FILLER POST 1: THE PARADOX OF HAPPINESS

 

THE PARADOX OF HAPPINESS.

Salutations dearest reader and a happy new year to you. This is my first filler post. A filler post is a short post I write elaborating more on a subject I talked about in a previous post as I research on a bigger post for the coming weeks.

So for my first filler post I chose to talk about the paradox of happiness. In the post “WHY ARE WE EVEN HERE?” I talked about existentialism and the pursuit of happiness as the purpose for most modern people but I explained that happiness is flawed. That is why I created this post to show how happiness is flawed.

To understand happiness and why it has a major paradox, Iam going to write about the following concepts;

• ·       What is happiness anyway?
• ·       The hedonic nature of happiness
• ·       The case study of Buddhism

A.  WHAT IS HAPPINESS ANYWAY?

So most people talk about happiness and how we should find happiness in our lives but what is happiness anyway?

So I went online trying to find the answer to this question. According to the Oxford English Dictionary happiness is defined as” The state of being happy” I do not find that a complete definition of happiness.

Wikipedia defines happiness as “a mental and emotional state including positive and pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy”. Yes, this true but this definition does not make us understand the true nature of happiness, so what can?

So neurobiologists define happiness as” the release of chemicals in the brain that result in pleasure in a certain organism”. Multiple studies approve this definition, the release of dopamine and serotonin is known to affect the happiness of an organism

So to conclude am going to take the neurobiologist point of view of happiness that is it’s just a biochemical reaction in our brains, this can help us understand the hedonic nature of happiness.

B.   THE HEDONIC NATURE OF HAPPINESS

When something is termed “hedonic”, it usually involves pleasure. So most people differentiate pleasure with happiness. Most argue pleasure comes from bodily urges and simple sensations. Pleasure for good example can be orgasms from intercourse while happiness comes from more, people believe happiness comes from more complex and even spiritual things like complex relationships or art or sympathy. In short, most people believe happiness is deeper than mere pleasures.

But I explained in neurobiology there is no way to differentiate pleasure and happiness because both are caused by biochemical reactions. So happiness is equivalent to pleasure and as most of us know pleasure does not last forever, then the same for happiness. This is where the paradox starts to appear.

In evolutionary biology, happiness evolved as an incentive to organisms so they can do essential stuff in their lives like finding food or a mate. This tells the organism what is good for them but if an organism is always happy the organism won’t work for such stuff since well they are already happy, so such an organism goes back to a state of little happiness until it does something to make itself happy again.

The same for human beings, we do things like acquire wealth, interact with other humans, play games, spend time on tiktok and many other stuff to pursuit this happiness but happiness is impermanent and so whatever we do we will still go back to square one.

So is the pursuit of happiness a wild goose chase? Is our existence a waste of time? Can we do anything to change all this shit? For sure I do not know but one faith in particular has an interesting view on happiness. That is BUDDHISM.

C.   THE CASE STUDY OF BUDDHISM.

So Buddhism, one of the biggest world faiths (with some 535 million followers worldwide) has an interesting viewpoint on happiness and existence itself.

Buddhism was created 2500 years ago by Siddhartha Gautama. As the story goes Siddhartha Gautama was born in a wealthy family and his father hid the troubles of the world from him but one day after an unlikely stroll outside his palace, Siddhartha saw people suffering and he wanted to understand why do people suffer.

After six years of searching Siddhartha become enlightened and became the Buddha, which means “the awakened one”. Buddha came up with the idea that people suffer because of DUKKHA or craving. Buddha found the root of all problems in the pursuit of happiness since well happiness is impermanent and only lasts a short period of time. So according to the Buddha to escape this cycle of suffering we need to let go of these feelings so we can achieve NIRVANA.

So in Buddhist teaching the real purpose of life is to let go of these feelings and cravings that drag us down from achieving Nirvana.

So the hedonic state of happiness and the pursuit of happiness is the real cause of suffering. According to Buddhist try being in the center, a state of neither happiness nor sadness. What I call “meh”.

If you’re interested in Buddhism watch this video

CONCLUSION

Like in the “Why are we even here?” post I made, I cannot really explain the purpose of human existence. It is still a mystery to be solved so do not expect me a 16-year-old to have answers to such a question. But happiness is something interesting and for that I chose to make a post about it hoped you enjoyed it.

If you have read this far thank you for your interest in the blog and the post’s subject matter, it is appreciated. Comment and contact the author for suggestions you want to see in this blog.

PS; I am finding new topics to write about in the blog, if you have a subject matter you want to see comment below.