I usually understand it to mean that one is living in peace with respect to other people. Yeah, there we go with "people". — Wallows

The heretobyfollowing are not subject to having been researched in the works of Hume, Pythagoras and Anaxagoreas.

So you can get incredibly upset and smash the toilet seat down angrily if you break a shoe-lace; a person with aquimonity can beat a work horse cruelly if the horse laughs at him behind his back; a person can teach his pet monkey to tease and aggrevate his pet turtle to a tizz, because these are not dealings with people?

I am yanking your chain (if I achieved that, I don't know). Of course, people are involved in the equiaminity of and aquiacantamous person, but they are not the only ones being involved.

No, I am not drunk. I don't drink or use street drugs. But I do drink coffee, and it has the capacity to make me giddy.

No, I am not drunk. I don't drink or use street drugs. But I do drink coffee, and it has the capacity to make me giddy. — god must be atheist

Nah, you're fine. I've seen worse. Sobriety is one hell of a drug, if you can tolerate the high, and no comedown!

"Reality is for those who can't handle drugs." True.

"Drugs are for those who can't handle reality." True.

But what about us, my kind, who can't handle either?

Maybe... maybe I should learn how to wallow. Yep. That's the ticket.

HEY! EUREKA!!

Maybe... maybe I should learn how to wallow. Yep. That's the ticket. — god must be atheist

Yes, now you see the way...

you can get incredibly upset and smash the toilet seat down angrily if you break a shoe-lace — god must be atheist

Congratulations! You are the first person in the history of Philosophy to connect smashing toilet seats with broken shoe laces. How was this crucial connection overlooked for so long?

Congratulations! You are the first person in the history of Philosophy to connect smashing toilet seats with broken shoe laces. How was this crucial connection overlooked for so long? — Bitter Crank

Nobody has done the research.

This is just one more shining example that you MUST RESEARCH EVERYTHING YOU POST.

It seems like everyone is obsessed with the highly ego-centric model of happiness that is "being happy". People go to Barns and Nobles, order books from Amazon, and tire themselves over their perceived lack-of happiness in their lives. Even positive psychology is mired with the concept of happiness as an ultimate goal. A quick search on this forum will show that there's a strong bias to achieve or even maintain happiness. Yet, there is no aspect of being that is totally and wholly independent of one's situation/circumstances/state of affairs, and this is what Western thought gets wrong in my opinion. — Wallows

I don't quite get what you're saying here. What's an "egocentric" model versus an alternate model? But more confusing is "no aspect of being that is totally and wholly independent . . . " What are you referring to there?

What's an "egocentric" model versus an alternate model? — Terrapin Station

So, why do people (I can't really speak for others here apart from myself) go to psychologists and psychiatrists? To feel happy, I surmise, or at the very least, to feel less unhappy (although, usually that realization is achieved after some substantial therapy). But, "being happy" strikes me as an ego-centric desire or need professed by an unhappy individual. Whereas, on the other end, actually "being happy" is held onto like a precious good like some fools gold or some such. That's the gist of my theorizing about the "egocentric model of happiness" hereabouts.

I hope this might help answer your perplexion with the other part of your post. If not, let me know if I can be more clear.

What's an "egocentric" model versus an alternate model? — Terrapin Station

An egocentric model is where you go to a therapist to make yourself happy. An alternative model is when you go to the therapist to make the therapist happy. An alternate model is when you once go to make yourself happy, then next time to make the therapist happy, then next time yourself,then next time the therapist... etc.

So, why do people (I can't really speak for others here apart from myself) go to psychologists and psychiatrists? To feel happy, I surmise, or at the very least, to feel less unhappy (although, usually that realization is achieved after some substantial therapy) — Wallows

I think suffering is certainly a motive,but there is something else. To be unified. To work well with oneself. To play well together. To be able to express yourself, to not sit in guilt and shame. To be out of one's own way. Yes, in general, I think this is less unhappy and happy, but I actually think the happy goal is a bad heuristic. I think it is better to find out how you want to live and what is in the way in yourself. (with the phychologist. Practicle obstacles and strategies can be learned about in other ways.)

