Monday, December 2, 2013

Happiness and Generosity

It's hard to believe that the Happiness project we started in August will end tomorrow in December. I look forward to hearing Brennan and Joshua present. And one more circle for the road?

I will try to discuss Generosity without ruining it for anyone who is still reading. A good ending--surprising to me, though perhaps it shouldn't have been. I am reminded that perception is so important--my attitude can take my experience of the same circumstance from one extreme to the other. Nothing "outside" has changed, only the internal assessment.

Considering Thassa's experience of happiness and the demands made upon her (the pursuit of Happiness, literally), I remembered the discussion about the experience machine when we read Sissela Bok. I appreciate the value of resilience born of adversity. Not sure I would trade that--it's a great Ativan substitute.

Thanks to all of you for a wonderful and insightful experience. I enjoyed the books we read, especially Bok and JMH. The group reports left me with a long list of reading to do, to keep the happiness coming. One final thought about happiness--"how important is it?" Figuring out what is important to me and letting go of what only seems important has left room for more happiness in my life. What works for you?

7 comments:

PhilDecember 2, 2013 at 10:22 PM
I think you're right, Kathy, and I think we can say so without spoiling the story: the end of "Generosity" (the novel) IS good, though inconclusive, because we're all still writing the next chapter. "...what we will be is ever beyond us." So the story continues. Meanwhile, Iike our narrator I can still say (at least on a good day) : "I have no choice, delight pours out of me." Hope you all can, too. The Atlas has not yet gone dark. Happiness is still among our possibilities.

And here's a happy postscript, quoting an email received from Dean Byrnes this morning: "I am pleased to say that Ms. Hyland will receive this semester’s Ralph Klingenmeyer Scholarship, with a value of $750." Congrats Kathy!!!
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SDecember 2, 2013 at 11:01 PM
Insightful as it was, did you notice a change in any of your positions after a class discussion? When and which?
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PhilDecember 3, 2013 at 6:39 AM
Speaking for myself: I usually notice or infer changes in position not on the heels of a specific conversation, but implicit in later action and thought. Maybe that's a deficiency, maybe it'd be better to have more light-bulb conversion moments on the spot. But better late than never, right?
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BluesmanDecember 3, 2013 at 8:31 AM
Congrats, Kathy, on your scholarship!!
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UnknownDecember 3, 2013 at 11:39 AM
Yes, I second that, congratulations Kathy! This has been an amazing semester! I am so grateful that I took this class and had the opportunity to bond with so many insightful people. Although I never went to happy hour, I might start next semester or break into philosophy club to stay in touch with some of these great minds and watch the evolution of their happiness!
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UnknownDecember 3, 2013 at 5:49 PM
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UnknownDecember 3, 2013 at 5:54 PM
Here is my essay. I put it on here because I didn't bring a hard copy to class, but if anyone is bored or interested here it is!
It's basically my perspective on happiness since this class.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-7uEOnIYeze3snpcR2wzexu6WvD0jQg9WfxfUnyPf7Q/edit?usp=sharing
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Happiness returns to the MTSU campus (on ground!) August 24 2021, TTh 2:40, Peck Hall 206.

TEXTS:

Also recommended:

Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
The Art of Happiness, by Epicurus
How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well
Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction
The Conquest of Happiness, by Bertrand Russell
William James, tba

"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment." George Santayana

“If one can’t be happy, one must be amused, don’t you agree?” Nancy Mitford

But, beware "amusing ourselves to death"...

Previous announcements posted at the bottom of this page.

Natural happiness

“It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character, particularly if this contemplation occurs in connection with relief from ordinary cares, change of air and change of habits, is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect beyond any other conditions which can be offered them, that it not only gives pleasure for the time being but increases the subsequent capacity for happiness and the means of securing happiness.” Frederick Law Olmsted

Happy Quotes

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” ― Aristotle

They are fools who live without enjoyment of life
- Democritus

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work." -Soren Kierkegaard

"To pessimism and despair, the healthy-minded respond: 'stuff and nonsense, get out into the open air!'" -William James

"If we were to ask the question: 'What is human life's chief concern?' one of the answers we should receive would be: 'It is happiness.' How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness, is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure." William James

	Albert Einstein (@SaidByEinstein)
A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy? #Einstein

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” ― Albert Camus

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” -Dr. Seuss (Or Vin Scully, or...)

