My previous posting elicited a number of responses that, directly or indirectly, questioned the meaning of human happiness and fulfilment. At the outset of a discussion of these one has to admit, as the song goes, that “happiness is … different things to different people”, but far from resolving the issue via an affirmation of unmitigated relativism — claiming that the requirements for happiness is so divergent among people that it is futile to look for a common factor — one can, of course, uncover structural features that all instances of individual happiness and fulfilment must necessarily share.
One also has to face the paradox, noted by British philosopher John Stuart Mill in the 19th century, that happiness is something that will elude one for as long as one pursues it directly — it is no use trying desperately to be happy; rather, one has to find out what activity it is that gives one satisfaction or fulfilment, and happiness will follow as a kind of by-product.
In other words, Mill grasped the elusive truth about happiness, that it is like a kind of “glow” that emanates from certain actions, activities or pursuits, but as soon as one focuses directly on it, it evaporates. One should learn, as psychoanalytical theorist Jacques Lacan points out, to “take up one’s desire”.
Several registers are available to express this common “structure” of the phenomenon of (as opposed to the specific “objects” or objectives involved in an individual’s quest for) happiness and/or fulfilment. Among them, the philosophy of Martin Heidegger seems to me most promising (although psychoanalytic theory may be as suitable) for this purpose. Because the concepts he invented are technically quite difficult, I shall try to make them as accessible as possible. But don’t be put off by his terminology — it refers to things that all humans experience, as I shall try to show.
In Heidegger’s early masterwork Being and Time (1927), he outlines what he calls the fundamental tripartite ontological structure of human beings (what he calls Dasein), namely thrownness (the fact that, initially, we unavoidably find ourselves in a certain given situation that is not of our own making), projection (our ability to be our own project, or to map a unique life path for ourselves) and falling (the tendency to sink back into an often suffocating, conventional, traditional or perhaps fashionable way of doing things).
In ordinary language this means that, whatever one may come to believe about one’s origins (for example, that God created us, or that we are the products of an immensely long evolutionary process), to begin with we just find ourselves here, on Earth, in a specific place at a specific time, and we must somehow make sense of our lives. This is what “thrownness” (Geworfenheit) means — we are “thrown” into the world.
Secondly, every individual human being has the capacity to decide what to do with his or her life under these circumstances into which one has been “thrown” — this is what Heidegger means by “projection” (Entwurf) — whether human beings have been born into abject poverty, or with the proverbial silver spoon in their mouths, we all have the capacity to do something with the cards that we have been dealt, no matter how good or bad a hand it is.
There are many examples that illustrate what Heidegger means here. It amounts to saying that human being is essentially a striving, and that to be a fulfilled individual, one has to actualise, minimally, one’s ability to strive, to overcome whatever confronts one as obstacles or challenges, even if there is no guarantee that one will always succeed. Think of those people who were born poor, or handicapped in some or other way, and managed to rise above the conditions into which they were “thrown” by the capacity to “project” for themselves a future different from (even if it was paradoxically rooted in) the conditions under which they were born.
However, the inverse is also true — there are many people whose conditions of birth could not have been more auspicious or favourable, and yet they have ended up failing miserably to make the most of those conditions in constructing fulfilling lives for themselves. But the fundamental, “structural” truth is that, whether the specifics of one’s “thrownness” were or are favourable or unfavourable, all human beings have the capacity either to overcome these (or at least to try) or to allow them to suffocate them into a kind of paralysis, where they blame the circumstances of their birth for their lack of fulfilment or unhappiness.
The third member of Heidegger’s three fundamental structural principles for understanding what makes humans into what they are, namely “falling” (Gefallenheit), is a very sober affirmation that, whatever one’s capacity to “project” a unique personal path or future career for oneself, one always tends to “fall” back into the conventional societal structures and customs, or fashionable collective habits that comprise one’s social, political and economic situation.
