What is Happiness?

[Ninot]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Happiness is a warm puppy

No. Happiness is a warm gun...

I've been singing that to myself all night.

Happiness is also a warm body rubbing up against my own. A warm sexy body

[Addled Platypus]

+1

[Spiffor]

Happiness, to me, is the feeling of being balanced and purposeful. Doing what I deeply think I'm supposed to do. To live in harmony with my values, in other words.

Also, my happiness requires that I'm well surrounded by family and friends, and hopefully by a lover.

[DAVOUT]

Happiness is felt when your loved ones have no problems.

[Eli]

My first response was: "Being Happy, is standing in front of your fridge, and everything looks good. Being unhappy is standing in front of your fridge, and its full, but nothing looks good".

That's Hunger, not Happiness.

[b etor]

Originally posted by Blake
Happiness is youtube.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by DAVOUT
Happiness is felt when your loved ones have no problems.

You don't get unhappy about your own problems?

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Cort Haus


You don't get unhappy about your own problems?

I am unconcerned by my own problems because I have learned to find solutions; but I am concerned when a member of my family faces a serious problem. My happiness will come back when this problem will be solved.

[ZEE]

agreed

[Provost Harrison]

Happiness is not having all the bloody paperwork to do

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Lorizael
Happiness is making sure all of your shortcuts point to files that still exist in the same place.

To elaborate, I think the word 'happiness' is a placeholder (shortcut) for any number of ideas and feelings we can place into it.

But just because the shortcut is there doesn't mean the files being pointed towards are there. I don't think happiness has any inherent meaning or value, which is why we get so many different answers in a thread like this and in other debates on the subject.

I think that most of the time our idea of happiness is what we think it's supposed to be, based on the various answers we've received from this question in the past, based on our own experiences, based on what we're taught, etc.

I'll concede that an objective definition of happiness might be the ample presence of serotonin, or there might even be a specific type of feeling that humans experience that is what we all call happiness. But I'm skeptical of this last one. I think humans experience the various feelings we know of in different ways, react to them in different ways, and express them in different ways.

(For example, I get a considerable amount of joy from thinking about and doing things that bring chaos and destruction to my personal relations; is this happiness? The happiness defined by most here, however, I've never experienced.)

Anyways, the point is that happiness is nothing more than just a word. Debate over it is as silly to me as debate over whether or not Pluto is a planet. It's arbitrary and self-serving and not realistically meaningful.

A better question to ask, imo, is why all humans believe in this concept of happiness and what value this concept has to us, beyond of the words we attach to it.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by LordShiva

It's a good thing that Snoopy is a dog.

[Kuciwalker]

To elaborate, I think the word 'happiness' is a placeholder (shortcut) for any number of ideas and feelings we can place into it.

But just because the shortcut is there doesn't mean the files being pointed towards are there. I don't think happiness has any inherent meaning or value, which is why we get so many different answers in a thread like this and in other debates on the subject.

Even I wouldn't have made this analogy

[Lorizael]

I try to make a habit of alienating myself.

[Ninot]

Happiness is Lorizael with nothing to say.