Do you think happiness is possible?

[David Nelson]

This might sound a vague title, but please bear with me. What I am thinking is do people believe it is a goal which is realistic and achievable, or ‘only’ an ideal to be aimed at?

It seems with the decline of religious beliefs in the west, that nothing has arisen to satisfy the urges for meaning in life. I think we need something to replace them, but is the current general belief only that life is essentially pointless and that we just aim to maximise our secular and relative happiness? If this is true, is happiness just relative? I’ll put aside my own beliefs for now, as I’m interested in what others think about this.

 

[Wyote]

A lot of things about (un)happiness are just the culmination of choices.
But of course there are also those who are biologically wired more in one direction or the other.
Plus trauma creates complicated webs to untangle some of those mechanisms.

Meaning and purpose don't have to be tied to traditional religious or spiritual ideologies, such things change over time anyway.
Each individual is capable of having some kind of framework that aims in some sort of direction.
Having spiritual experiences, touching something beyond ourselves, communing with a higher source etc. are things humans will always experience and relate to.
Walking the path while teaching it is the essence of life.

 

[aeon]

What I am thinking is do people believe it is a goal which is realistic and achievable, or ‘only’ an ideal to be aimed at?

Neither those things. Happiness exists, and all that is required is your willingness and remaining open to the experience of it.

Simple to say, not so simple to do.

Pay attention to what you focus on and invite into your thoughts. Those things have direct influence on your willingness and your openness.

It seems with the decline of religious beliefs in the west, that nothing has arisen to satisfy the urges for meaning in life.

Ironically, thank God!

No one can decide for you or tell you the meaning of your life, the meaning of the people and things in it, or the meaning of the experiences you have.

They’ll try! And they’ll be wrong, and demonstrate their ignorance of, and/or nonrecognition of boundaries.

You ascribe meaning, and so assign value, to your life, the people and things in it, and the experiences you have. No one else can, and the responsibility is entirely your own.

I think we need something to replace them, but is the current general belief only that life is essentially pointless and that we just aim to maximise our secular and relative happiness?

I don’t know what the current general belief is, or if a current general belief actually exists, despite the tedium of having would-be common sense prostituted ad infinitum.

Life is what you make it. You decide. You have the autonomy, agency, and wisdom to do so.

If this is true, is happiness just relative?

Regardless of its veracity, or lack thereof, happiness simply is. It is experiential and ineffable, and altogether beyond collective (de)valuation.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[David Nelson]

I think my opening post was too vague. I didn’t nail the issue I was trying to address.

I think what I mean is, is happiness really possible in the absense of a fully satisfactory framework which addresses the intellectual and emotional desire of INFJs to be real in the experience. Sure, we all experience happiness as we all experience unhappiness at times. So what I mean is, will there always be unfulfilled needs in our psyche? If we ‘need’ to experience the top of Maslows hierarchy, can that really be met with a secular view based on evolution and science only? Do we have to believe in an illusion? I might as well as is love real? Lol or is it enough just to experience it based on believing it? What IS real? I guess you could ask.

 

[aeon]

I think what I mean is, is happiness really possible in the absense of a fully satisfactory framework which addresses the intellectual and emotional desire of INFJs to be real in the experience.

That depends on each INFJs operating definition of “a fully satisfactory framework.”

I don’t type as INFJ, but I’ve known—in person no less—enough who do to know INFJs are not a monolith. Which is to say, your statement might get consensus agreement in general, but not a consensus definition of terms and parameters. And perhaps not from the same person at different stages of their life.

So what I mean is, will there always be unfulfilled needs in our psyche?

Needs? No, not necessarily, even though part of what it is to be human is the experience of unmet need.

Desires? Almost certainly, but again, not by default.

If we ‘need’ to experience the top of Maslows hierarchy, can that really be met with a secular view based on evolution and science only?

I suppose that’s down to each and every, but I think, believe, and know (through witness of another) it is not just possible, but a real thing made manifest in the world.