As far as happiness and fulfilment are concerned, this is in a certain sense the most problematic of the three things identified by Heidegger, because of the so-called “tyranny of the status quo”. Why? Isn’t it true that, whenever one’s own inclinations seem to take one in a direction that really tempts one with promises of fulfilment, and one realises (perhaps painfully) that if one were to pursue them one would run the risk of alienating one’s friends and colleagues, one tends to abandon such an “unconventional” course of action? Most of the time, as Heidegger reminds us, we are subject to the dictates of the society in which we live, and more often than not, we submit to these, at the cost, perhaps, of our personal happiness and fulfilment.
So, where is the lesson, in all of this, for happiness and fulfilment? It lies in the realisation, usually only discovered through sometimes painful experience, that to be truly happy one has to learn how to “balance” or negotiate “thrownness”, “projection” and “falling” in one’s own life. These principles apply to every human being, but their specific “content” (for want of a better word) differs from one person to the other.
As for myself, I believe that I have been able to find fulfilment and happiness (sometimes they are not identical) in having discovered, mercifully early in my life, what my “desire” is — in other words, what “project” promises the greatest fulfilment for myself, and I have pursued it since then. This has not always been easy, because my choice (to put philosophy into practice in my life, and not merely to “teach” it) has often led me into conflict with individuals who have tried to impose conventional practices and behaviour on me.
I believe that this is where happiness becomes a real possibility, but is just as easily lost: one has to learn the art of negotiating the twisting path of one’s own “project” in such a way that, although one unavoidably has to respect conventional morality most of the time, one also manages to actualise one’s very own “project” in the spaces available for doing so.
I have stressed that for most of the time one has to respect convention, otherwise one could not live in a society with other people. But for personal happiness and fulfilment, one also has to find ways to bring to fruition what is unique or singular about one’s life. And if this leads one into conflict with others, one often has gather together courage to make sacrifices such as being ostracised by one’s former friends or colleagues.
Think of the way Dr Beyers Naude was ostracised by his former “community” when he courageously took a stand against apartheid, or recall how Che Guevara sacrificed the “easy” middle-class life of a medical doctor to be able to fight on behalf of the exploited poor in South America. Or how Nelson Mandela and others sacrificed their conventional freedom — thus gaining a greater moral freedom — for the sake of democratic freedom for all South Africans.
But it is not only, or necessarily, the case that one’s “project” may lead one into conflict with the upholders of certain unjust or unjustifiable “conventional” practices, such as apartheid. It is often the case that it leads to something highly inventive or unusual, such as when Einstein, instead of pursuing the conventional avenues of physics research of his time, embarked on an imaginative, lateral project that resulted in his famous theories of special and general relativity.
Similarly the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure set aside the old, referential model of language, where words have meaning because they refer to things, and formulated his famous structural(-ist) theory of language as a system of signs where meaning is internal to the system — a theory that proved to be revolutionary as far as our understanding of language is concerned.
Mary Wollstonecraft, again, set out to defend the rights of women long before the era of the suffragettes, in this way pointing forward to a time when most people would, at last, start realising that what she was fighting for — the rights of women — was indeed something worth defending.
There are many other examples of the same kind of thing; in every such case the person involved refused to be held captive by the conventional way of doing things, and inaugurated something radically new. In the process, I believe, they gained a fulfilment that they would not otherwise have had.
Of course, when I speak of pursuing one’s personal “project” for fulfilment, I am assuming that this project does not conflict with the ultimate well-being of humanity — one could hardly approve of a personal “project” such as a unique “career” in serial killing (recall Ted Bundy and others). No matter how singular one’s choice of fulfilment may be, it cannot conflict with convention to the point of undermining the very existence of society. If anything, it should be predicated on the possibility that it may actually improve not only one’s own life, but also the lives of others, directly or indirectly.
I suppose it is noticeable that I have not said anything about material wealth so far. The reason for this is simply that, as I stressed in my previous posting, although everyone needs a certain minimum of material means to be able to live a life with a reasonable “quality”, it is certainly not necessary to make the accumulation of material wealth the overriding concern of one’s striving. Nor does one have to be as wealthy as an oil sheikh to be happy.
