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OfflineNiamhNyx
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Happiness
    #7722830 - 12/06/07 01:06 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

This is an exerpt from the final exam I'm writing for my existentialism class. This part is my own personal view on the possibility of a non-self-deceptive form of happiness:

Happiness-as-avoidance is a popular and cowardly retreat from oneself and one’s true experience. It seems that the only way to arrive at a truly authentic happiness is a non-compromised, total commitment to facing ones experience fully and honestly. Any avoidance of this committed process, any settling into a comfort zone that avoids total disclosure with oneself is inauthentic, a cowardly distraction from the very real possibility of coming into oneself authentically.

As Jaspers said, the only true form of happiness is that which is the product of a “true fulfillment of phenomenal being.” Although, having said that, this does not mean that one has to have arrived atop some arbitrary pinnacle; rather one can be happy to be in process, joyful about ones commitment to facing oneself. There is not some specific point at which one has done enough work to have finally earned access to a form of happiness unavailable to those who’ve faltered along the way. The end is in the process. A person can be simultaneously completely willing to face the terribly ugly parts of themselves and their situation, and be happy through it-- happy because they are proud to be courageously engaged, and because they are not attached to their suffering.

It seems that oftentimes it is not anxiety or suffering or absurdity that deny us the ability to be authentically happy, but feeling sorry for ourselves for the unavoidability of such feelings and experiences. Like my father says, “as soon as you realize life isn’t easy, it gets a lot easier.” Existence is terrifying, but in choosing to embrace life without compromise, without hiding, one cannot but discover the joy of each moment realizing an ever expansive self with vast, accessible potential.


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InvisibleOrgoneConclusion
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Re: Happiness [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7723058 - 12/06/07 03:20 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Existence is terrifying, but in choosing to embrace life without compromise, without hiding, one cannot but discover the joy of each moment realizing an ever expansive self with vast, accessible potential.




You're s-s-s-scar-i-n-g me! :eek:


--------------------


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Invisibledaytripper23
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Re: Happiness [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7723102 - 12/06/07 05:01 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

interesting thoughts

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But what happens when you see the vast accessible potential? Thats exactly where everything seems to fall apart.


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Invisibledaytripper23
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Re: Happiness [Re: daytripper23]
    #7723103 - 12/06/07 05:02 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Idk why it posted two videos instead of one...


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Happiness [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7723521 - 12/06/07 08:24 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)


Existence is terrifying, but in choosing to embrace life without compromise, without hiding, one cannot but discover the joy of each moment realizing an ever expansive self with vast, accessible potential.


I like what you wrote but this gave me pause. Unless one would have total experience in full embracing of life without compromise one could not conclude that one "cannot but discover" anything. Have you?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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InvisibleJack Albertson
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7723733 - 12/06/07 09:46 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

is a warm gun


--------------------
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose.Man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time
TRANSCEND



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OfflineNiamhNyx
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7723854 - 12/06/07 10:45 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:

Existence is terrifying, but in choosing to embrace life without compromise, without hiding, one cannot but discover the joy of each moment realizing an ever expansive self with vast, accessible potential.


I like what you wrote but this gave me pause. Unless one would have total experience in full embracing of life without compromise one could not conclude that one "cannot but discover" anything. Have you?




I'm not sure what you mean, but all I meant by that sentence was that by choosing life, and choosing to step up to the plate and be fully honest with oneself, one can't help but discover themselves as a being with vast potential. Does that seem like a crazy idea? It seems self evident to me. Maybe I worded it wierdly?


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Happiness [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7723884 - 12/06/07 10:56 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Well lets take someone dying of an extremely painful disease. Would this have to apply? but in choosing to embrace life without compromise, without hiding, one cannot but discover the joy of each moment realizing an ever expansive self with vast, accessible potential.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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OfflineLion
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7723892 - 12/06/07 10:59 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

no statement is applicable in all scenarios :shrug:


--------------------
“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Happiness [Re: Lion]
    #7723925 - 12/06/07 11:12 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Well that's my point. It's very difficult to know what is or isn't for anyone but oneself.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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Invisibledemiu5
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7723931 - 12/06/07 11:15 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
It's very difficult to know what is or isn't for anyone but oneself.




word


--------------------
channel your inner Larry David


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OfflineLion
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7724009 - 12/06/07 11:33 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Well that's my point. It's very difficult to know what is or isn't for anyone but oneself.


it's hard to write an essay for school without at least attempting to apply one's experience to the outside world. i see what you're saying though


--------------------
“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”


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OfflineMushroomTrip
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7724022 - 12/06/07 11:36 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Well that's my point. It's very difficult to know what is or isn't for anyone but oneself.




