Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes: “Happiness is like a feather flying in the air. It flies light, but not for very long.”
Happiness is a human construct, an abstract idea with no equivalent in actual human experience.
We are not designed to be consistently happy. Instead, we are designed to survive and reproduce. These are difficult tasks, so we are meant to struggle and strive, seek gratification and safety, fight off threats and avoid pain. The model of competing emotions offered by coexisting pleasure and pain fits our reality much better than the unachievable bliss that the happiness industry is trying to sell us. In fact, pretending that any degree of pain is abnormal or pathological will only foster feelings of inadequacy and frustration.
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6 comments
Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.Why do people put so much stock in the nonsense poets write?
1of5
Level 8
July 26, 2019
1
1of5:
@powder to some extent. Here, though, we have someone who thinks a universal truth has been exposed, when it's just the misery of an artist broadened into a universal philosophy that goes counter to what people actually feel.
For example I'm extremely happy, the result of my relationship with my wife. It's totally natural and we were designed, through evolution, to be happy with a partner that we are very compatable with. That happiness contributes and arguably could be considered vital to our survival as a species.
Agreed that we are not "meant" to be happy, and though meaning is a human construct, I believe that happiness is a real emotion, though as the quote would have it, not for very long. It's like any other emotion--it comes and goes, sometimes seemingly for no reason, though other times we know why.
Tomfoolery33
Level 9
July 25, 2019
1
I am now, after about 60 years of various misery, happy. Happy every single day, even while mowing the lawn or simply watching TV, and even happier to know I am now smart enough to appreciate & enjoy my life. You are a fool!
AnneWimsey
Level 9
July 25, 2019
2
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