Provided one is not destitute, happiness and fulfilment are within one’s reach as long as one is capable of bringing Heidegger’s three principles — thrownness, projection and falling — into a healthy constellation. This is not as easily done as said, however, given the immense limitations placed on one’s unique personal “project” by both the circumstances of one’s situation (”thrownness”), and the pressure exerted on one by what is regarded as conventionally desirable, fashionable or politically correct (”falling”).
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15 Responses to “Happiness and fulfilment”
Why is happiness so complicated?
In the words of the Tao Te Ching:
Misery may yield happiness;
Happiness may conceal misery.
Who can say which will be for the best?
Nothing is straightforward.
Ah, not just ‘brain candy’ but chocolate-covered-cherry brain candy!
Thank you, Bert! Good summary of Heidegger (for those of us with aging minds!), although I think he makes thngs a bit more complicated than they need to be.
A few observations of my own, if I may be so bold:
Having read your blog on happiness, I reviewed two of my favourite comments on the subject. One is by Ashley Brilliant: “Having investigated all the alternatives, I have come to the conclusion that life is, after all, about having fun.” (This was heresy to me when I first read it!)
And, secondly, the logic of the Buddhists (in para-phrase): Happiness is a moral imperative; it is the unhappy who do harm in the world. (Contrast the dour Chinese leaders with the smiling Dalai Lama and the hundreds of lamas who survived Chinese gulags where suffering was ubiquitous. For a primer on the clash of the two world-views of the lamas and the commissars, I recommend the novels of Eliot Pattison: The Skull Mantra, Watching Touching Stone, Bone Mountain, and Beautiful Ghosts. Sometimes fiction is the best way to convey unpalatable truths.)
Back to the question of happiness:
I grew up in a religion that taught that life was about suffering and ‘heaven’ was about happiness and there was something almost shameful in both ‘having fun’ and ‘being happy’. After all, how could one be ‘happy’ (for which read frivolous, non-serious, superficial, amoral) when the vast majority of the world’s people were miserable? That psychology managed to survive years of reading psychology and philosophy until I challenged the logic as I approached my 40th birthday (and decades after abandoning religion! Just for the record I am not a Buddhist, either; I am happily agnostic but think the Buddhists are on to something valuable in terms of how to improve the quality of our lives–and maybe the quality of the species, as well).
I had given a great deal of thought to the subject of suffering (un-happiness) and happiness, the ability to maintain a ‘light heart’ even in the face of the worst imaginable atrocities as in the life of Primo Levy for example, as opposed to the deliberately self-engineered martyrdom of Simone Weil, for example. Was it better to die by whatever means in sympathy with those who suffered (Simone) or was it acceptable to survive and teach others how to be happy (light of heart) in the worst possible circumstances (Primo)? Put in those terms, it was a no-brainer: finding happiness in the midst of suffering and helping others to do the same could radically change human life.
So, I Iet myself entertain the thought that fun and happiness might not be sins against humanity after all. The next question was: Do I know anybody who knows how to be happy even in terrible circumstances? I was fortunate to know one–and only one such person. My best friend. No matter how difficult things became in her life, she was able to distinguish between the outward circumstances and the ‘larger reality’. She never criticised anyone, only what they did. She never ‘put herself down’ yet no one would accuse her of being ‘egotistical’. She seemed to treat each new challenge as just that, a challenge, not something that she needed to pass judgment on. Not that she ever articulated this to me; I just observed how she dealt with things and learned from her my first lesson on happiness: it is a matter of choice, not a matter of circumstance.
This insight was re-enforced by reading Roberto Assagioli’s “The Act of Will”, especially the approach he uses to help us distinguish between the ’self’ that we think of as us and the ‘witness’ (consciousness) that is the observer of that self.
Although I had long been a meditator and had experienced what Buddhists and Hindus call a momentary liberation from the chattering mind that passes for the self, Assagioli’s mental ‘mantra’ had an immediately liberating effect as I FELT DIRECTLY the experience of being more than the body, mind, and emotions that seemed to define me.
