Happiness: An Investigation

As the sole reader and creator of this blog I have decided to take an in-depth look at happiness. What is it? Where does it come from? How do we gain and lose it? This will start an overlong solitary dialogue that if anything helps me to articulate some ideas I have may have and develop some others. 

Happiness is an interesting concept, I have told a loved one before "I just want you to be happy". This is true of course, but what does it mean? Is happiness contentment or satisfaction or something else? Is happiness for one the same as for another? Most people do experience happiness in their lives  and the pursuit thereof. 

While on our pursuit do we always realize when we are happy contemporaneously? Or is it more a matter of looking back, a recollection where we say "ah, yes, I was so very happy then, that was a time"? This could be illusory, this flashback, things were never as good as they seemed in retrospect, we were never so "happy" as we remember being. However that does not mean we weren't happy to a degree. 

First we must look at some ideas about happiness and I will start with the Greeks. Democritus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher believed happiness to be produced by moderation, equanimity, the absence of desires for the unobtainable and ephemeral.

Democritus, in terms of Greek thought, is considered conservative. Happiness was about acceptance, patience and self control. The pursuit of fleeting pleasures or wishes cannot lead to true happiness. In other words we can only be happy by taking the long-term path and the short term, the immediate will fail to fulfill. Democritus' perspective will later be shared by some stoics in the Roman period. The pursuit of happiness is negated in this sense, it is the very chase that will prevent happiness.

This view of happiness has some obvious qualities though. Self control, moderation and the focus on the future over the immediate are all things we can agree are to the good. However, is this a realistic perspective? One of the major issues in original Greek thought  is emotion versus reason. Here, obviously Democritus is stressing a reliance on reason over emotion, dispassionate calculation over sentiment. This reining in of emotion is supposed to lead to happiness, this suppression of desire, is similar to Buddhist and Hindu beliefs. 

Happiness, in this sense, is not an easy thing to gain. The unfortunate masses will yearn in futility for it and it can only be gained by philosophical contemplation. The very idea of gaining it is brought into question. We must be governed by our reason, an endurance against the instantaneous must be maintained with due rigor. Happiness is achieved when this struggle ceases to be, we are not pushed by our passions, we take all in stride, we are happy.

I have left many unanswered questions here and I will circle back and expand on them in later posts.