Happiness?
During a person’s lifetime, I wonder how many times they ask why? Okay, not as a child, but to what’s up with life in general. Surely everyone asks to someone (perhaps God or even themselves) what is the purpose of life? An eternal kingdom of heaven waits, so is our mortal form on earth is just a test? If that’s all it is, then what is our purpose in college? My thoughts were to make good grades, get a good job, make good money, buy nice things. What is the point? I think overall it’s just basic happiness, right? Like in philosophy we were talking about about happiness, but greek philosophers defined happiness as basically be "well-off".
Okay, so ask a question:
Why am I here (i’m doing homework)?
To prepare for class.
Why?
To be ready to learn.
Why?
To pass the class.
Why?
To get my degree.
Why?
To get a good job.
Why?
To make a decent amount of money.
Why?
To be able to support self, friends, and family.
Why?
To have "happiness".
Am I crazy or can you do that with almost any question you ask about something that is going on in your life or what you are doing at a moment in time?
Why should we be happy? We are being tested to be moral and righteous, but we prepare for a lifetime just to be happy during that lifetime. It sort of doesn’t even matter in the end, except for moral concepts and values and whether they were followed or not. Why do we try so hard?
Okay, so ask a question:
Why am I here (i’m doing homework)?
To prepare for class.
Why?
To be ready to learn.
Why?
To pass the class.
Why?
To get my degree.
Why?
To get a good job.
Why?
To make a decent amount of money.
Why?
To be able to support self, friends, and family.
Why?
To have "happiness".
Am I crazy or can you do that with almost any question you ask about something that is going on in your life or what you are doing at a moment in time?
Why should we be happy? We are being tested to be moral and righteous, but we prepare for a lifetime just to be happy during that lifetime. It sort of doesn’t even matter in the end, except for moral concepts and values and whether they were followed or not. Why do we try so hard?
posted by erin at 11:18 AM
17 Comments:
ugh now i'm stuck thinking.
apparantly anytime someone makes katie think her brain powers down and she gets stuck leaving a response like that.
answer:
people "think" they have to have this positive reinforcement to live. they think that if they don't achieve happiness they become depressed. when in all actuality, if they do get it they become depressed as well.
it's the idea of tautology -- basically spinning around circles instead of answering a question (i.e. what I'm doing now) For a better definition look it up. it's a basic principle of psychology (makes you sound smart, etc.) that people use everyday.
But seriously, what would you do with your life if you didn't better it? Make it worse? Your life is too short for you to be a static character.
tradition. that could be your answer. and really it's not that we are afraid to break the mold. what if there really isn't a mold to break?
also in a way we are still barbarians. barbarians wanted more, more, more. in today's terminology: be successful, wealthy, powerful -- everything you are programed to do (look out! 1984 coming at ya).
Comments?
Anyone?
Katie? Can you hear me?
okay, but I don't agree. If you are truly happy, I don't think there really is any room for the depression stage.
Listen (hypothetically) you have a family, a job you love, enough money but not too much, kids, whatever, and everything is perfect. So the only way that you could enter the depression stage is if one of those factors changed...or if you personally had changed. If you had changed, then you would want something different and what you have in the hypothetical situation would also change. You're not happy, or like I said "well-off" (remember?) anymore and need to change something. Then you can become depressed. My opinion.
I guess that you could say that it's taut-whatever, which makes sense if i think about it.
And you know my bio teacher made me feel really depressed for a moment and told the class that our lives in a ratio to the age of the earth is a total of 2.9 seconds. Three seconds. No wonder people don't think there's a purpose in life.
poor katie...i think you're a little harsh sometimes seth!
who says what happiness really is though? it's just like being 'normal'.
on top of that, happiness is fleeting. so that's why people that have everything they want get depressed. there is always more to get, more to do. no one is ever satisfied. actually i just wrote a poem about it. i'll post it soon. trying to fix my last line. i have about 8 different possibilities right now ... ugh.
See that's what we were talking about in philosophy, what exactly is happiness? Very interesting.
Now we're talking about what exactly right and wrong means. Who says what it means to do something moral (right) and if you do it for a moral reason or not, is it still right? yeah...good stuff.
we were talking about that briefly in psychology the other day too. interesting stuff.
*notice katie still has not responded on either blog. i think she's avoiding me.
happiness
more or less
it's just a change in me
something in my liberty
oh my my ...
happiness
Coming and going
I watch you look at me
Watch my fever growing
I know just where I am
--the verve's lucky man
(really good song -- check it out)
i haven't answered because i haven't come to erin's blog in a few days.
you two make me feel dumb.
ugh.
My point: katie still hasn't really answered any of the questions.
My point: katie still hasn't really answered any of the questions.
i haven't answered because:
these kinds of questions take a lot of thinking for me, and i just don't have the time to think about these sort of things.
but, i'll work on it and i'll give you both an answer that will blow you away.
for now..i'm off to work.
erin you aren't the "comment virgin" anymore on my blog so you can comment now.
okay....
happiness is just some concept that we've all grown up knowing, but we don't really know exactly what it is, in all honesty. instead, we think we know what it is.
like seth said...no one knows exactly what happiness is, just like no one knows what is normal and what isn't.
i think we just ask ourselves questions, like "why?" just to ask them. we over-analyze things.
and sometimes a person is extremely happy...they have everything they want (power, success, etc.) but then realize that something is missing, even if it's something that would seem almost insignificant, and they become depressed. or, someone may be depressed because they don't have what they want, but somehow they realize that what they do have is just as important as what they want, and they realize that they don't need a million pointless things to be happy. and with that realization, a person can be happy.
(that was a terrible response, but oh well. at least i answered)
i finally answer, and neither of you are paying any attention.
and i finally felt smart for a change, especially next to you two.
well thank you then.
sry I've been busy.
you finally reply, but have NOTHING to say about the answer i thought long and hard about?
ugh!
katie, you're forgiven...i have to think about things before i respond too.
Well i think that the people that get all depressed and crap when their rich and have everything they'd ever need just need to suck it up. They can't be considered because maybe they have TOO much?...what about the people that say they are happy, but live on the streets and have to beg people for money because they can't feed themselves or cloth themselves warmly...they are always dirty. Are they happy, even though they say they are perfectly content with the situation they're in. Is it just that they accepted it?
There are a million different views on what happiness is and no one really knows. You don't have to respond to this but i guess you can if you want...i'll put up an update tomorrow, i just haven't had access to a computer for the last few days. sorry guys.
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