrow down, and just… be. I want to make it perfectly clear that I do believe in short-term happiness. I am not someone who believes that man is made to live in eternal misery. What I do believe in is short moments when one experience euphoria due to things as seeing beautiful nature, being kissed by your partner or perhaps getting complimented by someone you admire very much. What I’m saying is that this is not something that is long lasting, something we are constantly told it should be. We don’t need to travel many years back in time to see a world where happiness occurred in rear moments, and would eventually pass on as one saw faults that needed to be corrected or opportunities that needed to be grabbed. This is also evident through the use of photographs. Dig up a photo of your great grand parents, and see how grave they will look. This is because there was no happiness. Life was a struggle, something it most definatly should be! You had no time to wander around the farm searching your interior as to why you were not feeling “happy” all the time. To day life is not so much a struggle anymore, as it is a game. If you really want to you can refuse to take part in society, and live life on an asylum somewhere. The western world has become too comfortable. We live in material abundance, something witch is not healthy for mankind. We have everything we need, and thus we strive for something man made and non-existant: happiness. Naturally we are severely disappointed when we sometime in our 30s will realize that we have never experienced long lasting happiness. Many will come in to a state of crisis where they are desperate at finding true happiness. Some take drugs that give euphoria, others travel the world in searching for it, while other again thinks that family life is vital for finding the infamous key to happiness. If modern society is obsessed with achieving happiness why is it that teenagers growing up to day are called the Prozac Generation? The modern man is miserable. It is a fact that every single person on this earth knows someone that has problems with his or her psyche. Now, you might say that this is not a modern problem. You will perhaps claim that this was the case also before psychotherapy became mainstream. I however believe this to be a modern problem that is due to the material abundance that the western world is suffering from. Our excessive money, resources and television sets are slowly killing us. They are killing our will to aim for the sky, and thus destroying us as well.
http://bbs.anus.com/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=003530 -------------------- http://www.livejournal.com/users/infoterror/
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Slaytanic
VoivodFan
Member # 28
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posted May 25, 2005 11:20
Heh. Maybe the cure to this desperate search for "happiness" (or whatever you wanna call it) is not necessarily total lack of happiness. In a world where extremism seems to be the new "wave" ("if you're not with me, you're my enemy", remember?), I'm quite sure the best choice lies somewhere in between. One can be happy and stay focused at the same time, it doesn't take too much brain cells to manage it. I can speak for myself, I live in a country where not everybody can enjoy abundance, still most of the people look, in general, happy with the few they have.This is not to speak people here in Brasil, all of a sudden, are eternally happy, we surely have our depressing times, but it all comes with life, happiness, sadness, anger and the strength to struggle. The author should stick to the fabricated happiness the media try to impose. This one, for sure, is not real happiness, it sounds a lot more like something out of 1984 or Mein Kampf to me. But there is, for sure, a natural happiness, of a kind that no one can take away. -------------------- "Forty-five moments of perfection translated through a cautionary escape into the perils of the mundane, the inherent entropy in ultimate order, and the potential threats of eternal, unchecked apathy in civilization; all cloaked in musical expression so thoughtful, creative and forward thinking that almost a quarter-century later, few can even comprehend it, much less match it." (autothrall)
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infoterror
VoivodFan
Member # 568
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posted June 01, 2005 21:26
quote:
Originally posted by Slaÿtanic:
Heh. Maybe the cure to this desperate search for "happiness" (or whatever you wanna call it) is not necessarily total lack of happiness.
Maybe the answer is that the question is wrong. "Fulfillment" or "purpose," I'll buy, but wanting "happiness" is like eating dessert only at every meal. -------------------- http://www.livejournal.com/users/infoterror/
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Slaytanic
VoivodFan
Member # 28
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posted June 02, 2005 17:51
quote:
Originally posted by infoterror:
"Fulfillment" I'll buy.
That's it. If you have your fulfillment, you're happy. See, it's not that difficult. -------------------- "Forty-five moments of perfection translated through a cautionary escape into the perils of the mundane, the inherent entropy in ultimate order, and the potential threats of eternal, unchecked apathy in civilization; all cloaked in musical expression so thoughtful, creative and forward thinking that almost a quarter-century later, few can even comprehend it, much less match it." (autothrall)
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infoterror
VoivodFan
Member # 568
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posted June 07, 2005 23:14
quote:
Originally posted by Slaÿtanic:
That's it. If you have your fulfillment, you're happy. See, it's not that difficult.
No, I don't agree. Happy is a single state of mind, but fulfillment is more complex. -------------------- http://www.livejournal.com/users/infoterror/
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Slaytanic
VoivodFan
Member # 28
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posted June 18, 2005 00:06
quote:
Originally posted by infoterror:
Happy is a single state of mind, but fulfillment is more complex.
Would you mind elaborating on that? I don't get your point. Fulfillment leads to satisfaction, which is just another word to express happiness. -------------------- "Forty-five moments of perfection translated through a cautionary escape into the perils of the mundane, the inherent entropy in ultimate order, and the potential threats of eternal, unchecked apathy in civilization; all cloaked in musical expression so thoughtful, creative and forward thinking that almost a quarter-century later, few can even comprehend it, much less match it." (autothrall)
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posted June 03, 2005 10:09
Booooooooooooo! 
