Yesterday I re-posted a blog which ended in a quote from the Dalai Lama: “People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they got lost.”
That raised thoughts about the pursuit of happiness and whether such a seemingly hedonistic, self-indulgent goal is virtuous and whether it is compatible with a ‘good life’ in the religious sense.
Aristotle enshrines happiness as a central purpose of human life and a goal in itself. His conclusion is that happiness depends on the cultivation of virtue.
You have got to choose to be good to be happy and good is not that easy, sometimes.
- Happiness is the ultimate end and purpose of human existence
- Happiness is not pleasure, nor is it virtue. It is the exercise of virtue.
- Happiness cannot be achieved until the end of one’s life. Hence it is a goal and not a temporary state.
- Happiness is the perfection of human nature. Since man is a rational animal, human happiness depends on the exercise of his reason.
- Happiness depends on acquiring a moral character, where one displays the virtues of courage, generosity, justice, friendship, and citizenship in one’s life. These virtues involve striking a balance or “mean” between an excess and a deficiency.
- Happiness requires intellectual contemplation, for this is the ultimate realization of our rational capacities.
In keeping with the Stephen Covey model, 7 habits of happy people are identified:
- Express your heart – People who have one or more close friendships are happier.
- Cultivate kindness – Reach out
- Keep moving and eat well – “sound body, sound mind”
- Find your flow – do what you’re doing because you like what you’re doing
- Discover Meaning – a close link exists between spiritual and religious practice and happiness
- Discover and use your strengths – the happiest people are those that have discovered their unique strengths and virtues and use those strengths and virtues for a purpose that is greater than their own personal goals
- Treasure gratitude, mindfulness, and hope – gratitude is one of the greatest virtues. It defeats pride which is the sneakiest of vices.
Most of the above comes from http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org
This website has wonderful and good stuff on positive psychology and the pursuit of happiness. Check it out and start looking for your own stairways, y’all.
n early summer, after the first rains, Mum used to take us out to look for mushrooms.
the 
pink ones with white spots and the long tall ones and most of the little forest fungi.
The Swazi name for them was makowe. With great trepidation we tried some, after we had seen him eat two plates full and not die. De-wonderfully-luscious!!
Angst is a type of anxiety that arises in response to nothing in particular, or the sense of nothingness itself. It’s not exactly fear and not the same as worry, but a simple fac
t of the human condition, a feeling that disrupts peace and contentment for no definable reason.
s defined as a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction with connotations of self-indulgent posturing and European decadence. Just a bit frilly for me, like a lace handkerchief splashed with cologne, pressed to the brow.
chmerz describes a world weariness felt from a perceived mismatch between the ideal image of how the world should be with how it really is. Just a bit too saintly and clear cut for me.
begin again.
There are some very wild cards now in play in global politics. They are not who might be called gentlemen. I would call them loose 
cannons, who have abundant egos, few scruples and Messianistic delusions.
Then there are the others who are really nihilists and anarchists who have been fighting the world for some time.
right. Circle those wagons, don’t let any strangers near…
My deafness began 35 odd years ago when I parted my hair with a rifle bullet. Not deliberately of course, but carelessly, following the dictates of my empty belly and breakfast waiting on the table.
In about 2002, my children and wife’s complaints sent me to an audiologist and a set of hearing aids, which I used desultorily. They rusted up and were useless by 2010.
sounds are piercingly sharp, while others remain indistinct. One of my children and two of my daughters’ partners mumble, another lisps, my wife and the other two children are soft spoken.
Two metres away from me a pink and grey galah has swooped onto the hanging basket which serves as a seed feed for our avian visitors. The first visitor of the day there is usually the beautiful 
Indian blue ring-necked parakeet, obviously an exotic escapee, who stridently whistles at us to replenish the dish with sunflower seeds.
coloured rainbow lorikeets who perch in the nearby cabbage tree like Christmas decorations shrieking and murmuring. They are tough characters: I saw one back down a magpie on our lawn, hop-charging it until it moved on. They have just chased off the galah which is a much bigger bird too!
ce or remarriage or death.
Recently I have been engrossed by this Inquiry into values by Robert Pirsig. It was a classic of the new free thinking era of the 70’s; however I avoided reading it (and the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). I suppose I felt they were a wee bit kitsch.
d a great deal of support for my thoughts on spiritual direction, differences between sexes, xenophobia and beauty.
sillysocksonfriday 