Self-transformation for Transcendence and Enjoyment

Photo: Jacek Stankiewicz, Kraków, Poland. The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards 2023.

So, here you are. How’d that happen? Did a little bird send you? A Philosophy of Enjoyment? You’re kidding, right? Sounds like an excuse to misbehave (think salacious and audacious), but then, maybe you are depressed or anxious or flummoxed by existence or know someone who is, so you did a Google search looking for answers and stumbled upon a Philosophy of Enjoyment.

What? It happens.

Maybe, if you are receptive to what is presented by a relative far, far removed (meaning, yours truly, there’s no ChatGPT here), you’ll take it to heart, learn from it, laugh a bit and change your philosophy of life completely.

What? It happens.

Think about it: With 1.13 billion websites on the internet in 2023—82% of which are inactive—(source: Forbes Advisor), finding this site is like being hit by lightning.

And we all know how fun that is.

A short film. Do you have time to enjoy?

A Philosophy of Enjoyment addresses one problem: How does a person—like you and yours truly, for example, a person with a particular vantage point, with feelings, abilities, limitations and opinions; a person with an economic standing, living in multiple cultures, framed in a body, identifying with a gender or agender—how does such a person transcend, as in, go beyond or rise above a localized low-to-the-ground subjective perspective that’s possibly defective, addictive, depressive, sad, mad, or morose, so as to enjoy being alive and thinking to experience beauty, tranquility, sublimity and jocularity daily?

Moreover, how can a person transcend habituated thinking and what does transcendence have to do with enjoying a good life in a world rife with bedbugs? How does a person subjected to the unwelcome and unpleasant vicissitudes of life learn to see the world as beautiful and enjoyable with gratitude, without needing alcohol, edibles or anything? Is that even possible?

Of course it is. Transformation happens every day at sunrise. A new day, a new you. You decide who you’ll be and what you’ll do.

Cue music (to set the mood for transcendence and transformation):

Ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle, Epicurus and Epictetus emphasized eudaimonia. That’s an old word without a modern equivalent. Maybe that’s because eudaimonia encourages virtues like prudence and moderation, both of which may be considered old-fashioned bummers.

Eudaimonia is a Greek word commonly translated as happiness or welfare but it literally means the state or condition of good spirit, as in, eu = good and daimonia = spirit.

But the word spirit causes people to think of ghosts and disembodied astral projections when what we’re really talking about is a feeling.

Epicurus (341-270 BCE) set up a school in his garden to study what makes people happy. After years of study he found that happiness requires tranquility, freedom from fear, absence of pain, friendship and connection.

Incidentally, the word paradise comes from a Persian word which means Walled Garden. “The notion of Paradise as a garden predates Islam, Judaism, Christianity and even the Garden of Eden. It stems from the Sumerian period 4000BC in Mesopotamia. Shade and water are two important elements of paradise” (The Beauty and Paradise of Gardens).

The stony eyes of Epicurus.

“Epicurus advocated living in such a way as to derive the greatest amount of pleasure possible during one’s lifetime, yet doing so moderately in order to avoid the suffering incurred by overindulgence in such pleasure” (Wikipedia).

It’s unfortunate, however, that pleasure is viewed with suspicion because it’s the excuse used for bad behaviour by the likes of sexual predators, traffickers and rude scoff-laws in loud cars who are all about their personal pleasure at the expense of others.

Epicurus wrote, “It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life” (Classical Wisdom).

When a pleasure takes hold, however, if one isn’t careful, one may want more and more. Those who are addicted to a pleasure may no longer be willing participants. Sometimes we all think it would be nice if things were different. We might wish our self to be different. Those without religious affiliation might even wish there was more to life than a scientific explanation.

The philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) said that God is nature, and, as you may have heard, psychological studies show, “People who are more connected with nature are happier, feel more vital, and have more meaning in their lives” (see: “How Modern Life Became Disconnected From Nature“, The Greater Good Magazine).

Philosopher Jonathan Rée (born 1948) said that Spinoza advised us to, “look with an attitude of love and reverence on the natural world as a whole and perhaps even yourself as a part of it… insofar as we’re irrational we’re divided, insofar as we’re rational we are united… freedom is not a matter of getting what you like. Freedom is learning to like what is rational to like” (Spinoza’s Ethics).

