First of all, I want this thread to be free of religion, politics and flaming. So if your opinions and views on the subject are rooted in religion or politics; Don't post, just keep it to yourself.




What is happiness and how can we achieve it? I'm a big fan of Epicurus and his philosophy. He teaches us that in order to achieve a state of well-being and tranquility, you need not to satisfy his every need, but to separate our true needs from the ones created by our way of living and the society around us; to live a modest life and treasure the things you have; to rid yourself of fear and anxiety.

our true needs are only the basic ones, the need to eat, sleep, have a roof over your head and to have friends. Friendship is one of the most important things in our life. Epicurus even argues that it's matters more whom we eat our food with, than what we eat. We live in a world where riches and comfort have become one of the values of life.

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."

You can achieve happiness by understanding these needs, and by accepting them. "If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires."

Sounds simple enough. Why is it so hard for us to think like this? because we are constantly being told what we need by the media. Everyone is trying to create false needs, this is, for example, what makes Apple a successful company; they managed to make people believe that they need to own an iPod, they created a false need for us. This applies to almost everything we see around us.

Is it even possible in our market-controlled world to be happy? It would seem not since it's impossible to satisfy our desires. I say 'our' desires here, but I'm not sure any of the desires we feel are truly ours.

Anxiety, stress and fear are persistent themes in our day-to-day life. We are stressed out about work, our financial situation, the paper we need to write for school. We are anxious about the expectations society has for us; What will happen to us if we can't finish school? What happens if we can't follow the path which has been laid out for us? Fear is there too, fear of disappointment, fear of humiliation, fear of rejection, fear of death. Is it truly possible to remove these things from our minds, to cancel out fear and anxiety? Or is it an unachievable fantasy?

Most fears are irrational. The most irrational one being the fear of death.

"Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist."

Why do we fear that which does not exist? Why do we fear the unknown? Maybe what we really fear is the thought of leaving this physical world without doing our part in this world. The meaning of life. Our mission, our quest, our purpose in life. I would like to believe that there is no inherit meaning to life. I kinda like the nihilistic approach to this issue. There is no meaning so we shouldn't be concerned with it. This all ties in with happiness too, for it is impossible to achieve tranquility and a state of well-being if we feel like we have a purpose in life.

This is a heavy subject and I don't have enough time to finish my thoughts. The bottom line is that I believe absolute happiness is almost impossible to achieve due to the world and society we have created. It is however very possible to be happier in life by focusing out the false needs, fears and troubles. We may not be able to completely disconnect ourselves from the problems of the world, but we can try, and we can only benefit from it. Don't spend your time worrying about things. Don't fear death or rejection. Don't drown yourself in materialistic needs. Try to appreciate the little things, strengthen bond between you and your friends and remember that your worst enemy is the extreme, moderation is your friend.

That's it for now. What are your thoughts on this? Is it possible to be happy? Does life have a meaning, and if it does: should we be concerned? What are the pitfalls we should avoid in life?

All views and opinions are welcome (except the religious ones). Your can post your own thoughts, or quote the thousands of philosophers who have tried to conquer this subject.

We have created a society which offers us more choice than we have ever had at any time in the past. And despite what people may think, more choice leads to less satisfaction. Studies have shown that people who have chosen something from a small range of options are happier with their choice than those who were given a much wider range of options. It's the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More_Is_Less.

I think to strive for happiness is the wrong thing to do. It's very difficult to define precisely what would make us 'happy'. Instead I think it's better to aim for contentment. To be content with what one has; that to me would be the ultimate aim in life.

I've been trying to put into words my philosophy, but I can't get very far, I've rewritten it about 4 times, so I'm going to make it short.

Be accepting. Consider that what you feel about your enemy, he also feels about you, and you can't both be right.
Pass it forward, man. Be nice to other people, and don't expect anything back. Yeah, there are bad people out there, but that doesn't mean that you should be to.
Hard work is good for the soul. Now, I don't believe in the soul, nor am I a Buddhist, but damn, this Buddhist teaching is right on the money.
Don't be a doucheag. Pretty self explanatory.
Read a [censored] book. And not the kind that just restates what you already believe, even if it doesn't convince you, it's bound to be interesting.


And finally the things that make me happy: my bass, my family, my computer, and walking through the woods listening to birds

That problem lies not with the choice, but with the one who chooses.

If someone lacks the ability to anolyse their options and select the best one, they should rectify that, not ask for fewer options (I admit, though, that they may not even realise the fault exists). If they don't have the confidence to accept that their choice may be wrong, again the fault lies within them.


I believe it is important to be concious of one's self, and therefore one's needs and flaws. Discerning the former is the first step in seeking happiness, and recognising the latter can guide the former. 'Course, its a constant process, since neither the world nor the individual are static.

I'll probably post more in the morning.