The direct experience of an independent consciousness which knows it has a body, knows it has a mind, and knows it has emotions, yet is not limited to the aggregate of those faculties, was my first real experience of happiness.
In the state of meditation or when you suddenly experience the ‘witness’ that is free of all the limitations of physical existence, you realize that there is something, some part of what you think of as YOU that is not subject to the constantly changing circumstances of your life. That is a shattering and utterly joyous discovery! And once you have had the experience, there is no going back. Anytime that you find yourself getting ’sucked in’ by a situation or an event, you can step back, take a breath and repeat to yourself Assagioli’s mantra: ” I have a body, but I am not my body. I have emotions but I am not emotions. I have desires but I am not my desires. I have a mind (or intellect if you like), but I am not my mind. I am the aware observer of my experience. I am a non-judging point of pure consciousness.”
The ‘not judging’ bit is crucial. So much of our experience is based on un-questioned notions of ‘good’ (happiness-producing) or ‘bad’ (sadness-producing). Consciousness is not state-dependent; it does not judge.
The experience of the reality of consciousness makes happiness possible. Without it, one may ‘have fun’ and even be emotionally ‘happy’ from time to time but such experiences are fleeting whereas the experience of conscousness is timeless and universally accessible at every instant of our lives–because we are conscious beings.
It is emotionless yet it creates joy, It is timeless yet it is accessible at all times. It is consistent and unchanging despite the changes in our outer lives. It is our birthright; it is what makes all conscious beings truly equal because consciousness is race-less, gender-less, age-less, independent of language, custom or religion. It just IS.
Once you experience it, you will never forget it and you will be able to regain that state of serene happiness effortlessly–in fact, trying too hard keeps it at bay. Ironic, isn’t it, that the one thing we all want is the one thing that takes no effort to experience and yet so few of us ever have the experience?
My personal view:
I believe that happiness is a moral imperative because happy people do not make wars. Perhaps, it is also an evolutionary imperative; what we are here to learn so that our species survives and learns how to live in the universe without destroying it. Happiness is wsdom writ large. Happiness is not an insult to suffering; it is the only hope of the suffering.
One caveat: it takes a person who has practiced the art of cultivating consciousness to be able to maintain that unshakable state in the face of torture or starvation. Short of those two extremes, all humans can learn to reside in a state of consciousness that we identify as ‘happiness.’
I agree with Claire and wish I had thought to put my thoughts so succinctly but the habit of explaining one’s p.o.v. by giving examples that clarify it is too deeply ingrained, I’m afraid.
The Tao IS the way of harmony with existence. The Tao does not resist what IS. Rather like my other favourite philosopher, Yoda (whom I see as a sort of homunculus of Bertrand Russell of beloved memory).
Perhaps the hardest thing for a ‘western’ trained mind to accept is…Acceptance of what IS without judgment, without emotional reaction.
Emotion is not ‘bad’, it just doesn’t accomplish anything on its own and can indeed interfere with ‘right action’ in the face of difficulty; it clouds consciousness. In ‘western’ psychology emotions are either expressed or repressed; there is no middle ground. Accepting what IS does not mean repressing emotion; it means acknowledging the feeling but also acknowledging that the feeling does nothing to change What IS. Emotion is not to be repressed; it is also not to be indulged. It is to be observed and released so that consciousness can clear the mind for ‘right action’.
If one practices this way of being, one becomes much more effective in a crisis because one operates from a point of serene compassion rather than heavy-duty emotion. Why are we not teaching these things to our children from earliest childhood? Sorry, stupid question: we need a 20 year longitudinal cross-cultural study of the comparative value of the Tao with all other ‘educative modalities’ so that another ‘expert’ can tell us what Taoists have known for two thousand years: it works.
After reading this article, as well as the responses, I was reminded of a famous quote by Nietzsche: “He who has a ‘why’ to live can deal with almost any ‘how’. In my opinion, being happy presupposes a state of contentment with one’s current situation, and excludes all possibilities of suffering. One cannot experience happiness in suffering, although suffering could possibly eventually lead to a happy experience. Since suffering and crisis are unavoidable expereinces in the human condition, happiness can only be experienced on a momentary basis.