Happiness is in our nature (Springer Link). We just might not see it. We probably did as kids, but maybe not anymore (see also: Breathe in the air (and enjoy)). Happiness is available no matter who you are or what the situation. It takes a way of thinking that’s optimistic and a heart that is open without needing surgery.

Unless you are very young, you’ve probably realized that by living, time passes, and what’s happening now will become a mental movie which may or may not have occurred as remembered. The band OK Go put it this way: “… You know you can’t keep lettin’ it get you down, And you can’t keep draggin’ that dead weight around. If there ain’t all that much to lug around, Better run like hell when you hit the ground… When the morning comes” (“This Too Shall Pass”, 2010).

This is the end. Look at all angles and both ways too! March on. Think rational and love the world you’re in to make it even better (see also: Knowledge, Wisdom, Insight and Enjoyment).

Enjoy it. It’s for you.

Looking at trees

Most people don’t spend much time looking at trees. It’s not exactly an exciting activity. Computer screens are more entertaining. Trees don’t normally go anywhere or do anything. They sway sometimes. Depending on the wind.

“The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.” – Treebeard (Tolkien).

Most people don’t put looking at trees on their bucket list. Then again, maybe they should.

In the film “Being 97” (2020), Herbert Finagrette (1921-2018), philosopher and writer of Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease (1988), described looking at trees as a, “transcendent experience.”

At 97 years of age Herbert found himself looking around at the world as if he’s been asleep and saying, “Death is a frightening thought.”

No doubt others would share this sentiment, but coming from Dr. Herbert Finagrette it is somewhat ironic given that in the book Death: Philosophical Sounding (1996) Herbert argued that “there is no reason to fear death.”

“What does it mean that I’m going to leave?”

Obviously, as he neared his life expectancy, things started to get real. Herbert changed his mind. “It (death) is something I don’t want to happen,” says Herbert. “Much as I think our life in this world is often a pretty messy affair, I still would like to hang around. I don’t know the basic reason why I should want to or the basic reason why I should be afraid of it.”

But then, ultimately, at 97 years of age, Herbert relaxed and found solace in trees.

“As I sit out now on my deck of the house, I look at the trees blowing in a little breeze and I’ve seen them innumerable times, but somehow, seeing the trees this time is a transcendent experience. I see how marvelous it is and I think to myself, ‘I’ve had these here all along. But have I really appreciated them‘?”

Probably not. But then, that’s probably true for most people who see trees without noticing them.

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Herbert’s experience with the trees puts one in mind of that song, “What a Wonderful World“, but if someone is uninspired by this wonderful world and afraid of death, aside from looking at trees, can philosophy help?

Of course it can. Let’s begin by stepping away from lugubrious talk. Let’s walk and run with Buster while avoiding boulders and, like a philosopher, let us sing, “Ooh La La” together.

Maybe we could be more Stoic about it? The stoicism of Marcus Aurelius is popular, even today (see: The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antonius). According to Stoic philosophy the path to happiness is found by accepting the moment as it is and by not allowing yourself to be controlled by desire or fear.

And, as we all know, pretty much everything we do relates to a desire to feel good, comfortable and pain-free, but like our philosophical friend under tree-shade said, long, long ago, “Life is Dukkha.” And what is Dukkha? Dukkha is a Pali word normally translated as meaning suffering, stress or unsatisfactoriness.

Sounds about right, don’t you think? “That’s life!” as they say. You can fulfil a desire but only temporarily because in this life suffering, whether physical, emotional or mental is pretty much unavoidable.

Source

As William de Witt Hyde (1858-1917) observed in The Five Great Philosophies of Life (1924), “gratifications are short; while appetites are long…. When a desire burns unsatisfied, the balance of our time is not pleasurable” (p. 52).

Perhaps, if thinking and acting Stoic isn’t your cup of tea (Stoics are sooo pessimistic, they always prepare for the worst!), what about Absurdism?

Sisyphus rocking it.

Absurdism is “the belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe” (dictionary). Nobel prize winning Absurdist philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) said (or wrote), “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life!”