Yes but this doesn't mean that we can't try to find more accurate appreciations, as long as we keep in mind that that's all there is. An appreciation. :shrug:


--------------------
:bunny::bunnyhug:
All this time I've loved you
And never known your face
All this time I've missed you
And searched this human race
Here is true peace
Here my heart knows calm
Safe in your soul
Bathed in your sighs

:bunnyhug: :yinyang2:


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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7724089 - 12/06/07 11:55 AM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Well lets take someone dying of an extremely painful disease. Would this have to apply? but in choosing to embrace life without compromise, without hiding, one cannot but discover the joy of each moment realizing an ever expansive self with vast, accessible potential.



I may make a leap, but isn't that that what makes life more valuable to those who die by suffering, too ? Isn't this 'lack' the cause of suffering ?
That, what (s)he is going to loose, at least in their minds ?


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Happiness [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #7724178 - 12/06/07 12:16 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

It would definitely help but I doubt it would bring joy of each moment.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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InvisibleMushmanTheManic
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Re: Happiness [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7724198 - 12/06/07 12:20 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Philosophers should stop babbling about happiness as they seem to have nothing intelligent to say about it.

Neuroscience, ftw.


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Invisibledaytripper23
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Re: Happiness [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7724690 - 12/06/07 02:04 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Sometimes when I'm tripping Ill feel like this. Like I have this secret that if the non-trippers knew, it would resolve all their problems. I mean you can literally see it by this new rationale. I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about. Naturally, with this new/heightened sense, you think you can apply it practically to your own life, just as you seemingly could to others if you were them. Express this or that, and thats exactly where its lost.... Resolution vs Absolution...Substantially it seems to resolve everything, whereas conscious direction of it corrupts it. In terms of infinity, this means losing it completely.

Quote:

but in choosing to embrace life without compromise, without hiding, one cannot but discover the joy of each moment realizing an ever expansive self with vast, accessible potential.




Basically what the rest of your essay means to me, is to say live life (Nice to have it summed up in 2 words eh?), and you will see the potential of life. But not the potential of x, but of life. So, this is not something that is applicable. (Perhaps a step to far to translate accessible potential to applicable) That is why your Fathers quote seems contradicting, as if potential is "to do", then to do what? Nothing can be done if were all one interconnected being. So what I am getting at here, is that potential must apply to separateness, otherwise there's nothing to be done. This isn't to discredit your fathers words, its just a different take on "Can we actually accomplish anything when everything is relative?"

Thats what is so crazy about hallucinogens. They are like this, awareness, Jebus, whatever you wanna call it in material forms; seemingly applicable as to bridge this connection between concept and life, mind and matter. Can you think of favorable circumstances you would choose to use shrooms? Of course you can... Thats why you don't go from sober to Jebus in an instant, but it is a gradual.

Gradually becoming aware...Your either infinite or not though, right?


Edited by daytripper23 (12/06/07 02:17 PM)


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OfflineSneezingPenis
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Re: Happiness [Re: Jack Albertson]
    #7725169 - 12/06/07 04:08 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

ts727 said:
is a warm gun




I was going to post this the second I saw the thread.


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OfflineNiamhNyx
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Re: Happiness [Re: Icelander]
    #7725494 - 12/06/07 05:44 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Well lets take someone dying of an extremely painful disease.




I think Merleau Ponty has the best answer to this question:

Quote:

For myself I am neither "jealous," nor "inquisitive," not "hunchbacked," nor a "civil servant." It is often a matter of suprise that the cripple or the invalid can put up with himself. The reason is that such people are not for themselves deformed or at death's door. Until the final coma, the dying man is inhabited by a consciousness, he is all that he sees and enjoys this much of an outlet. Consciousness can never objectify itself into invalid-consciousness or cripple-consciousness, and even if the old man complains of his age or the cripple of his deformity, they can do so only by comparing themeslves through the eyes of others, that is, by taking a statistical and objective view of themselves, so that the complaints are never absolutely genuine: when he is back in the heart of is own consciousness, each one of us feels beyond limitations and thereupon resigns himself to them.




And for the record, I'm not saying that everyone should or even can be happy, but rather suggesting a possibility, elaborating on and interpreting the views of Jaspers and Camus through my own filters. I suppose the context is lost by not posting the whole essay, and the question it is answering.


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InvisibleIcelander
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Re: Happiness [Re: NiamhNyx]
    #7725826 - 12/06/07 07:12 PM (16 years, 1 month ago)

Let me clarify. You are strapped down on the torture table and someone is drilling into your teeth.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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