Happiness

[bini_bini]

I've been thinking a bit about contentment, happiness and achieving some sort of life balance recently and as I have just had a day today, that for the moment defines contentment in my life, I thought I'd have a go at looking at happiness in broader terms.

My day.....

Technically began at 1.30am when a rather drunk friend text to encourage me to

Comments

[geraden]

great too hear you're buzzing and having a great weekend, life is truly nothing more than a solid wall,so slide down,sit back, relax while watching the poor sods wizz overhead persistantly bouncing off the wall and then coming back to do it again, during which all of us post-wall-smack-goopy-bits discuss whats really behind the wall and if its really worth all that mucking about to get there, and pointing out that there's a drain nearby that might lead under it,,,but then again maybe it doesn't...but hey you gotta hand it too that dude...he's been at the wall for some 80yrs and he's made a huge significantly total lack of difference to the wall...

[bini_bini]

And post-modernists discuss whether or not there is a wall. Perhaps the wall is irrelevant, perhaps we construct the wall by creating imaginary blocks to our life path. The wall is dead I say!!! Ok I'm a bit mad. I watched 20 minutes of Miss Universe tonight and its done my head in....all those beautiful bodies and profound answers have baffled me!!

[geraden]

hehehhe...I love watching those thing, I sit and tell myself in another 60 years they'll be really yuck looking (if you've ever been in a change room with naked old people you know what Im saying!) or dead! its such a pointless waste of time beauty pagents...

As for the wall...its there, Pink said so ;o) but I think its all rather irrelevant as there seems to be no harm done by sliding down and refusing to try and pass through it or knock it down...no-one ever has have they?

[bini_bini]

I secretly love watching them too but I bring my damn political/principled systems to the viewing so I find myslef barracking for the black girls from Africa who are utterly gorgeous, age well and never win. then I feel pissed off until I find out that winning would mean 12 months at Donald Trump's beck and call and then I feel better.

I seem to remember some teen fiction that involved passing through walls and Patrick Swayze definitely did in Ghost...mind you the whole scene involving him, Demi, Whoopi and a penny was a bit bizaare!!

[hatter_anon]

I agree whole-heartedly. It's the lows that let you know you're alive and help you appreciate the highs all the more. Not that I'd want to go there all the time!

Just back from one of your old haunts bini_bini and having a day off to do pretty much what you described above :)

[bushwalker]

The Epicureans had it right I think - simple pleasures in moderation shared with friends and family. But as for the bigger picture of meaning and purpose... that's more than just another blog post. Feeling alive - that's why I like going to the gym or to the beach!

[bini_bini]

Or even just gorging oneslf on absolute decadence from time to time and then being absolutely puritanical for 24 hours...no caffeine and a lot of running!

[bushwalker]

Well it's what you do 90% of the time that makes the difference so an occasional gorge is certainly part of the moderate plan. The Epicureans placed a big emphasis on friendship and I think you eat more with friends at dinner parties. That's OK though cos I like going to the gym! I consider it part of my gorge!

[flemmarde]

what a nice, cruisy post. i had a serious desire to go join you for that good coffee and portugese tarts!

i find the suggestion that 2/3 of the world's population are just concerned with survival and not happiness is a bit partonising. its like regarding all of "them" as the poor unfortunate seething masses with little dignity and self determination of their own. what makes us happy and how much we think we deserve and what priority we give achieving our own ideal of happiness is likely to be very different, but i would have thought that it was still a fundamental human drive to achieve some form of contentment, satisfaction, achievement, growth, enlightenment or what ever it is that happiness seems to us.

[hatter_anon]

Yes! I think Dr Sarah Edelman was just trying to sound profound and failed dismally.

[flemmarde]

but i love the way we all had to know that she's a doctor. she *must* be brainy despite her grand patronising sweeping generalisations :)

[bini_bini]

Exactly! the thing about the article that really pissed me off was the suggestion that the developing world are either miserable in their struggle for survival or so sublimely ingorant that happiness is a form of gross naivety. One could just as easily suggest that capitalist cash hogs spend all their time chasing profit and have no time for happiness - possibly true but still not a fair statement. Porr people can multi-task too you know you ivory tower academes!!

[bushwalker]

I saw a program about happiness where they chose a range of people across countries and financial circumstance, etc. and asked them to rate their mood on a scale of 1-10 at random times through the day. They talked about people having a biological baseline of happiness and even street people in Calcutta experienced happiness. For those people while life was a struggle, they found meaning in their relationships, relgion, etc.. I agree that that Sarah Edelman was arrogant and read the aforementioned article just then and was little inspired by it really. I think I'll blog about it!

[geraden]

Jus for once I'd love to hear someone complaining about being too happy with their lot in life!

PS: Im not known to dish out very deep inspired comments. Im doing well just with enter keys and spacebars :o)

[bushwalker]

No one's going to bitch about being too happy! You'll just get the Monty Python scenario of the rich farts complaining (competitively) about how poor they were when they were kids, or the one where someone complains about poverty, death, etc. and the the other one complains about breaking her finger nail. I suppose you can tell by the triviality of the complaint how good a person's life is.

[geraden]

hmmm,,,maybe that explains my Monty Python fetish...its about the only reality I can relate to these days...hehehehhe