Anne Frank's happiness

As long as this exists...

by Anne Frank

"As long as this exists," I thought, "and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts, I cannot be unhappy." The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.

"As long as this exists..." by Anne Frank, excerpt from The Diary of a Young Girl. © Bantam Books, 1986.

WA

5 best books on happiness

According to Jonathan Haidt:

Tell me why you started with the sayings of the Buddha.

The Dhammapada is one of the greatest psychological works ever written, and certainly one of the greatest before 1900. It is masterful in its understanding of the nature of consciousness, and in particular the way we are always striving and never satisfied. You can turn to it – and people have turned to it throughout the ages – at times of trouble, at times of disappointment, at times of loss, and it takes you out of yourself. It shows you that your problems, your feelings, are just timeless manifestations of the human condition. It also gives specific recommendations for how to deal with those problems, which is to let go, to accept, and to work on yourself. So I think this is a kind of tonic that we ambitious Westerners often need to hear.

Is there a specific saying that you particularly like?

There are two big ideas that I found especially useful when I wrote The Happiness Hypothesis. One is an idea common to most great intellectual traditions. The quote is: ‘All that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world.’ It’s not unique to Buddha, but it is one of the earliest statements of that idea, that we need to focus on changing our thoughts, rather than making the world conform to our wishes.

The other big idea is that the mind is like a rider on an elephant. Buddha uses this metaphor: ‘My own mind used to wander wherever pleasure or desire or lust led it, but now I have it tamed, I guide it, as the keeper guides the wild elephant.’ That’s the most important idea in The Happiness Hypothesis – I just adapted the metaphor slightly. What modern psychology shows us is that our minds are like a small rider on the back of an elephant: the rider doesn’t have that much control even though he thinks that he does.

And once you accept that you are much closer to understanding happiness?

Exactly, because it helps explain why you can’t just resolve to be happy. You can’t just resolve to quit drinking, you can’t resolve to stop and smell the flowers – because the rider does the resolving but it’s the elephant that does the behaving. Once you understand the limitations of your psychology and how hard it is to change yourself, you become much more tolerant of others, because you realise how difficult it is to change anyone… (continues)

Immanuel Kant be happy

“Kant is no optimist, just as he is no sentimentalist, about the world of experience. The divine justice does n't very ob viously show itself here below. Kant sees much evil all about him ; condemns, in one passage, the people who find our present life happy; declares that not one of us would willingly lead his own life over again, if he had the free choice and were not bound by some sort of duty to do so; in short, speaks almost cynically of those earthly joys whereof, with all his cheeriness and his open-heartedness, he tasted so little.”

― Josiah Royce, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy: An Essay in the Form of Letters

Why evolution gave us happiness

The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Came From, and What Makes Us Happy by William van Hippel

Part III: Using Knowledge of the Past to Build a Better Future
     9. Why Evolution Gave Us Happiness
     10. Finding Happiness in Evolutionary Imperatives

Our evolved psychology is deeply entwined with happiness and its pursuit; living the good life is largely a matter of meeting our evolutionary imperatives.

Frugal Hedonism

The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More
by Annie Raser-Rowland, Adam Grubb

Life-coaching from some modern-day Aussie Epicureans.

It sounds too good to be true. You can save money and the world, inoculate yourself against many of the ills of modern life, and enjoy everything more on both the sensual and profound levels? Preposterous!

Yet here is a toolkit to help you do just that. A tweak here, a twiddle there; every strategy inThe Art Of Frugal Hedonism has been designed to help you target the most important habits of mind and action needed for living frugally but hedonistically. Apply a couple, and you ll definitely have a few extra dollars in your pocket and enjoy more sunsets. Apply the lot, and you ll wake up one day and realise that you are happier, wealthier, fitter, and more in lust with life than you d ever thought possible. g'r

TEXTS Fall 2019

Happiness is scheduled to return to MTSU August 2019, with an emphasis on "Graceful Life Philosophies" (including Epicureanism and Stoicism) and their contributions to happiness.

TEXTS, Fall 2019:

• Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction by Wilson 978-0199688326
• Happiness: A Very Short Introduction by Haybron 978-0199590605
• The Art of Happiness by Epicurus 978-0143107217
• How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well, by Wilson (to be published September 2019)
• Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction by Inwood (978-0198786665).

Also recommended:

• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by Irvine 978-0195374612
• How to Be a Stoic by Pigliucci 978-1541644533

If I had a boat...*

  

(*Lyle)

The Happiest Man I’ve Ever Met

Athens in Pieces: By Simon Critchley

What is it like to be a monk? I spent three days in Greece’s revered ‘Holy Mountain’ monastery to find out.

ATHENS — In the nearly three months I’ve been in this fascinating city, I’ve met plenty of rather high-spirited people. But it was not until I visited the monastery at Mount Athos in northeastern Greece that I encountered the happiest person I’ve ever met.

I’d traveled from Athens with my friend Anthony Papadimitriou, who had very kindly arranged the trip to the Holy Mountain, as it is called here. We share an abiding interest in monasticism, although neither of us is fully monkish in our habits.

We had been on the road since very early in the morning when we left the port of Ouranopoli, the City of Heaven, in a small white and orange boat with a captain named Yorgos. The only way of approaching the long rocky peninsula of Mount Athos is by water, and it requires a special permit. I had it in my hand, stamped with the seal of the Holy Mountain, with four handwritten signatures. Anthony told me that the monks had checked out my credentials and noticed somewhere online that I was described as an atheist, which is not exactly true. But apparently that was better than being Catholic. On my permit, it read “Anglican,” which made me smile...

Happiness returns to MTSU

Philosophy of Happiness, Fall 2019

Returning to MTSU, Fall 2019-

PHIL 3160 –

Philosophy of Happiness

Tuesdays & Thursdays, 2:40-4:05 pm, James Union Building 202. Examining the concept of human happiness and its application in everyday living as discussed since antiquity by philosophers, psychologists, writers, spiritual leaders, and contributors to pop culture.

Special emphasis Fall 2019: "Graceful Life" philosophies, esp. Epicureanism & Stoicism

TEXTS, Fall 2019:

• Epicureanism: A Very Short Introduction by Wilson 978-0199688326
• Happiness: A Very Short Introduction by Haybron 978-0199590605
• The Art of Happiness by Epicurus 978-0143107217
• How to Be an Epicurean: The Ancient Art of Living Well, by Wilson (to be published September 2019)
• Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction by Inwood (978-0198786665).

Also recommended:

• A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by Irvine 978-0195374612
• How to Be a Stoic by Pigliucci 978-1541644533 

 

"Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!”

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

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” - Marcus Aurelius

 “Rules for Happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.”  ― Immanuel Kant

“Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure”

Arthur Schopenhauer

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”  Friedrich Nietzsche

“If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.” ― Edith Wharton

“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

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” ― Ernest Hemingway

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy… I'd far rather be happy than right any day.” ― Douglas Adams

Don't Panic!

For more info contact Dr. Phil Oliver, Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu
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•  “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” 
• “It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.” 
• “Of all the means to insure happiness throughout the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends.” 
• “Empty is the argument of the philosopher which does not relieve any human suffering.” 
• “We must, therefore, pursue the things that make for happiness, seeing that when happiness is present, we have everything; but when it is absent, we do everything to possess it.” 
• “Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.” 
• “He who says either that the time for philosophy has not yet come or that it has passed is like someone who says that the time for happiness has not yet come or that it has passed.” ― Epicurus

Free Solo on happiness

Alex Honnold: "Anyone can be happy and cosy. Nothing good happens in the world by being happy and cosy."