Categories
- Art (356)
- Other (3,632)
- Philosophy (2,814)
- Psychology (4,018)
- Society (1,010)
Recent Questions
- Why did everyone start to hate the Russians if the U.S. did the same thing in Afghanistan, Iraq?
- What needs to be corrected in the management of Russia first?
- Why did Blaise Pascal become a religious man at the end of his life?
- How do I know if a guy likes you?
- When they say "one generation", how many do they mean?
Right, and not only Schopenhauer claimed this, in fact.
You can just logically estimate that since everyone really wants happiness, and this thing is not cheap, it is obvious that a relatively small part of the population reaches this state. Even taking into account the dynamic model of happiness rather than a static one (i.e., it is a constant process of maintaining “happiness”, not something that is once received and fixed).
Speaking more specifically , such an abstract concept as happiness can be understood in the natural science paradigm as almost 100%, ideal adaptation to the environment. For a person, this means not only the natural, but also the socio-cultural environment – that is, it is more difficult to adapt, but also the” exhaust ” is greater.
In any case, just because of the laws of nature, the majority will not be so adapted, respectively, and they will not be called fully happy either.
The concept of “happiness and unhappiness” is much simpler than it is usually said and written about ) Catch the definition from Oleg Gert: the size of misery is determined by the size of the gap between what is desired and what is received from life.
That is, the more a person wants from life, and the less he gets, the more unhappy he is. Accordingly, the path to happiness lies either through the pacification of desires and needs (conditionally, “Eastern-mystical”, from which, in particular, all religious thought grew), or through the expansion of consumption, expansion (conditionally, “Western-pragmatic”).�
In this sense, the proverb “Happy is not the one who has a lot, but who has enough”, in fact, exhausts the subject of discussion.
Since the vast majority of people choose the second path (the reasons for this are the subject of a separate extensive discussion), and they do not have the proper tools to achieve what they want, their gap between what they want and what they get is constantly growing.
And so Schopenhauer was right, all the more so given his expressed theoretical sympathy for the first approach )
Much more accurate is the comparative vocabulary of the type “happier-more unhappy” because the level of happiness-unhappiness has a lot of steps.
2. IN ADDITION, a person can be happy in ONE PARTICULAR direction and unhappy in ANOTHER PARTICULAR direction. This means that it is necessary to specify statements like happy-unhappy.
Science solves such difficult comparison problems by introducing relative weights like ” Someone is 80% happy and 20% unhappy.”
SCHOPENHAUER is right, if you carefully prove it scientifically, by calculating that most people are unhappy at the level of more than 50%.
Yes, I think Schopenhauer was right in his time and at the present time, too. If people were happy, they would have no need to go to temples and other prayer houses to beg for happiness in prayers and worship. “Happiness is to be healthy and live without fuss. At sixty, I'm climbing a mountain without a walking stick. At ninety, Chi fills me with vigor and strength. I look through thousands of books.” Have you met many such people in your life? With respect.
Man is doomed to misery because he is aware of his finitude. Everyone knows that they will die someday, and so does everyone close to them. And everything he loves will disappear.�
Is it possible to be happy? Yes, but happiness requires constant mental work, which few people are capable of. Much more often, people just forget themselves, trying to distract themselves with work, entertainment or drinking.
First there will be a lyrical digression. How can we say whether a person is right in a certain statement or not, if this is not a common truth? Everyone has their own truth, some of them still believe that the Earth is flat.
Now let's get down to business. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with the works of Schopenhauer to rely on them in my answer. Therefore, I will tell you how I perceive happiness myself.
Happiness, like truth, is quite subjective. Moreover, it is changing. Today you are happy because you have an interesting job, and tomorrow you are already sad because the salary is not high enough.�
Remember, when we were kids, we didn't think about whether we were happy or not. Most of us were happy. Without any possible reasons and conditions. The sun — we run for a walk, the rain-frolic under it, we bought a candy-hooray, bought a new toy-even better.�
With age, a person just gets overgrown with all sorts of “if” and “because”. We are no longer happy about the rain, because there will be traffic jams on the streets and we will be late for work, the sun is not happy because it is blinding, and you can also get burned… Well, in general, our people have little reason to have fun — mortgages, loans, low wages, gray”Khrushchev”…
But let's not forget that happiness is subjective. We also build it ourselves. What prevents us from putting aside our worries and enjoying every day we live? For example, I'm pretty happy right now. Yes, there are problems, but why should they cloud my life and ruin a great day?
Whether Schopenhauer was right, I think he is right for a reason. I've met very few truly happy people in my life. It's not about your well-being, but how happy you are. “If you have a nook to live in – – – In our mean time – – – and a piece of bread. If you are no one's servant or master, you are happy and truly high in spirit.”
Rather, yes, Mr. Sh. I was right. Today, as in ancient times, people are suffering – it has always been so and will always be so. However, unhappiness is not suffering itself, but only a reaction to suffering. Happy people also suffer, but they find the strength to be happy in spite of suffering. In my opinion, this evidence is related to the nature of human consciousness, which is attacked by complex attitudes that break its connection with nature, other people, the universe, if you will. We are social beings and are very dependent on our environment. Growing up, we acquire deep, difficult-to-correct attitudes, on which we base the corresponding algorithms, which do not allow us to feel happy. You can list them for a long time, you yourself know a good part of them perfectly well, since you are asking such a question, and I will give just one example: “seriousness”. The universe is constantly in a state of play, and we make serious faces, pretending not to understand what 🙂
I'm not a fan of Schopenhauer, but he probably meant the abstractness of happiness as a concept . That is, in principle, if a person is satisfied when his ideas about what is desired coincide with reality , then he is if not happy , then satisfied . But according to Schopenhauer, the world is a product of our consciousness or a higher consciousness that is not natural . Therefore, the probability of coincidence of desire and reality is incredibly small . And so he's right about something. You just need to learn to be content with reality, and everything will be easier . But this rarely happens, especially in youth.