However, even during periods of suffering one can still find meaning in the hope of experiencing such moments of happiness again. Furthermore, as pointed out by Viktor Frankl, suffering itself has inherent meaning for any given individual. I dont think this means that one can be happy during suffering, but rather, as suggested by Nietzsche, lighten the burdens of such unhappy moments.
The problem with the definition of happiness in current times is that it is either attached to a monetary (and by extension, status) value or that it is hijacked by cult celebrity figures who create some strange appropriation of how to attain happiness an/or contentment based on assimilating a plethora of ideas or trends of thought (take for example the powerful television icon Oprah Winfrey). These kinds of definitions then lead to an unfulfilled existence on the part of the individual who subordinates him or herself to these misguided definitions of happiness.
Happyness and fulfilment is easily achieved for an individual with realistic goals and ambitions and with the ability to be content in achieving them. However i feel material wealth unfortunatly in the society we live in today has a great influence on these two areas.
With regards to “throwness” generally whatever situation one is placed into, at that very moment in time, happiness and fulfilment are both at the greatest point they will be in life.
It is when one gets to “projection” that the influenences society has on one in terms of material wealth really come to the fore. It is sadly only a few people who can look past society and avoid “falling” in the sense of loosing there fulfilment.
I believe fulfilment leads to happiness, therefore the answer is for one to be fulfilled with there “projection” and therefore leading to overwhelming happiness.
I think that there is great truth in what Heidegger calls “the fundamental tripartite ontological structure of human beings”:
I agree that one is placed in a particular situation (“thrownness”). I agree that one can overcome this situation or become a victim of it (“project”). I also agree that one’s “project” might fall prey to conventions, traditions or fashions (“falling”). I most certainly agree that in order to achieve happiness and fulfilment, one must find a balance between “thrownness, “project” and “falling”.
Perhaps this balance might be achieved by another concept: “surrender”. Surrendering your “thrownness”, “project” and “falling” to a greater power than yourself (whatever your concept of that “greater power” might be). Realising that you are not the leading actor in your own movie, but that we are all supporting actors in the same story.
Perhaps by giving away self-importance, we might stand to gain balance – happiness and fulfilment might be the “glow” that emanates from “surrender”.
This article managed to put a couple of my queries about the discussed topic, happiness, into words that I have not been able to figure out myself. The themes and ideas throughout the article are topics I have attempted to resolve myself throughout sometimes in my life, but I have only come to understand the result and not the process that has brought me there/here.
I gain my own personal happiness through the people I surround myself with. I am not saying that people are the source of my happiness, but my personal levels of happiness are often a direct result of the people close to me.
Of course I determine my own success, future, failure and problems, but I have found that these topics, and most others, are influenced by the people around you, for the better or the worst. Thus I try move within the “open minded” groups of people as I find them more appealing, interesting and more open about topics that are often swept under the carpet to never be discussed for maybe they can open doors to questions with limited answers.
I gain happiness, and sadness from these people, but at least both emotions are on the table to be discussed, questioned, solved and laughed about.
My interests in life determine my friends in life, which determine my happiness in life and the other way around.
It is of course very true that “happiness is…different things for different people” as the song apparently goes. The fact that happiness appear naturally in such a wide variety of forms and formats and shades of colours maybe suggests that that is just the way it should be observed if you want to learn something about it on human (the individual way in which we exist) scale.
The need that people feel to want to understand everything on an ultimate and absolute way (happiness and fulfillment in this case), sort of bursts my bubble when thinking about what to write about happiness.
As if the only way to say something significant about it is to pin it down. Well, then again, philosophers don’t come up with structured frameworks which accounts for all instances of individual happiness, for happiness’ sake to learn something from it on a personal level, but rather, they do it for philosophy’s sake (to gain something on a personal level). Not to, of course, take anything away from their courageous efforts as it is something altogether different (as if I could…).
