Happiness is, by its very nature, an exercise in excluding the bigger picture. Moments of happiness are fine but a lifetime of happiness is a clear sign of mental illness. And…to digress..wasn’t Joy Division an excellent group?

I forgot to mention that segment of my readership who will offer a definition themselves. . . .

Hi Vernon!

Of course some people are better at being happy. Just as some people are chronically depressed and are therefore are very good at being sad (over-simplified way of looking at it I know) there are some people who are very good at being happy.

Physiologically speaking, happiness is a certain combination of activities in the brain’s neural pathways, triggered by certain stimuli. Some people’s brains are better at these activities–whether due to random variation among individuals within a species (nature) or to an individual’s conscious or unconscious rerouting of those neural pathways.

Or: happiness is an attitude which can perhaps be cultivated.

Or, as Marx put it, happiness requires: reciprocal love, meaningful labour, and hope for the future.

Or, as Elvis put it, happiness is: someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to.

Where do you fall on the happiness aptitude scale, Georgia?

There’s a lot to be unhappy about in this world. It’s practically a requirement for happiness that one have the ability to ignore unpleasantness. In that light, happiness sounds like the art of deluding oneself.

Thanks for these extremely interesting perspectives, folks.

Seth, is “unhappiness” necessarily the only response one can or should have to unpleasantness? I can think of others. But I guess this depends again on how you define happiness.

And Nicholas, I think you know that I consider myself to be among those who find it fairly easy to be happy, whatever that may mean. Which I don’t think means that I walk around in a cloud of self-delusion. But thanks for asking.

“Which I don’t think means that I walk around in a cloud of self-delusion….”

But if you we’re…how would you know?

I guess it’s all “relative” anyway, isn’t it? I’m fed, clothed and warm/cool at the appropriate times.

Somehow, 12 months ago, it just all turned over and around and I am still in a haze. Like a robot almost. Dull. Gray. Quiet.

I want “it” back. But I don’t have the energy to either work or fight for “it”.

I know I need help. But I was a helper once, and it;s tough going backwards.

Happy. Happy. Happy.

Nope…Not for this addict.

I guess addiction is…addiction.

1AH