The futility of happiness
There are two main identifiable traits in nearly all humans. The first is the need to be happy. The second is the need for more. As can be seen by example, this causes the need to be happier. Drugs, Music, Television, Sex, Vacations, etc... can all be attributed to this need. People love to have a good time, and they only want it to get better.
When one looks back on one's memories, the first things that come to mind are ususally things that caused exceptional happiness. Average or boring things are most often forgotten, and sad things are usually ignored for obvious reasons. The entire entertainment industry is based around this natural fact of the human mind. They've essentially capitalized on human nature.
The drive for more causes people to do very strange things in order to achieve happiness. Substance abuse (drugs), and "Reality" television shows are both good examples of this. Drug addiction is caused by the want for happiness and the love of new and exciting things. It is continued and fueled by a want for more. Television shows are based on the same principle. Comedians usually have a very similar style, they go from mediocre to hilarious and then stop. This causes you to want to see them again, because you know they'll have better stuff next time; it's an addiction to laughing. The same goes for people who do stupid things on camera (such as the popular Jackass and Wild Boyz shows).
Music is the saddest part of this extortion. Musicians no longer seem to care about the actual quality of their music, as long as it gets them money. The mainstream gobbles it up anyway, and I'm not really sure why. The music industry itself has a rather interesting little thing going on. Consider free downloading and radio... Now, Radio's sole source of income is advertisement and private investors. It is basically free music transmitted through the air. My belief is the music industry rather regrets this move, as they don't make much money off of it. They've shown how determined they are not to repeat the mistake by cracking down on "illegal" downloads of audio files over the internet. The digital world is basically uncontrollable by any one corporation, so stopping illegal file sharing is going to be impossible. They scare us with persecution of the sharers in the hopes people will stop sharing their own music libraries. They also publicise stories of parents getting in trouble for what their kids are doing. Wonderful strategy, except that it hasn't worked.
Now that we've got some basic facts down about this topic, I'm going to give you a theory. The only way to truly be happy is not to be happy. Doesn't seem to make sense, does it? But I believe the best you can do is be content with what you already have. No being on earth needs any more than nourishment, shelter, and protection from predators. Most beings, however, want more. Humans are probably on the top of this, and we call it "advanced". A truly advanced culture and society would not need any more than it already has. The greatest happiness is pure contentment.
If you are happy, you are bound to be sad when the happiness ends. What goes up must come down. If you are sad, you can count on being happy again. This is natural fluctuation of emotion. This is also what capitalism is based on: The Consumer's love of happiness and fear of sadness. Because our society is based on such, the idea of contentment is attempted to be blocked out with advertisements promoting things you could have, but of course, don't actually need. These are also often added to by some form of inferiority, making you feel like you have less than you "deserve", or that you don't fit in. They teach this kind of thing in elementary school. Think about that... they actually teach you to discover certain advertising techniques so that you'll be aware of them... This may seem counterproductive to the actual advertising, but people don't fear what they know. Teaching advertising makes it seem like just another normal part of daily life, thus completely brainwashing us into believing that it's okay from a very young age.
Possibly the best example of contentment in action can be found in, of all things, Johnny the Homocidal Maniac. A comic book, made by a master of the obscure, Jhonen Vasquez. In one of the comics, he depicts Heaven: A world of people sitting in chairs with fluffy clouds and random flying bunnies with wings. All the people are completely content, because they have no worldly desires (being in heaven). They all also have supernatural powers and such, which causes some humor with head explosions, but do not feel the need to use them, because everything is fine as is. Hell, which is also visited, is full of consumers... people who just want more and more. The restless damned.
Enough on that though, the point is life is heaven and we have built hell on it with our consumer-like minds. Everything in our society is an attempt to make us unhappy with what we have. To be truly content, one must ignore society, and accept things as they are. One must also accept change, and things as they aren't. This is contradictory to the nature we have programmed into ourselves via society. We will never be happy unless we give up this useless drive for happiness.
When one looks back on one's memories, the first things that come to mind are ususally things that caused exceptional happiness. Average or boring things are most often forgotten, and sad things are usually ignored for obvious reasons. The entire entertainment industry is based around this natural fact of the human mind. They've essentially capitalized on human nature.
The drive for more causes people to do very strange things in order to achieve happiness. Substance abuse (drugs), and "Reality" television shows are both good examples of this. Drug addiction is caused by the want for happiness and the love of new and exciting things. It is continued and fueled by a want for more. Television shows are based on the same principle. Comedians usually have a very similar style, they go from mediocre to hilarious and then stop. This causes you to want to see them again, because you know they'll have better stuff next time; it's an addiction to laughing. The same goes for people who do stupid things on camera (such as the popular Jackass and Wild Boyz shows).
Music is the saddest part of this extortion. Musicians no longer seem to care about the actual quality of their music, as long as it gets them money. The mainstream gobbles it up anyway, and I'm not really sure why. The music industry itself has a rather interesting little thing going on. Consider free downloading and radio... Now, Radio's sole source of income is advertisement and private investors. It is basically free music transmitted through the air. My belief is the music industry rather regrets this move, as they don't make much money off of it. They've shown how determined they are not to repeat the mistake by cracking down on "illegal" downloads of audio files over the internet. The digital world is basically uncontrollable by any one corporation, so stopping illegal file sharing is going to be impossible. They scare us with persecution of the sharers in the hopes people will stop sharing their own music libraries. They also publicise stories of parents getting in trouble for what their kids are doing. Wonderful strategy, except that it hasn't worked.
Now that we've got some basic facts down about this topic, I'm going to give you a theory. The only way to truly be happy is not to be happy. Doesn't seem to make sense, does it? But I believe the best you can do is be content with what you already have. No being on earth needs any more than nourishment, shelter, and protection from predators. Most beings, however, want more. Humans are probably on the top of this, and we call it "advanced". A truly advanced culture and society would not need any more than it already has. The greatest happiness is pure contentment.
If you are happy, you are bound to be sad when the happiness ends. What goes up must come down. If you are sad, you can count on being happy again. This is natural fluctuation of emotion. This is also what capitalism is based on: The Consumer's love of happiness and fear of sadness. Because our society is based on such, the idea of contentment is attempted to be blocked out with advertisements promoting things you could have, but of course, don't actually need. These are also often added to by some form of inferiority, making you feel like you have less than you "deserve", or that you don't fit in. They teach this kind of thing in elementary school. Think about that... they actually teach you to discover certain advertising techniques so that you'll be aware of them... This may seem counterproductive to the actual advertising, but people don't fear what they know. Teaching advertising makes it seem like just another normal part of daily life, thus completely brainwashing us into believing that it's okay from a very young age.
Possibly the best example of contentment in action can be found in, of all things, Johnny the Homocidal Maniac. A comic book, made by a master of the obscure, Jhonen Vasquez. In one of the comics, he depicts Heaven: A world of people sitting in chairs with fluffy clouds and random flying bunnies with wings. All the people are completely content, because they have no worldly desires (being in heaven). They all also have supernatural powers and such, which causes some humor with head explosions, but do not feel the need to use them, because everything is fine as is. Hell, which is also visited, is full of consumers... people who just want more and more. The restless damned.
Enough on that though, the point is life is heaven and we have built hell on it with our consumer-like minds. Everything in our society is an attempt to make us unhappy with what we have. To be truly content, one must ignore society, and accept things as they are. One must also accept change, and things as they aren't. This is contradictory to the nature we have programmed into ourselves via society. We will never be happy unless we give up this useless drive for happiness.
posted by Andy at 4:43 PM
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