Equanimity is a sensible goal considering the brain's chemical arsenal is not well enough equipped to produce a very sustained experience of happiness; or to put it another way, our capacity for feeling good is biologically limited and only becomes more limited with direct pursuit thereof. Besides which, the idea that we're supposed to be happy (as if it's a natural or default state) is a dangerous misconception that a cursory study of evolutionary theory should disabuse us of, making being unhappy about not being happy, or seeing such as some kind of a deficiency, doubly dangerous (particularly in terms of that stance's manipulability by the usual suspects). So, there's an ideological basis for the confusion surrounding happiness that serves a certain system and certain interests and if Confucianism or whatever religious or philosophical basis can be used to self-immunize in that respect, I'd say go for it.

Right.

So, there's an ideological basis for the confusion surrounding happiness that serves a certain system and certain interests and if Confucianism or whatever religious or philosophical basis can be used to self-immunize in that respect, I'd say go for it. — Baden

What's your personal pick here? And what did you mean by the "usual suspects"? Happy pills? Drugs? In a more abstract sense, "goods" (cars, a bigger house, even food?)

What's your personal pick here? — Wallows

I don't have a personal pick. Maybe it's just that I've come to see 'happiness' as not a particularly interesting or even coherently definable goal and have more or less dropped the concept in favour of getting on with doing the things I want to do and being grateful for having the energy and opportunity to do so (which a basic state of equanimity or stability allows for*). And when you're not self-reflecting, whether you're 'happy' or not is not an issue anyhow. You just need to make the space to not have to and that may require some initial sacrifices. Generally not of anything really valuable though.

And what did you mean by the "usual suspects"? — Wallows

The usual suspects = the media, politicians, marketers etc. Purveyors of the idea that consumption of whatever commodity, material or ideological, can be an end in itself rather than a route to more of the same.

*And what allows for that is security, sustenance, and sociality. Which should be not a huge ask for most of us in the privileged West.

Adorno's take on happiness has always haunted me, in a good way:

"To happiness the same applies as to truth: one does not have it, but is in it. Indeed, happiness is nothing other than being encompassed, an after-image of the original shelter within the mother. But for this reason no-one who is happy can know that he is so. To see happiness, he would have to pass out of it: to be as if already born. He who says he is happy lies, and in invoking happiness, sins against it. He alone keeps faith who says: I was happy." (Minima Moralia).

:cheer:

@Wallows

Some food for thought here if you haven't watched it, particularly from 2:05:00⁠>>

I feel that the word happiness in itself by definition confuses the concept in a way that it has become ego-centric. I also feel that the idealized relief from suffering in its relation to physical or emotional discomfort (is there truly a difference?) is misguided.
I think of a three legged dog - from my perception, I’ve never come across a three legged dog that seemed to care, acknowledge or consider that their three legs left something to be desired. Surely they are at some level aware that they have only three legs as they have adapted to life with three legs, but it seems (or I’d like very much to believe) that they do not have three legs or four or eight, or that their number of limbs differ from other dogs, they just have legs that propel them along the path they choose.
To the contrary, whenever I have a broken or damaged body part that invokes a limit, I desire a reality that does not exist where in that moment I do not have said injury because I feel that is the cause of my suffering, when in truth the desire itself is the cause. This is my attempt at explaining my conceptualisation of that which equanimity and happiness to me seem insufficient.

The goal to ‘disidentify’ with ones emotional or physical experiences as @Coben touched on seems to be a flawed goal on both a human and conscious level. The flaw on the human level has been addressed so I’ll focus on why I believe it to be so on a conscious level. On a conscious level, I believe most schools of thought agree that experience is imperative in the role of consciousness. To attempt to minimize or dampen the experience therefore, seems contrary the the concept or purpose of consciousness. I feel the more realistic path to attaining the concept which seems to be the topic of this thread is to fully accept our experiences without desire for what is not, and to fully replace judgment of our experiences with understanding.

Cool debate, never watched it despite it becoming as of late as something of a revelation.

I do like how Peterson outlined the happiness of mankind according to conservative thought to be found in duty and doing what is right at the right time and place, where happiness simply becomes a byproduct of moral and ethically guided behavior. What I do disagree on with this analysis is guiding one's behavior within this framework should or ought to be done from a perspective of what God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit may "want", which raises the typical questions you encounter within theology, about stuff like the problem of evil, etc. (responsibility) etc. (God) etc. (Faith?)

Whereas Zizek is more (Cynical?) in his professing that moral behavior (what can be described as the futile effort of the 'attainment' of happiness) is ideologically driven. But, so what?