Useless thoughts about happiness

What is happiness?

Is happiness an illusion?

                                                      

                                                                    (Dali's Galathea)

If we really think hard about it, we may, in a way say, that happiness is an illusion. Here are some meandering thoughts about the subject that popped in my head because my teaching schedule was suddenly moved, I have vacant hours!

First I am thinking about time. Time is one strange thing (or concept) because it is always flowing. The theologian Paul Tillich described the flow of time “as a point without extension, the point in which the future becomes the past; when we say to ourselves, “This is the present,” the moment has already been swallowed by the past. The present disappears the very instant we grasp it. “

I was thinking about time because all our experiences flee in a second. As Tillich has said, “the moment we say, ‘This is the present,’ it’s already past. Most literature is written in the past tense. Everyday discourses uses more verbs in the past tense than in the present or in the future as one observes by watching the news, by simply taking about  events and even plans have to be based upon performances from the past.

There are many definitions of happiness but whether happiness is defined as lower or in higher hedonism (physical or intellectual), or it may be philosophical, or spiritual or an activity, etc…what ever definition happiness maybe, the sensation or/and the satisfaction it produces is still subject to the passing of time.

Time and happiness is a curios thing because if we really think about, we may be really just being happy about a memory. What ever our definition of happiness maybe, still does not matter, if we really think about it, our happiness is a mental (or spiritual) process of reliving or rethinking and even re-experiencing experiences in the past and recalling the sensations of those experiences. Movies have been made around these themes which reflects on the illusion or the illusionary nature of happiness is.

How then can we claim to have or achieved happiness?

Second, I am thinking about space.

Is happiness a state of mind or a state of being? What is the difference between the two when it is both predicated upon consciousness or a thinking mind? Really one cannot claim of being in a happy state or in a happy mood if he is in a non-conscious state.

One may aptly reflect on this and say, in a Descartian way, “I think I am happy, there fore I am happy, and I think I am happy therefore, I am happy!”

 Time and space are directly related with how we perceive sensations. Recalling places that have given us happiness or joy, even if it’s a physical, emotional, even spiritual happiness helps relives the sensation of happiness. That is why we have nostalgia; we feel nostalgic when we go to special places or when we hear special songs but still these sensations, whatever we may call them i.e. love, hate, spiritual awakening, etc, are mere acts of recollections! There are even circumstances where the memory of the experience produces more happiness than the actual experience of the happiness as experienced by the body because the sense data are enhanced by the sharing of the experiences of the other who have gone through the same experience!

It is possible to be happy to live in a spaceless world locked in memory? Maybe we have been doing it all along our childhood experiences, our spiritual experiences, etc.. maybe even to the tiniest detail of tasting our food.

Somehow, I came to the realization that happiness is really just data processing, reprocessing and filtering…hmmmmm...Oh the sadness of happiness ....