Happiness is a very strange thing. It doesn’t stand still, yet it doesn’t get or go anywhere. I would say that it is something that, to a large extent, comes with age. Not because you need a certain period of time to figure out how to do it, but it’s rather a matter of becoming happy when all else fails. Sort of by default.
It’s not about changing into a state of being which is capable of happiness. Nor is it about changing into a state of being which allows for happiness, but rather, being in a state of being that allows for happiness. I’m not saying that you have to be old to be happy, but it seems to be a lesson that is learned with time
(or realizing that there is not really a lesson to be learned…with time).
I also think that happiness is somewhat overrated. The reason why it is such a difficult question is because it has become such a big one. Imagine what it would be like if no one has ever asked that question. I think people would generally be happier. It is the ideals of happiness that people generally have or get from society or whatever, that messes things up a bit. The bigger the expectations of happiness, the greater the possibility for failure. I’m not suggesting a watered-down existence without passion or intensity, but rather one of a conscious and agile (and not stupid!) stride.
We all know what possibilities life might hold. Anything is possible (and I mean anything). The highs (like passing a Commercial Law test with a sky-rocketing 63%…yeah!) and the lows (like the unexpected demise of a pet fish). These things happen. I’m not trying to take away from peoples pain, as it is a necessary commodity, although suffering is optional (as a friend who thought I needed to hear it once told me (I don’t know who first said it, but I don’t think was it is him)). The fact is, you either carry on (with or without happiness and with or without sadness and suffering (such a harsh word…)) or you don’t (with or without happiness and with or without sadness and suffering (such a harsh word…it should be banned from the face of the earth!)).
It is all very much the same.
A last point on the 3rd and last of Heidegger’s principles of happiness namely “falling”. I don’t know if anyone has noticed that in recent (or not so very recent) times, being unfashionable has become
extremely fashionable (I’m not referring to matters quite as serious and significant as the ones mentioned in the original article, but indeed to the more superficial (for want of a more expansive vocabulary) ones that are responsible for a big part of society’s acceptance and non-acceptance and the effects it has on innocent inhabitants of earth (which makes it kind of serious). If you are misunderstood and alone in your cause, there is a good chance that you might end up being the coolest person the world. To not be accepted might be the most acceptable way to be. People love to exploit this when it comes to pretty much everything.
Maybe someone in power might want to flip Heidegger’s 3rd principle around to make it more appropriate for the here and now.
In your article you assume that one’s project does not conflict with the ultimate well-being of humanity. I think that if one’s project is of a selfish nature or is a project that will cause harm or suffering to others that it will not usually bring true happiness or fulfilment to the individual. You mention as an example a career in serial killing. I think that this project and personal happiness are perhaps mutually exclusive in a healthy and reasonable person.
I believe every person can make decisions which influence the course of their lives (and in turn their levels of happiness), or what Heidegger refers to as “projection”. I also think people can decide more or less how happy they are by how way they react to events in their lives, or as Heidegger suggests, by finding an ideal balance of “throwness”, “projection” and “falling”.
If they dwell on the things that have not gone the way they wished them to, then they will mostly feel disappointed or unhappy. I feel that there are definitely times in life for sadness, and that it is healthy to acknowledge the feeling, but also to deal with it and move past it in order to negotiate what is yet to come. It has been shown many times that people who consciously and regularly acknowledge what is good in their lives have a greater level of happiness than those who just let life happen to them.
So I agree that there is perhaps a ‘formula’ which all sources of happiness share, and one needs to find out for ones self what it is that makes you happy without directly seeking happiness. One must also make a decision to deal with the things that you cannot change (for example “throwness”), in a way that is not detrimental to society and that does not affect one’s ability to feel happy.
To be happy and happiness are two different things. For examle, I’m happy when I have a nice day with frinds, when I’m at the beach, when I listen to a good song, when I get a good mark, when the sun is shining, when I see my familiy or when there is snow on christmas. To be happy is just a thing for the moment while happiness or fulfilment are more, it’s a deeper feeling which should last the whole life. And this is for every person different. My examples above are for most of the people the same. Everybody have to find his/her own happiness and everybody have the opportunity to do it, no matter if the person is poor or rich. We also have to accept the other people’s opinions about life.
