Matthew Ruiz2 said:So, what does happiness actually mean to you? And what about misery? Is misery simply the direct inverse of happiness, or is there a more complex relationship at play? Furthermore, what provides lasting fulfillment rather than just a fleeting moment?
Is happiness merely an abstract concept, a transient feeling, or perhaps a profound experience? Have you ever truly felt it? If so, how did it manifest—in whom, through what, and with what level of intensity?
If someone claims to be satisfied or fulfilled, does that necessarily imply they are happy? Can satisfaction even be equated with happiness? How much of a distinction do you draw between these two states?
It may be one of those eternal philosophical or sociological debates, but I expect nothing less than your most honest answers.
Look, "happiness" is just this concept where we attach a bunch of specific attributes to it—though honestly, you could do that with pretty much any word, but let's just use happiness as the go-to example here.
- For instance -
The concept: flowers
Attributes: they smell nice, they're white, red with green stems, purple with little red spots, whatever.
Do a little experiment yourself—just play around with some associations and you'll start to see how the gears turn in your head.
Moving on, happiness or misery isn't some external thing hitting you; it lives right inside the person, and you’re the one pulling the lever to activate or deactivate those feelings.
Because when someone asks you, "How are you feeling?"
The answer isn't going to be:
-I received happiness or I gave away happiness, basically I got happiness or I lost it.
The answer is always going to be:
-I am happy or I am miserable.
Which means the individual is the one driving themselves into that state.
And since states can change, you really just need to swap one feeling for another. To do that efficiently, you need introspection and practice—and let's be real, you need actual knowledge if you want to master introspection.
That’s why, when someone says (I think I saw it in some random thread once) "I'm fighting depression," it's actually kind of absurd because the whole idea of a "fight" is pointless. There are no winners or losers here because fighting is the wrong approach entirely. You don't fight it; you replace it.
Quincy:
| If someone tells us they feel satisfied or fulfilled, does that automatically mean they're happy? |
I'd probably say they might be lying, or at least not telling the whole truth, because they could be perfectly satisfied or fulfilled in this exact moment without it being a constant state.
Example:
When someone says they had a bad day, it doesn't mean their entire existence was terrible that day; it just means they're summarizing the whole day by highlighting the one part that sucked.
p.s.
This is just a condensed version of my train of thought; I skipped over a lot of the deeper explanations to keep it brief...
Later, 🙂