I know I have an irrational fear of ghosts. Not the cartoon ones like casper or something "cute" like that, I'm just horrified by decomposed, scary looking ghosts (the ones in LoTR are a perfect example) I dont know why I've always been so afraid of them, fear of the unknown is a big issue for me because I like to know what I'm getting into or what is going on around me. So even if it isnt ghosts, todays society has created a massive "uncaring about the unknown" that I think needs to be explored better, and I'm not talking about million dollar NASA missions.

My personal philosopical answer to the meaning of life: Life itself. As a species, our goal is to maintain our own species in this world. Other species do the same. Battle and Coop. is a natural way of life. Instinct of survival has one goal: to stay alive, therefore being able to reproduce. If you already have kids, your instinct will protect them first, and if you can't, you will save yourself. Now, that cold anolysis doesn't absolve us from responsibility. Why polute, destroy or otherwise mutilate the world if our descendants won't be able to live in there? This is a very long term vision, which is lacking nowadays I fear. But the world will still turn when humans are gone. A song said: "We are the conscious memory of 5 billion years". Maybe we're worth staying a while.

And remember, "this answer is 42". Also, "if you receive an answer, the question might be taken away" (from the same Guide).

I'm not sure what you're talking about, but science is modern society's way of caring and finding out about the unknown and by "caring and finding out" I really don't mean "ignoring" because true scientists like unknown things because they mean finding out new things.

Meaning of life? There probably aren't one that transcends each person and applies to all, that seems highly unlikely. Rather, I'd say that there is possible to give a meaning through your own life, to be able to inspire others by your acts and give a meaning to live for.

I think true happyness is achieved when you can go to the shop and buy yourself something good to eat, not only so much and the kind of stuff you'd need to survive, but say a chocolate bar for example, the small things in life brings real happiness. But the meaning of life is pessimistically to die, but truth be told, there is not really any meaning in it.

So mariedanj, your saying that when our sun eventually runs of of power we as a species would naturally have to seek other planets to live on to continue the meaning of life? Makes sense, but life cannot be dependent on something like space ships and space travel.

Maybe it can... Let me think out loud here. Life evolves but has limits. What if life, through us (or other creature) could expand its potential. Life in all its form did not create, say, the wheel. But through human ingenuity, that simple object is still in use today and we create great things with it (we couldn't do much without it). So the wheel exists because humans exist because life exists.

Even if humanity is bound to die one day, the last humans will still have that gut feeling to find a way to survive, even if unsuccessful.

Besides, if earth dies, so what. Life for the sake of life, doesn't have to be us, here. Could be anywhere. As a member of human species, I would like us to go as far as we can! I don't believe humans are to be "the obligatory chosen ones", that's giving ourself way to much importance.

Need is a funny thing. There are lots of things other people say we need. I think that friendship is one of those needs that is delusional, to the effect that we only think we need it because of how we are raised and how we live life.

There was a time when I recognized that the need of friendship was one of the prime factors contributing to my unhappiness, and I was able to use this to dissociate and remove the very need itself without changing the lack of friendship. Kind of like when you eat fish, and then get food poisoning, and for a long time afterward you just don't want to eat fish at all. That's a more physical defense that I remember hearing about, which humans picked up to avoid eating foods that were actually poisonous in the wild.

Lack of friendship was in the way of my happiness, so I removed it from the equation. The mind is adaptable like that. I don't think many people realize the extent to which we can play a psychic lego game with our own heads and rearrange things.

Various other things are delusional too I think. Self-esteem is another factor. Again I use myself, because I cannot speak for others, but I have soul-crushingly low self-esteem and yet maintain nearly constant happiness and content in life. Why is that? It was in the way, so I just removed it from the equation. What I think about myself, and what I think about other humans, doesn't play into how I feel in general. I'm a misanthropist to the core, and that misanthropy applies to myself just as much as it does to others.

Happiness isn't so complicated to find. I think we just put too many artificial barriers in the way.

You learn (and mostly fail) all your life trying to distinguish Need from Want. What we want is rarely, rarely what we need.

There are three things that go into happiness in my book, all related.

I believe it was Aristotle who posed that happiness resulted from the greatest long-term good, leaving the "good" ambiguous. I believe that to be correct. Living in the "now" will never bring lasting happiness, and what is good and right cannot be fully defined as a blanket to include all. Some rules that govern what is good in my book are:

qualitative utilitarianism: Certain goods are definitely better than others. Look at the famous quote "Feed a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life". I doubt anyone would claim feeding a man to be "not good", but teaching knowledge on how to live by his own means is a far greater good. Which qualitative utilitarianism states: mental pleasures (in this case: knowledge) are higher than physical ones.

However, I disagree with utilitarians on one thing: the greatest good for the greatest number of people is not always going to lead to greater wellbeing as visible by you, as such qualitative utilitarianism must be used in conjunction with the last item:

the golden rule: The old saying treat others as you would like to be treated and not doing evil. Now we are talking about spreading happiness and good on the local level, where everything is far more interconnected. Improving life for people is always good, but improving life in your own community is a greater good in my book, as it has a direct impact on you and those dearest to you.