"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment." George Santayana

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." - Buddha

Happiness: A History

“Like Rousseau, Hegel appreciated quite early on that in modern commercial societies, individuals' desires and needs were generated by the desires and needs of others. Implanted by advertising, dictated by fashion, and determined by style, individual desire was always socially determined, shaped by the particular contexts in which we live. [..] Hence the need for greater comfort does not exactly arise within you directly; it is suggested to you by those who hope to make a profit from its creation.”

“No one could work harder to be happy," Tocqueville observes of Americans, marveling at the ceaseless, restless energy they expand in search of a better life. Rushing from one thing tho the next, an American will travel hundreds of miles in a day. He will build a house in which to pass his old age and then sell it before the roof is on. He will continually change paths "for fear of missing the shortest cut leading to happiness.”

“What if virtue, work, all our striving and sweat was simply not enough to make the animal man a happy creature?”

Darrin M. McMahon

"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence." Aristotle

"There is no other light, no other shade; this very sun, this moon, these very stars, this very order and disposition of things, is the same your ancestors enjoyed, and that shall also entertain your posterity... The utility of living consists not in the length of days, but in the use of time; a man may have lived long, and yet lived but a little. Make use of time while it is present with you." Montaigne

"Formula for our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal." Nietzsche

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” Camus

"A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless' except if the person living it is also an existentialist and elects to call it so. It could be that all existence is a pointless joke, but it is not in fact possible to live one's everyday life as if this were so." Christopher Hitchens

The Meaning of Life

"The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing,— the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman 's pains.—And, whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place." William James

“The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.” Douglas Adams

"Well, it's nothing very special. Try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations." M. Python

I can't stand it

Though the ULTIMATE state of the universe may be its extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the PENULTIMATE state might be a happy and virtuous consciousness...

In short, the last expiring pulsation of the universe's life might be, "I am so happy and perfect that I can stand it no longer."

William James

There are unhappy men who think the salvation of the world impossible. Theirs is the doctrine known as pessimism.

Optimism in turn would be the doctrine that thinks the world's salvation inevitable.

Midway between the two there stands what may be called the doctrine of meliorism, tho it has hitherto figured less as a doctrine than as an attitude in human affairs. Optimism has always been the regnant DOCTRINE in european philosophy. Pessimism was only recently introduced by Schopenhauer and counts few systematic defenders as yet. Meliorism treats salvation as neither inevitable nor impossible. It treats it as a possibility, which becomes more and more of a probability the more numerous the actual conditions of salvation become.It is clear that pragmatism must incline towards meliorism...(continues)

whanging & skimming

Remember when old December's darkness is everywhere about

you, that the world is really in every minutest point as full of life as in the most joyous morning you ever lived through; that the sun is whanging down, and the waves dancing, and the gulls skimming down at the mouth of the Amazon, for instance, as freshly as in the first morning of creation; and the hour is just as fit as any hour that ever was for a new gospel of cheer to be preached. I am sure that one can, by merely thinking of these matters of fact, limit the power of one's evil moods over one's way of looking at the cosmos.

Jefferson the Stoic-Epicurean

"Before he attained domestic happiness he had probably worked out his enduring philosophy of life; it was marked by cheerfulness not gloom, and he afterwards described it as Epicurean, though he hastened to say that the term was much misunderstood. He came to believe that happiness was the end of life, but, as has been said, he was engaged by the "peculiar conjunction of duty with happiness"; and his working philosophy was a sort of blend of Epicureanism and Stoicism, in which the goal of happiness was attained by self-discipline."

Dumas Malone, Jefferson the Virginian

The Philosophy of Happiness

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Monday, December 2, 2013

Happiness and Generosity

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The eternal question: how to be happier? Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, passed us some tips buff.ly/2txxMnv