Discussion What is happiness and why do we want it?

[Sleeper System]

Isn't it just a state of being where an emotion completely disassociates you from the reality of the world?
We are constantly looking for and craving the feeling that happiness gives us.
Some people find it in the course of living and interacting with the world.
Others find it at the bottom of a glass or in the drugs they consume.

I don't remember the last time I was happy but i'm sure it was a very brief and short lived moment
as I don't have the ability to ignore the reality that all this shit is pointless.

I don't even know what love is I think. Real love they say is caring for someone or something more than you care about yourself. And all I do is think about myself and how everything effects me. When I have my human face on I feel that expressing care is a built in program that just happens when I believe it needs to and is the proper response. But without the mask.... I just don't care at all.

We want to be happy because we want to escape. We want to be lied to by something that feels undeniably real and tangible. So why is suicide wrong? We just want be in a state where we are numb to reality and no longer susceptible
to this immense existential suffering that it brings.

Suicide is happiness. Death is happiness. The end to struggle... is the only happiness I want.

 

[edu0z]

We are constantly looking for and craving the feeling that happiness gives us.
Some people find it in the course of living and interacting with the world.
Others find it at the bottom of a glass or in the drugs they consume.

I don't remember the last time I was happy but i'm sure it was a very brief and short lived moment

I'm not in your head to be sure... but I think what you're talking about here is not happiness, it's pleasure and satisfaction. For me, happiness is found in the peace. In being at peace with yourself, in feeling calm. That state of mind in which you are neither bored nor very stressed nor anxious, you just flow... for me that is happiness. The rest of the "fleeting moments" as you say are not happiness, those are satisfaction and pleasure.

I don't even know what love is I think. Real love they say is caring for someone or something more than you care about yourself. And all I do is think about myself and how everything effects me. When I have my human face on I feel that expressing care is a built in program that just happens when I believe it needs to and is the proper response. But without the mask.... I just don't care at all.

Listen, I am not here to say that I am an enlightened being by any means... I have my own problems like everyone else... but speaking to you from my own reflections in the past, for me love is something selfish. And I'm not saying it's bad, quite the opposite. People hear the word selfishness and already think: "bad." No, caring for someone because you care and love them is good. And you want the best for that person because you love them. And why do you want it? because that person is important to you, that is, it is something selfish, and I don't think that is bad.

 

[Sleeper System]

I'm not in your head to be sure... but I think what you're talking about here is not happiness, it's pleasure and satisfaction. For me, happiness is in peace. In being at peace with yourself, in feeling calm. That state of mind in which you are neither bored nor very stressed nor anxious, you just flow... for me that is happiness. The rest of the "fleeting moments" as you say are not happiness, those are satisfaction and pleasure.

Listen, I am not here to say that I am an enlightened being by any means... I have my own problems like everyone else... but speaking to you from my own reflections in the past, for me love is something selfish. And I'm not saying it's bad, quite the opposite. People hear the word selfishness and already think: "bad." No, caring for someone because you care and love them is good. And you want the best for that person because you love them. And why do you want it? because that person is important to you, that is, it is something selfish, and I don't think that is bad.

Pleasure and satisfaction seem like the effects of happiness not the definition.
Happiness has many definitions depending on who you ask but it's effect is the same.
I think about that saying time flys when you're having fun. Because you're in this state of happiness it really warps your sense of time and even though time isn't actually going by faster, It feels like you got pushed forward faster briefly. Imagine always feeling like that... by the time you know it you'd be on your death bed looking back at your life like wow... it's been so long?

Everything is selfish because it comes from our desire. Self sacrifice has always been thought of as the ultimate form of love and I could agree to that. We're trying to ease our own passage through life with all these emotions. It's like our defense mechanism for survival.

 

[edu0z]

Pleasure and satisfaction seem like the effects of happiness not the definition.
Happiness has many definitions depending on who you ask but it's effect is the same.
I think about that saying time flys when you're having fun. Because you're in this state of happiness it really warps your sense of time and even though time isn't actually going by faster, It feels like you got pushed forward faster briefly. Imagine always feeling like that... by the time you know it you'd be on your death bed looking back at your life like wow... it's been so long?

Everything is selfish because it comes from our desire. Self sacrifice has always been thought of as the ultimate form of love and I could agree to that. We're trying to ease our own passage through life with all these emotions. It's like our defense mechanism for survival.

