What Is Happiness...?
Before answering the question, let us ask – ‘Who is asking...?’
Means, is the question generic or specific – objective or subjective...?
Means, at whose end the question stands – the asker or no-asker...?
Let us understand this – a section of philosophy says –
“A pig eating shit is as happy as a poet writing poetry”.
In general, we all see and accept that most intangible issues like happiness, loneliness, wellness, satisfaction, etc have as many shades of interpretation as there are people. Science says – ‘You are as happy or sad as you think you are’... To each, his or her own...!
So, can we say – Happiness is a state of acceptance of utility and worth of something, which is at a particular stage of time and space, aligned and attuned to a particularly favourable shade of consciousness of a person....!
Hmmm...! Sounds too complicated! Let us simplify it – the idea is, I can feel happy about something because I feel; this something is good for me. But, this same something later becomes a big drag for me and I wish to get rid of it... It happens, often.
I say it with whatever I have internalized in my life that –
Humility is a ‘success’, which accrues as deep consciousness to a person, who is vertically and laterally very self-confident about the utility and fruition of ‘self-worth’...
This means – Humility and Happiness two sides of the same coin, made of ‘self-worth’...
However, humility, happiness, success, victories, good, righteousness, (even the reverse) et al are all intangible utilities. This means, “They are what you accept them as”.
Science says – ‘You are in your perspectives and your perspectives are in you’. This sums as – All utilities and worth are intangibles and can be defined only subjectively. A billionaire can be the saddest person on earth and may think of himself as a big failure and vice-versa.
The great Leo Tolstoy, who won global acclaim and Nobel prize for his books, disowned them when on death bed and talked of ‘love and compassion’ as the sole worth and utility of mankind.
This long talk is just to arrive at the point that everything starts with ‘you’ and ends with ‘you’. All things come later, ‘YOU’ come first. Therefore, the best happy thing to do in life is to – Know About Yourself.
We can say with definitive assertion – Happiness Is All About Knowing The Self and the internalized utilities this Self can accept and even create!
This means – Those learning tools, which make you knowledgeable about the 3Cs (in scientific, singularly logical way)–
- are real and true utility and worth for you.
Therefore, why waste time asking questions about happiness, wellness and success, which have no answers outside, as all questions emanate out of you – your Consciousness and your Cognition. As the ancient Indian philosophy said – ‘Nothing external to your consciousness/cognition has any meaning and utility for you’. Modern science confirms the fruition and finality of the same life-hypothesis...
Let us all ask the singular core question – ‘Who Am I and Why and How Am I What I Am...?’ Let us focus our energies on core ideas about consciousness and cognitions, and the causalities that the two create for us, which we all consider as truth but they are only subjective realisms.
Modern science has a lot to offer in terms of singular objective knowledge about the 3Cs – Consciousness, Cognition & Causality. Let us all have scientific state of mind, unlearning the vestiges of all our age-old cultured learning. Only the core question about the 3Cs can help us formulate the right questions, leading us to the door and journey of true happiness...
There surely cannot be a singular definition of happiness. Happiness is not an objective, tangible, measurable entity. We cannot have an index system for that. However, after so much knowledge about our body-mind mechanism, we now a lot about what factors are associated with this very wide range of emotions called happiness. We surely know so much about consciousness, homeostasis and brain mechanism. This knowledge makes us stand in good stead in designing our happiness package.
The artistry of happiness is in acceptance – acceptance of hardcore and objective realism and truth about life and living – about objective body-mind mechanism and its subjective playfulness.
We all wish to be happy. We all are designed to be happy. But, happiness is not a static entity. There is a systematic cyclicality of consciousness, cognition and causality, which never allows happiness (even grief) to remain static and fixed.
Our body-mind mechanism is designed in such a way and the external milieus too work in a way that happiness for us stands as a synthetic realism – this means, it is always evolving and changing in thesis-antithesis-synthesis cyclicality. That means, happiness is a dynamic, evolving entity and we have to be much endowed and prepared to be in control of most of the factors and elements, which synthesize happiness in time and space dimensions.
This itself presupposes that we must be in acceptance mode, in happy reception of the truths, objective realism and ephemeral nature of most realism about life and ourselves.