The meaning of life is simple in my book: enjoy life, whatever that entails. This isn't either the modern hedonistic view (which is FALSE) or the old hedonistic view (do that which causes the least pain), but rather directly related to happiness results from the greatest long-term good. Enjoying life means you must think of the future. Doing everything pleasurable will only bring greater pain in the long-run. As such you must plan in order to truly enjoy life. Enjoying life may even mean purposefully inflicting pain on yourself, if you find your enjoyment comes from giving of yourself for the sake of others, the world may see your life as very painful, but for you it is extremely joyous

That doesn't make sense to me. Fear of the unknown is a reflection of basic survival instinct; the basic purpose behind most functions of a living being is simply to continue surviving. My cats live a safe, cushy life and have never really been in danger, but they still jump up and run when a noise surprises them, because their survival instincts remain strong and are trying to protect them from potential accidents or surprise attacks.

Often the most "dangerous" danger in the natural world is the one you don't know about. If you know those little brightly colored animals are probably poisonous, you can avoid eating them, or if there are traps in the sand, don't walk on the sand. Fear of the unknown lets one approach with caution and have a better chance of making it out alive, instead of diving into the unknown face-first. While people will often continue to fear even what they do know or allow it to override their reason, I wouldn't call the fear of the unknown, at its most basic, "irrational".

Death, from an instinctive standpoint, is the ultimate "failure" of surviving. From a more philosophical standpoint, to cease to exist is to be destroyed, the ultimate extent of things like pain and loss, perhaps our most understand and "rational" fears. We may become suddenly immune to those things upon not existing, but atop less complicated fears I don't see why the threat of losing everything you are and have struggled to be, everything you've accomplished and cherished, would be considered irrational just because it's a non-issue for you afterward. The anticipation is often the worst part, after all.

Indeed. Fear is an important part of life that keeps us living. When you are dead you can neither enjoy life nor spread joy to other people around you.

Are we talking about science or philosophy? :rolleyes:

I think the meaning of happiness and the point of life is simply to be content with what you have, make more out of what you're given, and make it better for future generations. When someone has an attitude of "this will kill my grandchildren in the future but will get me rich today" that is a failure of a human being...luckily in today's world a lot of people are concerned with preservation and doing good, we just hear about the people who dont care the most.

Science IS philosophy

But philosophy hasn't really science for a long time.

It's more semantics.

We're talking about modern society's way of handling the unknown.

At some point they HAVE to merge. But as science develops, that crossroad gets further and further away. I've read Hubert Reeves (an astrophysicist) who is so damn advanced in his work that he has to philosophy to try to understand and guess what that big old universe is about.

I think the most important concept to look into while searching for happiness and fulfillment is something called 'flow'(from positive psychology). Basically, search for an activity that is intrinsically rewarding and lose yourself in it. Who knows, you might change the world a little while doing so and not even notice it.
Playing a musical instrument or a video game, or sports almost always make you feel very immersed. If you think about it, 'flow' is exactly why we at Bethesda Forums play video games.

Perhaps the second most important concept is 'existence before essense'. 'Bad faith' cuts you off from flow, making you unhappy. Although i'm not sure about that one.

Money. Lots of it.

Check out Alain de Botton's Youtube series called Status Anxiety. quite informative and entertaining on the topics of wealth, status, happiness, materialism, and meritocracy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CERfoDIU2Yw

My interpretation of what he wrote (and you're free to correct me here Exorince) is that if you accept a nihilistic view on the world as lacking meaning, there's no point of fearing death; if you have no purpose to finish, there's no point in fearing the end. Combined with the aforementioned search for tranquility, your life would be better off (or what I should call it) if you just disregard your fears, including the ones for death, and just live.

(for clarification, text below doesn't relate to your quote Rhekarid, but to Exorince original post =) )

That said, I wouldn't say I agree with this view (if it is indeed what you meant Exorince; complete understanding is hard/impossible to reach in philosophical discussions ) myself. These sorts of theories have never appealed to me: I see life as THE experience, with emphasis on "the" since it's probably the only one. Just because my experience doesn't matter (because I agree it doesn't when you look at it long enough) I still don't want to "neutralize" the experience. If life doesn't matter, what difference does it make if I live a life of neutrality, extreme joy, extreme pain or a mix? None, I'd say!

I guess that point of view doesn't speak in favour for any idea, so why do I oppose the idea of neutrality? I don't really have an answer myself; mostly I'd say because of my young age. But I guess also because of what I wrote earlier: "I see life as THE experience". I think that, I'll spend eternity "tranquil" or what you'd like to call death, so during my brief time, the only time I'll be able to feel and experience, be it pain or joy, I want to do it!

Philosophy and science have a square-rectangle relationship

All of science is philosophy, but not all of philosophy is science, just like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.


Not true at all. All science is based on empiricism, which is philosophy. The scientific method comes from philosophy, which all science relies on. Science has never strayed from the scientific method, and has never strayed from philosophy