What IS real?

That’s way beyond my pay grade and ability to ascertain or know with any reasonable degree of certainty, excepting one thing.

I know I love my girlfriend, and I know she loves me. In this, I reserve no room for doubt. It is the only certainty I have ever known.

For what it’s worth, everything else is ambiguous, to varying degrees. Knowing her makes navigating that endless sea of unsurety such that land is always visible.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[David Nelson]

I have read a few self improvement books and videos and books on happiness, and thought deeply on the subject. There are clearly many strategies to improve life satisfaction. And a certain amount of challenges enter every life to potentially affect life satisfaction.

I don’t think happiness arrives through a purely intellectual contemplation or set of rigid beliefs. This is kind of how I framed my original post. I think it is largely about personal desires being met or not. These desires are more than just having a compatible close partner. I think we need a sense of real purpose, and this differs person to person.

I think what I was thinking originally here was is it possible for most or all people to be happy in a secular state. I am not religious and see major flaws in religions. I’ve read a lot about this. But what you cannot take from religious desire is the need to have profound meaning to life (along with a morality). Now religions give a largely fictional meaning and artificial morality. If this is replaced by Darwinist evolution etc., there is a danger that we see life as pure competition between individuals. This is cold. I think the answer is love, but we are still in a biological, competitive world. This is challenge and potential problems for which there are no answers.

Intelligent people who are cognisant of this can probably still find meaning in it but I wonder if lesser souls have enough. Outside of laws, morality now is largely a choice. You can ignore people if you like, be ruthless in business or you can help others. I guess there has always been a mix but I do wonder if our age of greater awareness and dismissal of old, flawed institutions is creating a problem which is unresolvable. I do think inequality is the major issue causing the most misery in societies, but that can be addressed. The issue of absolute meaning and worldview is more difficult. The way things have gone seem much more subjective these days, but that’s dangerous as it means greater divisions among people and less sense of community.

I hope this clarifies things a bit more. Classic INFJ struggling to explain an idea in their head this one lol

 

[aeon]

There are clearly many strategies to improve life satisfaction. And a certain amount of challenges enter every life to potentially affect life satisfaction.

And yet, satisfaction ≠ happiness.

I think it is largely about personal desires being met or not.

I think it is largely about personal desires being relinquished and let go of.

I think what I was thinking originally here was is it possible for most or all people to be happy in a secular state.

I can imagine it, but that’s down to my idealism and other aspects of my personality. I assume you mean secular as a state of being, and not the secular separation of religion and the state.

It’ll never happen. Human beings love hierarchy, magical thinking, tribalism, logical fallacies that provide comfort, and let’s be honest, reason is neither sexy nor universal in a species with a median IQ of 100. Remember, that means half of humanity is below that level of cognitive ability and function.

But what you cannot take from religious desire is the need to have profound meaning to life (along with a morality). Now religions give a largely fictional meaning and artificial morality.

Always did. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t effective, often by means of fear or outright slaughter.

If this is replaced by Darwinist evolution etc., there is a danger that we see life as pure competition between individuals.

It is that, and always has been—for every creature on Earth. But it isn’t that alone—there’s so much more to the human experience of being alive. There are many truths, some less appealing than others, that are not mutually exclusive.

Of course, each and every chooses what to focus on and believe, according to their socialization and needs.

Outside of laws, morality now is largely a choice.

Always has been, but in the past the punitive response to minor transgressions could cost you your life.

I think the fact that morality is a choice is exactly what gives it meaning, and value. A Clockwork Orange comes to mind.

I do think inequality is the major issue causing the most misery in societies, but that can be addressed.

And if someone thinks they can find meaning and purpose in being a wage slave, a meaning that nourishes and ennobles, it speaks to a poverty of the soul that is not so easily addressed.

The issue of absolute meaning and worldview is more difficult.