Evolution needs to be accepted as it facilitates a very crucial learning for our wellness. Evolution science accepts that DNA is the foundation of all lives, including humans. This DNA mutates naturally in its course of replication, which is essential for survival and continuation of life. The mutations are option-less as changes in external milieus need suitable changes in DNA and therefore, mutations are a function of adjustment to outer or external milieus.
This realism is the most beautiful and most primary metaphor of how life and its overall wellness are all about adjustments. We have talked above about happiness and wellness being a synthetic realism. This means, life and its wellness is not static but dynamic and necessitates masterly adjustments (allostatis) for lasting wellness and happiness.
Moreover, evolution also offers a great metaphor of how self-control is the critical attainment in life. Science accepts that mutations are not only natural and option-less but also randomized. The mutations are not aimed at excellence but bare survival. This extends to us a metaphor of self-control.
We surely cannot afford to be as random as evolution’s mechanism of DNA mutations. We need great self-control to ensure that mutations in our lives may be an adjustment to changes in external milieus but these changes we accept in our lives has to be optimally controlled, if not perfectly controlled; and never loosely randomized. Our life-living choices cannot be controlled exclusively by external elements in milieus.
As scientists say, we are past the stage of stupid engineering of evolution. We are now very endowed and empowered. All future mutations, in human lives or in the world we live shall be controlled well by us. Self-control defines the modern humanity, not randomized and erratic causality. We shall do all the best possible masterly adjustments with empowered self-control.
Let us ask ourselves – What is the thrill and ultimate joy of life-living experiences? Different people may describe it differently. Most however may not, as there is little conscious awareness in most things we all do in our action-reaction auto-mode behaviour. Still, many may admit that the biggest thrill and ecstasy in life is this very intangible emotion of being in perfect control of things; primarily the Self.
A best-paid soccer star once said about one of his favourite goals. He said he enjoyed it more than sex with his girlfriend. How can we explain that? Can kicking a stupid ball in a wide net be a joy more intense and satisfying than sex, that too with your beloved?
It definitely looks so. Most of us have seen how the goal-makers in intense soccer matches throw themselves into wild exhilaration and boisterous celebrations after a goal! Surely, not many get such a huge kick in sex to behave uprooted like that!
The simple fact is, soccer is a tough game and things are always so uncontrollably on the move and drift. Like life, a soccer game has so many randomized potentials, which may land either way, in quick turn of time and space. Landing a goal is very tough as it needs so many elements in combination getting right. Still, the ultimate and most crucial punch is the very critically timed and most controlled execution of the push or slide by the goal-maker.
The goal-maker knows it deep within his subconscious mind that a goal is usually the outcome of a very self-controlled execution in last seconds of a long build-up. The mad celebration is of the ecstasy and thrill of the self-control – the self-control of not only the individual goal-maker but also the entire team members, who build up a possibility with skilled conscious self control, constantly being aware of the external elements in the milieu.
Life is also very tough like a highly intense game of soccer. The chances of success in life are as tough and rare as a goal in soccer. The potentials are also quite randomized. The real happiness, thrill and celebration in life is also about successes. Success, like landing a goal, is very tough as it needs so many elements in combination getting right, at one point of time and space. We also know it very well that like a goal, success is usually the outcome of a very self-controlled, high precision execution of some very personalized elements, after of a long and tiring build-up. In celebrating successes, we all actually celebrate the intangible element of meticulous control and precision of personal or group actions and behaviours.
Therefore, the simple fact is – when we derive so much thrill and ecstasy in being in control of so many external factors, how happy we shall feel, when we are in perfect control of our own inner self and consciousness. If control over external factors and elements of milieus can be called success, isn’t it that the same control over internal and intangible elements should be considered larger and better success! This sure is the true happiness...
Therefore, happiness is a mechanism of knowing the consciousness, cognition and then how the causalities emerging out of the interaction of the two create life-living situations for us, which present themselves to us for acceptance as good or bad, happy or sad. Happiness as a second step is then in being in such self-control, to craft in such adjustments in our own consciousness, which could make ‘self’ the conscious decider of what causality we can accept as good and happy for celebration and what we can accept as bad and sad for improved learning in future.
Happiness is an artistry of ‘self’, never a situation for self, where it finds itself in. Happiness is a self-supervised cognitive artistry and not a life-living situation, where the self is in but not in any control. Let us all be this happy...
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