Originally posted by scottycelt
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Wearing of Burka
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It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Originally posted by jean View PostI do find that a very strange claim.
I could, on the other hand, say it made me very happy to stay on at university, working almost entirely alone. But, again, I didn't do it in 'the pursuit of happiness' or even because it made me happy.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Originally posted by Pabmusic View PostI quite like the expression 'well being' (or wellbeing or well-being) which encompasses things that ought to bring happiness to most people.
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Originally posted by french frank View PostReconsidering what I said (and I realise this was not a direct reply to me), I would perhaps agree that everyone wants to be happy, but I don't think 'the pursuit of happiness' is in itself what it's about. Happiness, more often than not, depends on what other people do and they have the free choice to 'cooperate' or not. Do people get married in order to be happy? Or have children in order to be happy? The happiness is a result rather than a goal.
I could, on the other hand, say it made me very happy to stay on at university, working almost entirely alone. But, again, I didn't do it in 'the pursuit of happiness' or even because it made me happy.
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Originally posted by french frank View PostDo people get married in order to be happy?
Most people have a fair idea of what will make them happy. Dr Johnson's comment on second marriage as the triumph of hope over experience only indicates that sometimes they get it wrong.
And that one's own happiness involves to a greater or lesser extent the happiness of others doesn't mean one can't both consider others and acknowledge the possibility of failure in actively looking for happiness for oneself.
I was questioning what I understood FrancesIOM to be saying - that because the word happiness is cognate with words like hap, mishap, happen, which denote chance occurrences, it is not therefore something we can plan for.
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Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View PostIn most accounts of Zen that I've read, or read of, happiness only comes when its pursuit has ended. Paradoxically the pursuit has to come first in order for it to be "seen through".
When I've a moment I'll study this - the Paradox of hedonism. It may give me the answer to that question (I only found it because the concept of 'hedonism' occurred to me).It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Originally posted by jean View PostI wouldn't have thought most people got married in order to be miserable!It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Originally posted by french frank View PostBut is that suggesting that the pursuit itself is a conscious pursuit of happiness, or just the final result of a particular course of action?
When I've a moment I'll study this - the Paradox of hedonism. It may give me the answer to that question (I only found it because the concept of 'hedonism' occurred to me).
I always think certain poetic liberties are taken by those who speak from evident experience of such states of inner peace, mind.
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Originally posted by french frank View PostBut not everything one does is either to make us happy or to make us miserable. We do have other motivations, I would think?
But perhaps I am irredeemably selfish and an incurable hedonist.
Of course if I were an artist I would owe it to my public not to be happy, as my art would be the greater in proportion to my personal distress.
I'm quite glad I'm not an artist.
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Originally posted by jean View PostOf course if I were an artist I would owe it to my public not to be happy, as my art would be the greater in proportion to my personal distress.
I'm quite glad I'm not an artist.
Instead, I could only find:
"We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were ... Some must cry so that others may be able to laugh the more heartily.”
and (of herself):
"A doormat in a world of boots."
:-/It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Didn't Susan Hill stop writing when she became happy? But I think she started again.
I've been trying to find the link scotty posted to that gay man opposed to gay marriage and the organisation he founded - buried in there was the idea that it was better for gay people to be persecuted and wretched as so many of them were artists, and it improved their art no end.
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Originally posted by jean View PostI think my own happiness is always a part of my motivation, if I can possibly manage it.
But perhaps I am irredeemably selfish and an incurable hedonist.
Of course if I were an artist I would owe it to my public not to be happy, as my art would be the greater in proportion to my personal distress.
I'm quite glad I'm not an artist.
Have read a lot of Jean Rhys....the intro to Sargasso Sea very memorable indeed....but know nothing of Susan Hill....
I always aim at 'peace of mind', I have never really tried for happiness....bong ching
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Originally posted by french frank View Post
"We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were ... Some must cry so that others may be able to laugh the more heartily.”
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Originally posted by Flosshilde View PostArtists can be 'happy' that they are doing what they want to do, or feel they must do, but it has been said that an artist is never happy, or satisfied, with what they produce. It can make other people happy, though.
Then again, I once had an "A"-Level English student who wanted to be a Poet. Not "to write Poetry", but to be a Poet - giving interviews about his work in the colour supplements, presenting television documentaries (standing on a promontory, accompanied by a Marimba whilst talking about Wordsworth's effect on his poems) - just wasn't particularly interested in writing any actual poems.
(I wonder if Artists would be "happier" if they wore a Burqa when they'd finished a work?)[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]
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