Happiness

[Nearly Sane]

And again WA ' Is sex dirty? Yes, if you're doing it right'

[Shaker]

Wiggs,

And this one: sex between two people is a wonderful thing...

...provided you get between the right two people ; - )

During World War I Lytton Strachey was up before the board, claiming conscientious objector status. He was asked the usual questions about his opposition to war, etc., including all manner of hypothetical scenarios. One member of the panel said: "Suppose you saw a young girl about to be ravished by a filthy Hun soldier - what would you do?"

"Oh," said Strachey in his inimitably arch, fey manner, "I should try to come between them."

[Sebastian Toe]

And again WA ' Is sex dirty? Yes, if you're doing it right'

Shhhh, don't let Spud hear you!

[Udayana]

http://www.humancondition.com/

I've been dipping into the book, "Freedom" - a free download from the website. It seems to be being quite heavily promoted recently.

Jeremy Griffith's basic contention is that our "human condition", happiness/unhappiness or morality/behaviour comes down to conflicts between our instincts and the conscious parts of our minds. - not really that new an idea as it can be seen in various religions and philosophy or psychology.

Anyone come across this before? I haven't got far enough into it to get to how exactly he wants to "transform the world" other than by just studying "the human condition" or come to my own conclusion.

[Shaker]

Sure - it's absolute rock-bottom Freud, for instance - Civilization and Its Discontents is the go-to work here but it's a thread that runs pretty much all the way through his work. We're permanently forked creatures because we're animals with instincts, drives and desires that demand to be satisfied, yet we've constructed groups - societies - and moral codes in those groups that say some shouldn't be satisfied at all or if so, only within a very narrow band of a few certain approved ways. Hence neurosis, or as everybody else calls it, humanity. Rock and a hard place, constantly.

[Bubbles]

What is happiness, exactly?

Contentment, no suffering, optimism.

Some people are afraid of it, because they think if they sit back and enjoy it, something dire will come along.
You know, " everything is fine ATM, touch wood! "
A superstitious reaction to Sod's law.

Happiness is feeling all is well in your world.

[Rhiannon]

But 'all life is suffering'. If I have to not suffer in order to be happy then I might as well give up now.

And Victor Frankl noted in his book Man's Search for Meani g that the optimists suffered and very often gave up and died almost as quickly as the defeatists did in the concentration camp where he was incarcerated. He found it was possible to be 'happy' (if that is the word) by looking for the meaning in the moment.

So maybe that is what happiness is - living a life where every day has meaning.

[torridon]

http://www.humancondition.com/

I've been dipping into the book, "Freedom" - a free download from the website. It seems to be being quite heavily promoted recently.

Jeremy Griffith's basic contention is that our "human condition", happiness/unhappiness or morality/behaviour comes down to conflicts between our instincts and the conscious parts of our minds. - not really that new an idea as it can be seen in various religions and philosophy or psychology.

Anyone come across this before? I haven't got far enough into it to get to how exactly he wants to "transform the world" other than by just studying "the human condition" or come to my own conclusion.

Come back and let us know how you get on with this.

I'd imagine Griffith has many useful insights but I am suspicious of people with grand narratives and single ideas that attract believers and form movements, it all sounds a bit New Agey to me.  For instance, this from his World Transformation Movement website :

explanation of the human condition has brought the long dreamed of dawn of understanding for humankind, so you simply have to join the sunshine army on the sunshine highway to the world in sunshine!

[torridon]

Does anyone here do Vipisanna ?

[Shaker]

Does anyone here do Vipisanna ?

Not so much that - I've always concentrated on samatha meditation.

[Rhiannon]

Does anyone here do Vipisanna ?

I've read a lot on it but personally I didn't feel comfortable doing it without having a teacher present. Probably just as well as I have had a couple of panic attacks in the past while meditating.

[Jack Knave]

Like God, happiness can't be defined so it is a stupid place to start. It means different things to different people.

[Jack Knave]

Lots of sex.   Well, with somebody nice.

Nah! It's too short lived.... ......what I mean is that it can't fill in the whole of a day or week.......you know 24hrs and all that......

[Jack Knave]

Shaker, he say: pleasure is to happiness as weather is to climate.

In other words, weather is what's happening now when you look out of the kitchen window - a temporary, transient state, i.e. a good lunch, a bottle of wine, a new car bring pleasure rather than happiness. Happiness, like climate, implies a more settled, long-term state.

Pleasure is emotional weather; happiness, climate.

Inner peace and quietness.

[Rhiannon]

Like God, happiness can't be defined so it is a stupid place to start. It means different things to different people.

But it's the fact it means different things that makes it a good topic for discussion.

[ekim]

But it's the fact it means different things that makes it a good topic for discussion.

I tend to distinguish 'happiness' from 'joy'.  Happiness depends upon the external to stimulate a sense of wellbeing whereas joy arises from within with more spontaneity and is exported outwards into the world.

[Rhiannon]

That interesting. I think of 'joy' as being akin to feyness - it feels delusional in s way - but I wonder if that's because I'm irritated by a particular kind of religious connotation that the word has.

Increasingly I think happiness means 'not sad'. But then I find I can have extremely sad stuff and very happy stuff going on at the same time.

[Shaker]

One way of defining happiness would be to invoke Abraham Maslow's famous hierarchy of needs* and to say that happiness consists of the greatest number of those needs being satisfied or fulfilled - an ascent up the pyramid, so to speak.

* https://goo.gl/fLBPsR

[Bramble]

I remember when happiness was a cigar called Hamlet. Those were the days.

[Shaker]

... whereas some of us know that in actual fact happiness is a cigar called a Hoyo de Monterey Double Corona. Or a Romeo y Julieta Churchill at any rate.

[Bramble]

'Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.' (George Burns)

There's a bad woman living not a mile from here who, rumour has it, will tie you up and punish you all night for £300.

[ekim]

That interesting. I think of 'joy' as being akin to feyness - it feels delusional in s way - but I wonder if that's because I'm irritated by a particular kind of religious connotation that the word has.

Increasingly I think happiness means 'not sad'. But then I find I can have extremely sad stuff and very happy stuff going on at the same time.

It seems the opposite to me rather than being vague and delusional.  It is enlivening, exuberant, fulfilling without it being at the mercy of changeable external sources.  I agree that the word 'joy' can have all sorts of connotations and doesn't do the experience justice, just like its religious synonyms - bliss, blessed, ananda.

[Rhiannon]

'Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.' (George Burns)

There's a bad woman living not a mile from here who, rumour has it, will tie you up and punish you all night for £300.

For £300 she's probably quite good at it actually.

[Rhiannon]

It seems the opposite to me rather than being vague and delusional.  It is enlivening, exuberant, fulfilling without it being at the mercy of changeable external sources.  I agree that the word 'joy' can have all sorts of connotations and doesn't do the experience justice, just like its religious synonyms - bliss, blessed, ananda.

It might just be me but blessed and bliss have different connotations now.

[ekim]

It might just be me but blessed and bliss have different connotations now.

No, quite the reverse I suspect.  I'm more likely to be the odd one out.