Happiness
Caution: Random thoughts
"I just want to be happy."
That's what the people demand; in different forms: Desire Happiness, Security happiness, Achievement happiness, even After life happiness.
Couldn't they notice that happiness is extremely temporary. Think about a moment when you were really happy, think about how much that ecstasy lasted. Happiness is just an event, not a continuous state. That form of chemical reactions that flow all through your brain's neurons. It is some kind of reward like that piece of cheese given to a rat lap for finding the way out of the maze.
Unfortunately, that rewarded rat has yet to go into other experimental maze that may or may not succeed in getting another piece of cheese.
Sometimes, we want the reward more than the achievement; because that was how we poorly designed. We will think more than once before refusing to get the leaked final answers for tomorrow's important exams. Because we care about getting a grade in the exam more than being capable in what the exam measures. Deep inside, it wouldn't really matter to achieve through cheating or being lucky, but it does matter to achieve. Think about how many times you filled the remaining of multiple choice questions with random answers.
And you know that you will get happiness for a moment and unhappiness for the rest, but still our curiosity would push us insisting to experiment the futuristic possible happiness. May be I will be happy again in the future, let's stick around and see.
And if we don't find happiness, something is definitely wrong, we will start asking about 'the purpose'. As if, our life was meant to be provided with happiness. And if happiness is not there, so what else is the purpose of life then. If there is no happiness, then finding a life-purpose does make happiness.
If someone claimed that he can make certain moments in your already-done past become happier, would you pay attention to them? Past happiness, does it really matter? All we care about is the current or the future happiness, because those are the ones we are still going to experience, that would make us happy -again.
Are you willing to sacrifice any of your controllable belongings to gain a happy state while you are not aware of it? Does it really count if you got happiness but then you forgot that? Would it be of any value?
So in a sense, the only happiness that really counts is the one that is in the future, the one that is not sure to happen.
What about future happiness? If you know that something good is going to happen in the future, you will get happy for it now more than in the future. May be by the time it happens you will get used to the idea, that it will become a given more than an expectation.
What about sadness? Is it the opposite for happiness? Feeling bad instead of good, empty instead of fulfilled, lost instead of secure, failing instead of achieving?
Sadness, that so called awful feeling, that dissolve your inner comfort, that psychological pain, trying to give a something-is-wrong signal. One of the aspects of the design, to direct your actions towards certain choices.
How do you think people will react towards the sadness feeling if they realize it is just some chemical and signals pouring down your brain connectors. Would those people conclude how ridiculous they are acting towards such a silly reaction. Can they overcome the fact that they were designed to react sadly towards certain events? Can they divert from this pre-drawn purpose by not following this emotion?
Apparently no.
What happens when someone is happy about something but sad about the other? Do they neutralize each other? Do one of them takes over? May be some evaluation about how important and valuable each is?
Do you think there is some kind of happiness that should be labeled 'fake'? What is a fake happiness?? Isn't every happiness is a fake one? Is it happiness for invaluable or temporary achievements? But it triggers the same set of fuses in the mind. why shouldn't it be the same? Unless, when happiness is not about that good feeling only, but about gaining the right for it. Moreover, the right shouldn't be admitted with an easy-to-get or an unrighteous action. Otherwise it will be unreal, fake.
That's how the experiment goes. That's how the design was. Are we to follow? Why and why not?