You are here on earth to enjoy your life, do what you want, improve things, if necessary. Because in relation to the existing of the earth, it’s a very short time for a particular person here on earth. So we have to do our best and don’t waste our time with stupid things like staying in jail…
All in all Heidegger’s theory is about the happiness and fulfilment which one find sometime, after one learn how to balance “thrownness”, “projection”, and “falling”.
The questions which I am asking myself after reading this text about Happiness and Fulfilment are: Does an end of “searching for happiness and fulfilment exist? Will I really be able to say that I found my happiness and fulfilment at a specific time in future? How will I know that I found it? And if one sometimes realise that one is happy and fulfilled, for how long can we enjoy it?
In my opinion, people find moments of happiness and fulfilment, during the journey of looking for it. Maybe it is important to subclassify this theme into 2 parts:
The first part might be about the “happiness and fulfilment” which one can find as an end of a long journey. Maybe you will get this happiness after learning how to balance “thrownness”, “projection”, and “falling” (how Heidegger says).
And the second part might be about the “happiness and fulfilment”, which come across during your journey until one will or won’t find the happiness and fulfilment at the end of the journey. This interpretation of “happiness and fulfilment”, as an occurrence during the journey, is in my opinion very important. Mostly these moments of happiness are limited in time. It means that one can also loose one’s happiness very quickly and become sad.
Maybe this falling down to sadness is important to sense happiness completely. This process of up and down, of reaching happiness and losing happiness make it possible to live our life more intense, cause we gain more experience by changing our situation with the possibility that it could be worse.
I think that to find an end and finally to find your happiness and your fulfilment one has to change his situation/lifestyle from time to time, even though he might be afraid of the circumstances of change. Maybe one can find out faster what happiness and fulfilment is for himself, than someone who does not change his situation. Even if one is standing still and not changing his situation of life, his situation will be change automatically by the environment. Because the world is turning and we can’t jump that high to get out of its circulation.
To get back to the point…the journey to happiness and fulfilment is already a big part of this final Happiness and Fulfilment which might in future be discovered.
Heiddeger’s “fundamental tripartite” becomes very obvious when applied to ones own pursuit of happiness with regard to the reasons and objectives for ones chosen path. In order to achieve happiness and fulfilment, one must question these reasons and objectives. As example in the article suggests about people such as Dr. Beyers Naude and Nelson Mandela, happiness cannot be achieved instantaneously, they and many others many others suffered many years of hardship, however, it is almost certain that they were fulfilled with the knowledge that they were contributing to the freedom for others. I personally believe that happiness and fulfilment should be regarded as a process rather than a goal, the same as ones reasons for playing a particular sport or ones chosen career. One should find happiness and fulfilment in playing the sport rather than winning, and in doing their job rather than earning a large sum of money. I also strongly agree with the article as it puts into perspective my personal pursuit of happiness and fulfilment.
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Bert Olivier is Professor of Philosophy at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He holds an MA and DPhil in philosophy, has held postdoctoral fellowships in philosophy at Yale University in the US on more than one occasion, and has held a research fellowship at the University of Wales, Cardiff.
At NMMU he teaches various sub-disciplines of philosophy, as well as film studies, media and architectural theory, and psychoanalytic theory. He has published widely in the philosophy of culture, art and architecture, cinema, music and literature, as well as the philosophy of science, epistemology, psychoanalytic, social, media and discourse theory. In 2004 he was awarded the Stals Prize for Philosophy by the South African Academy for Arts and Sciences, in 2005 he received the award of Top Researcher at NMMU for the period 1999 to 2004, in 2006 the award for Top Researcher in the Faculty of Arts at NMMU, and in 2008 and 2009 he was both Faculty of Arts Researcher of the Year, and NMMU Researcher of the Year.
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Why is happiness so complicated?
In the words of the Tao Te Ching:
Misery may yield happiness;
Happiness may conceal misery.
Who can say which will be for the best?
Nothing is straightforward.
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