Comments on: Joy division

By: one addict helping

one addict helping — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 23:21:33 +0000

“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

By: Georgia

Georgia — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 22:08:14 +0000

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.

By: Seth Brown

Seth Brown — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:58:10 +0000

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.

By: Nicholas Laughlin

Nicholas Laughlin — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 14:08:40 +0000

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?

By: Christopher Yee Mon

Christopher Yee Mon — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 00:21:16 +0000

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.

By: Georgia

Georgia — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 03:23:41 +0000

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

Hi Vernon!

By: Vernon

Vernon — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 03:08:37 +0000

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?