Yes, but if that is the cost of liberty, I think it is one well worth paying.

The way things have gone seem much more subjective these days, but that’s dangerous as it means greater divisions among people and less sense of community.

It’s always been that way, but in the past the reins were tighter, people were captive and spoon-fed, and most had no avenue to be heard regarding dissenting opinion.

Now everyone has an anonymizing megaphone, so a certain rancor and cacophony is the order of the day.

Don’t worry, humans will find their way after everything else has failed, and they are forced to by the hand of chance. Yes, it will necessarily be an ugly affair, and there will be much lamentation, but finding the way is what we do. Many will be crushed underfoot, but those who survive will write the history, create the myths, implement the laws, and if need be, invent a new god or gods and morality that best serves the desires and limitless avarice of the few who seek to exploit and control the many.

Cheers,
Ian

 

[John K]

@David Nelson, for me as an individual the pursuit of happiness, in itself, is not a helpful end-point ideal - it's something that always has an element of serendipity to it, and is more a possible by-product rather than an ulitmate goal. Life is not a happy affair for many of us because of the circumstances we find ourselves in, but that doesn't mean life is a write-off for those of us it eludes ... in fact far from it for many. I think the great hero myths express this so very well, and far better than I can:



Who dares to say that Frodo failed in life despite the fact he couldn't save The Shire for himself as well as others and live happily there ever after? Of course these great myths shout the alternative from the mountain tops - in our own lives the same situations are usually much more prosaic, but they are the same. For example, those people who sacrifice years of their lives taking care of a vulnerable and ailing member of their family - there is little happiness in this all too often, but yet there is great goodness and fulfilment in it. An even deeper mystery is that only through suffering are some of the greatest insights and fulfilment made available to us.



I cannot speak for other types, but I feel that for us INFJs, our fulfilment is always ulitmately going to lie in an inner journey, even when some of it seems to lie in the external world. We are very close to the void that lies within all humans and draws us on beyond the purely physical - some of us are very aware of it and have set off down the long road of exploring it. My own fulfilment lies in that direction and has since I was a small child. I think fulfilment rather than happiness is a far better expression of what I seek and it's a never ending journey that lasts a lifetime (maybe even more!). What do I mean by fulfilment? - in a sense it's about finding out who and what I truly am, knowing it's far more than what I think of as 'I', and that my I-ness in a way is a stumbling block and an illusion.

Something I feel very strongly about is that INFJ types injure themselves by rushing to judgement, and by taking the conventional thinking of the external world too much at face value. Our great gift is perception, but it cannot work if we pre-empt what we see in our intuition by deciding what is there before we have seen it for ourselves. For me, relying on others' judgement on these things is anathema - I want to see it all for myself, uncluttered by what the conventions are, and by what 'everyone knows to be true or false'. I'll make my own judgements based on what I've seen for myself, as far as I can. That doesn't mean I reject what others have seen and told - far from it. But I treat this like places of interest on a map, or in a guide book - and when I get there on my intuition journeys, they may (and often do) look very different to what I was told.

I have found that a lot of the best tourist guides do in fact come from the world's great religions, as well as from science and from the objective shape and social wisdom of our modern societies. There is both deep truth and otherwise in all of these, blended together into a tangle. Some of the great spiritual truths are gems beyond compare and I have only been able to find them in the heart of the great religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, but these truths are there to be experienced, not simply believed in blindly - and I have found that they really can be experienced.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

No one can decide for you or tell you the meaning of your life, the meaning of the people and things in it, or the meaning of the experiences you have.

They’ll try! And they’ll be wrong, and demonstrate their ignorance of, and/or nonrecognition of boundaries.

You ascribe meaning, and so assign value, to your life, the people and things in it, and the experiences you have. No one else can, and the responsibility is entirely your own.

I mostly agree with everything you said, but I'll have to nitpick here and say that this isn't quite so, at the risk of these not being your implications.

