(Untitled)
i'm starting to consider celebrating my next birthday.
i used to think of it as getting older and not wiser, becoming of less use and more biased with experience, cynicism and bitterness ..
.. well, you get the idea;
adding more would only start to depress me.
in light of recent events, i've decided that it's not quite easy as i thought, to ( Read more... )
i used to think of it as getting older and not wiser, becoming of less use and more biased with experience, cynicism and bitterness ..
.. well, you get the idea;
adding more would only start to depress me.
in light of recent events, i've decided that it's not quite easy as i thought, to ( Read more... )
Reply
i was wondering if anyone was going to remark about that.
i agree that depression could be a problem of mine, but i don't know if i believe in happiness. it seems to mean too many things to mean anything at all, and recently i spoke to steve about it and we dissected it to hell.
often i take a philosophical buddhist approach to the question of happiness. i'll write more about this later, and about a book i've been browsing (whose author sounds like a reactionary, to be honest).
Reply
I might argue that this is a hallmark symptom of depression...
But moving on. There are a lot of different interpretations of Buddhism. In the weekly Buddhism meditation and discussion class I have been attending, our lecturer taught us that from the Buddhist perspective, the point of life is to be happy. "Life is suffering," yes, but by becoming aware, we can reduce our own suffering and the suffering of those around us, to sustain happy, pleasurable feelings for ourselves and others as much as we can.
Happiness does mean different things to different people, and I think there are different kinds of happiness. Semantics aside though, from your posts you seem to view things negatively and feel negatively in many situations. Maybe you don't believe in "happiness," whatever this word means to you, but what about enjoying life, finding pleasure in life, believing in the positive aspects of things, and just simply reducing one's suffering?
I look forward to seeing your post on this subject.
Reply
anger also occurs in moments, for the most part, and possibly fear. maybe i mean that i don't think happiness can be constant, and that puts obtaining it regularly to be extremely difficult, if not sometimes impossible.
i think i have a different interpretation of buddhism than you do, amy chica.
Reply
If depression has the freedom to spike, then why does not happiness have the same freedom to dip down as well? Suppose out of 10 units of time, a person was depressed for 9 units and spiked up to happiness for 1 unit. Let's say another person was happy for 9 units and dipped down to depression for 1 unit. Well overall, the second person spent much more time being happy than the first person, so I would personally think the second person wins out (as I am a person who values happiness).
I think that being an optimist requires a trick: not being disappointed by failures. I realize that happiness cannot realistically be constant for most people*, but in making it a goal to pursue happiness, I have found that I am happy more of the time and also unhappy less of the time than I used to be, so I consider it a success, even though I'm not constantly happy. I still have the roots of depression and I still fall into bad moods, but it doesn't make my efforts invalid or a failure, and I feel damn good about the ( ... )
Reply
Leave a comment