I have not been very happy for the vast majority of my life... but I can say that happiness is an elusive lover. The more you try to find it, the less you will have it. Those times in my life when I can say that I have been happy and I have not thought about CTB for months, it has been because I have forgotten to be happy. It wasn't even because there were changes in external situations, it was just that one day you stop worrying so much about so much shit... and as I said, you flow. An orgasm is one thing, the satisfaction of having won a game or having achieved something or being high... and another very different thing is that state of "flow." But in the end I'm only talking to you about my subjective experience so...


I imagine that our mammalian brain evolved to save that feeling of satisfaction for specific moments. If you feel satisfied all the time, then you don't leave the cave to hunt and you starve in the Paleolithic. But at the same time it evolved so that we were able to be motivated and flowing in a normal state. The thing is that the modern world is not the best friend for our primitive brain.

 

[SMmetalhead36]

My happiness is in the bottle of liquor and pills. I can understand what you mean. It's like happiness is short lived and the old saying is that all good things come to an end. It makes me angry that suffering is for eternity. So you are correct, suicide is happiness and death is happiness.

 

[leavingthesoultrap]

Happiness is having a purpose. it's stopping to want things because that leads to disappointment. Appreciation of what you have.

 

[just_a_guy]

I think my happiness is the natural world and sleep. I find myself imagining blowing my brains out while I'm having conversations with people

 

[edu0z]

As per evidence from a scientific study, happiness in men is disliked by women and society as a whole.

We are men... we don't care what women or society think.

 

[Forever Sleep]

For me personally, the greatest moments of happiness have come from fully engaging with a moment in life. Most of the time- there are too many worries going on in my head to fully allow that to happen- they are actually the distraction for me and they're hard to get rid of. Financial worries, future worries, past worries, grief. Or- just simply a neutral or unpleasant reaction to the countless things in life we have to do but don't want to- or- worrying about those things. When I have felt truly happy, it's because I've been able to forget those bad things and fully enjoy what I was doing. It's been rare.

As for love, my ideas are kind of fairytale- seeing as I haven't experienced the real thing. I agree though- I expect suicide feels to a lot of us like a happy and welcome release.

 

[Abyssal]

Happiness is the will to live for me. I lack it. That's the best I got for an answer lol

 

[oddetoad]

I don't want happiness, I just want my biological needs met in this prison suit. But this place doesn't give me that.

Come to think of it, actually I don't even want that anymore either. I just want to leave this hellhole.

 

[Slow_Farewell]

Happiness is a state bought about by chemical processes which in turn are triggered by certain prompts that are processed via our senses.
Having shared that, I would agree that happiness is the end to the struggle.

 

[sylvey]

Pleasure and satisfaction seem like the effects of happiness not the definition.
Happiness has many definitions depending on who you ask but it's effect is the same.
I think about that saying time flys when you're having fun. Because you're in this state of happiness it really warps your sense of time and even though time isn't actually going by faster, It feels like you got pushed forward faster briefly. Imagine always feeling like that... by the time you know it you'd be on your death bed looking back at your life like wow... it's been so long?

Everything is selfish because it comes from our desire. Self sacrifice has always been thought of as the ultimate form of love and I could agree to that. We're trying to ease our own passage through life with all these emotions. It's like our defense mechanism for survival.

love is talking to someone you feel comfortable with and somehow they make everything feel okay for a little while even though nothing is okay. a person you love will always be there for you.
love is also a glass of strawberry milk but the above description is more accurate

 

[Raindancer]

I'm not in your head to be sure... but I think what you're talking about here is not happiness, it's pleasure and satisfaction. For me, happiness is found in the peace. In being at peace with yourself, in feeling calm. That state of mind in which you are neither bored nor very stressed nor anxious, you just flow... for me that is happiness. The rest of the "fleeting moments" as you say are not happiness, those are satisfaction and pleasure.

." No, caring for someone because you care and love them is good. And you want the best for that person because you love them. And why do you want it? because that person is important to you, that is, it is something selfish, and I don't think that is bad.

Happiness is having a purpose. it's stopping to want things because that leads to disappointment. Appreciation of what you have.

For me these two things would be my definition of happiness as well. With all of my problems I feel very selfish and it makes it very hard for me to focus on others and put them before myself. This eats at me and is one of the things I hate about myself. I truly believe when we put others before our selves and help others that that is true peace happiness and love. But on the flip side, we also need to be our whole selves in order to truly and fully help others. As with anything it's a balance of taking care of ourselves so we have it to give back to others. So much of my energy is spent on surviving that I rarely find myself with extra to give.