You correctly identify the unique essence of each individual which is inviolable (and ironically, many attempts to violate it are done by the individual themself), but this might be a case of "too much of a good thing". Ascription hints at a conscious decision process, similar to when nihilists speak about "creating" your own meaning. But just like you can't decide to believe something on no basis, you can't arbitrarily choose what something means. There's always a pull in one direction or another, owing to that essence (we can consider this from the Jungian perspective of specific cognitive make-ups) but also to the context you find yourself in. This tells me that despite your autonomy, meaning is discovered as a gestalt that is beyond personal agency even as it is tied to it. Even if the 1:1 ratio of meaning between a specific subject and specific object can only be defined by the subject, there's a more universal fundamental from which it arises.

This is important in the context of religion, because society kinda threw the baby out with the bathwater in the attempt to secularize. Beside what any given denomination claims, the ancient holy texts are a great source of timeless wisdom that can't be simply dismissed with appeals to autonomy of personal valuations. For example, I don't think anyone who is systematically cynical, righteously uncharitable or emotionally shut off from the world could ever be described as happy, even if they find this attitude meaningful or correct. There can be a lot of reactive self-sabotage where the application of universal principles does more healing than oppression.

 

[zsedftghj830]

Aim for being content and you’ll find happiness more often

 

[mintoots]

I don't know. I think we all just need some weed.

 

[Wyote]

I don't know. I think we all just need some weed.

 

[mintoots]

 

[Wyote]

View attachment 87502

Ah yes, when the hahas turn red the fun begins

 

[aeon]

@Sidis Coruscatis

Your post is beautiful, and acknowledges something I did not, although I understand it to be true.

That every-“thing” exists only in context with every-other “thing”—ad infinitum, because of a more universal fundamental from which they arise.

One’s ability to assign meaning to things is wholly dependent (ironic, no?) on a particular state of conscious awareness that is but one among many. If one understands and is aware that each and every only exists in context with every other, interdependent without exclusion—such that each and every exist as holons, simultaneously whole in and of themselves at the same time they exist as integral parts of a wider, contextual whole—the idea of an independent self in possession of agency and autonomy is just that, an idea. No one is independent, so no one is in possession of the ability to arbitrarily define the meaning, value, and relationship of this versus that which is in any way absolute in its assigned subjective truth.

I fully agree that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater in the move to a secular life if part of that move is to be so very certain that god is irrelevant, dead, or never existed—because this kind of rigid, purposefully-narrow thinking dismisses anything believed to be incongruous with the hard-won “progress.”

The perennial wisdom traditions from all around the globe have much to offer us that would serve us well, regardless of one’s thoughts on god, or lack thereof. I think this collective body of knowledge is dismissed or ignored at our peril.

My secular humanism is one that allows for ambiguity and incongruity—because my agnosticism speaks to my inability to know for certain—so all is worth consideration. But I don’t tend to publicly speak to that, and so I often champion the rational and reasonable, at least as it applies to one’s well-being and struggle for a life well-lived.

But if that comes at the expense of a mystery I would otherwise freely acknowledge, the subtle made simple becomes a misdirection, regardless of my intention. And of all places, these forums are likely the place where I have no need to do such things.

Again, thanks for the post.

Best to You,
Ian

 

[BritNi]

Happiness IS possible.
You're in control. It's all a state of mind and how you perceive pretty much everything.

Choose happiness.
It's not just a saying.
~With love.

 

[mintoots]

Ah yes, when the hahas turn red the fun begins

Note: red and squiggly.

Spoiler: insert video

Because it's not on youtube, I have to leave code. Netflix. Love. Season 2. Episode 4. The entire episode.

 

[Wyote]

Note: red and squiggly.

Spoiler

 

[mintoots]

Spoiler

A happy mistake.

 

[April]

Sure.

Probably chemical. Situational. Coincidental. Circumstantial.

But still possible.

Not for everyone. Some are just too negative and hateful and won't be.