Before you agree or disagree with Schopenhauer, you need to determine what definition he gave to the concept of happiness. I read Schopenhauer at the Institute and very poorly remember what he said about happiness. On this point, I will not argue whether he is right or wrong. Perhaps, based on his own models of philosophizing, his statement is true. Yes, but truth and truth are different things, but that's not what we're talking about.
Now to the other component of the question. According to my observations, it is impossible to divide people into happy and unhappy. I think that most of the population does not fall under any of these concepts, it is in the potency to be happy, or to be subjected to any factors and fall into the state of an unhappy person.
I'll give you my own definition of happiness. Happiness is a state when a person is satisfied with his life (not necessarily in all its aspects, but in those that are a priority for the person himself; after all, people are different and people value different things), he has a goal (very important! about this further in more detail), which he achieves, he is full of energy to achieve this goal, and is in harmony with the outside world, i.e. with loved ones. Since a person is a social being and needs communication, therefore harmony with the world is necessary for him. When a person lives in a vacuum, this is the standard of the fact that he is experiencing an imbalance with the outside world. Such a person is obviously not happy. Whether he is unhappy is an open question.�
Now about the goal. A person tends to deceive himself. Often unable to hear himself. If the goal is chosen dishonestly and insincerely in relation to yourself, then this is a fruitless option. I have repeatedly heard, as well as experienced on my own experience, that happiness is not the goal itself, but the process of achieving it, that is, happiness is the way. Whether it is the achievement of any results at work, or it is the achievement of success in your personal life, or it is the achievement of creativity. When everything works out, a person feels satisfied and the culmination of this state is the result, that is, the goal. A person enjoys a goal, I would even call it a kind of mental hedonism, and then immediately looks for another goal that follows from the previous one, and achieves it in a new one. In the list of types of paths, I mentioned success in my personal life. Here the condition of not one person is important, but two, between which there is a connection. Here, of course, the topic is about love. One way or another, the existence of a person revolves around the theme of love and happiness is an obligatory component of it.
When they say that an unhappy person is a person who has no happiness, they make a mistake. Lack of happiness does not automatically make a person unhappy. An unhappy person is a person who is going through a crisis, has suffered life losses that do not give him rest, and may actually be in a fast.in a traumatic or depressive state. An unhappy person not only has no purpose in life, he does not even try to find it. An unhappy person is either unwilling, unable, or unable (at least for the moment) to start on the path to achieving any goal. After all, such people are not the majority, but a minority.
What about all the other people who do not fall under the definition of a happy person and do not fall under the definition of an unhappy one? I do not know what to call this category of people, call it what you want. Such people are looking for a goal, but they have not yet reached it, or they are reaching it, but so far to no avail.
Thus, most people, according to my observations, are not happy, because they are in search of happiness, a minority of people are unhappy. If there were really a lot of them, then society would begin to intensively degrade en masse. This is not happening. Who is more happy or unhappy-I refuse to speculate, I think the picture will be different in each country.
It would be logical to say that a minority gets success, but I don't have any statistical evidence for this. Maybe the climate also affects here, and along with it, the food. Residents of the tropics and the Mediterranean are lively in everyday life compared, for example, with us, who have to stare at the gray sky for half a year. Still, since a person, in addition to being a person, is still an animal, and therefore is subject to all biochemical processes. So hormone levels will also be affected. By the way, the hormones of “happiness” do not exhaust the concept of happiness and do not define it. It is better to say that they only determine the tone of this very state of human happiness. If the financial situation of society affects happiness, it is only indirectly. Material goods are not a measure of happiness at all, and there is a soapy stable expression “the rich cry”, which suggests that they are also subject to all the crises that those people who are generally on the verge of survival are. The probability of meeting a disabled homelesspoor person in general, a fool of the 21st century, who will be cheerful and throw rays of good, is much higher than meeting a cheerful and sending the same rays of good some successful startup in a sleek suit on a batkin wheelbarrow or a blonde in red from an advertisement for women's cosmetics. The latter, if they smile, will be a fake smile. I don't judge all of these categories of people, I mean the vast majority of these very categories. This is an indicator.
Every time I fail in each of my new endeavors, I always think: “Well, what do I need all this for? Why can't I live without all this? If I'd been a stupid redneck, I'd have already gone to sneak a drink, had a beer on the way, had sex with my fat wife at home and fallen asleep – I'd have been happy! And here I am, damn it, trying to make some breakthroughs!”. Stupid rednecks in their lives are fine with everything. And I, at such moments, am deeply unhappy.
BUT!
Maybe I'm unhappy and I'm not happy with it. And stupid cattle-suits. There is no way to know for sure if they are truly happy at heart. They may be even more unhappy than I am, but they are happy with that, too. And they don't plan to do anything about it. It's not for nothing that they are so angry and hate everyone who is better than them.
And knowing that cattle are probably the majority – I think that the assumption that unhappy people are also the majority is not unfounded. But I'm afraid it's impossible to answer this question exactly. And the redneck is different from the redneck. And talented people are also all talented in their own way.