No doubt if Albert Camus were alive—he died at age 44 in a tragic car accident that may have been the handywork of Soviet spies, so the conspiracy goes (Britannica)—he would direct us to the myth of Sisyphus and the joy of struggle.

“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” wrote Albert Camus who also said, “The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion!”

Source: “Philosophy in Free Fall” Existential Comics

If Absurdism isn’t your thing, because it is, after all, absurd. Maybe you could be more Epicurean about it? Whereas Stoicism focuses on how to bear pain, Epicureanism focuses on how to gain pleasure, but it isn’t just about getting all the pleasure you can or of making pain not hurt, as De Witt Hyde said, “It is a question of the worth of the things in which we find our pleasure, and the relative values of the things we suffer for” (The Five Great Philosophies of Life, p. 111).

Let’s put it together one after another with succinct advice and a graphic to illustrate:

Stoic advice: As Epictetus said in Discourses, “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” Message: Keep an open mind and heart. (There’s always more to it.)

Source: GoComics

Absurdist advice: Embrace the absurdity of life (e.g., don’t take it so serious) and find ways to navigate the world (e.g., humour) without succumbing to despair or nihilism.

Source: Savage Chickens by Doug Savage

Epicurean advice: “Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist” (Epicurus).

Source: Reality Check by Dave Whamond (2009)

So, dear philosopher, with thinking, coping and practice, we can be wise.

We can save the world, our own, by being rational.

We can make the most of life by always working to make it better.

We can enjoy a chaotic and yet, beautiful ride with all those ups and downs, if we always remember and follow this simple advice, namely:

Enjoy wisely.

Utopia, Hedonia, Eudomania, Ataraxia (Oh Yeah)

Thomas More’s Utopia (1518). Photograph: The Granger Collection, New York

The word “utopia” is a pun on the Greek ou-topos meaning ‘no place‘ and eu-topos meaning ‘good place‘ (British Library). Thomas More (1478 – 1535) came up with it for his book, Utopia, which is about an island uncorrupted by greed that has qualities of perfection (read: Utopia).

More was a lawyer, judge and Catholic who practiced self-flagellation and wore a skin-irritating hair shirt. He saw Protestantism as a threat to society and served as Lord Chancellor of England until retirement, but then he irritated King Henry VIII by not attending Henry’s wedding and by not acknowledging Henry as head of the Church of England (source).

“Take that for irritating the king!” and the crowd went wild (Thomas More Trial, 1535).

More described European society as a place where, “Idle monarchs and nobles seek to increase their own wealth and power at the expense of the people, who are left in poverty and misery;” therefore, More’s utopia is “communal, allowing its people to easily meet their needs” (source).

But then we know where communal living gets us sometimes. Look at injustices in the former Soviet Union or wealth disparity in China which is as bad as anywhere.

source: Making Billions: The Richest People in the World (2020)

Nothing has changed since Thomas More’s time except for the names (and a lot of pollution). Instead of Czar Nicholas II, we have Vladimir Putin. Instead of Rockefeller, we have Bezos and Gates, among others.

Is anyone surprised?

Surely not.

Illustration by O.O.P.S.

Our problem isn’t political, it’s psychological. We can complain about unfairness, but who among us wouldn’t enjoy being rich? The drive to feel important is strong.

Cue music:

Trouble is, studies show, when people even think about money, it makes them selfish (see: Mere Thought of Money Makes People Selfish).

Psychologist Paul Piff has done studies proving selfishness occurs as a result of having more than others (see: The Science of Greed).

In one study two people played Monopoly and by the flip of a coin, one person was given an unfair advantage that made them rich. As the game went on, the “rich” started to act dominant and in the end, despite advantages clearly given, they saw their win as a result of ability.

Piff has found that people are willing to put others down to put themselves up. “A sense of power and addiction gets fueled more and more with the gaining of money” (source).

We may enjoy watching billionaires get their money taken by “f*** society” in the show Mr. Robot (2015-2019), but we know, if we were a billionaire, we too would probably think we’re special and cling to our money.

Trump appears with other greedy billionaires in Mr. Robot.

But then, how can knowing people are unfair make life beautiful? Grumbling about injustice doesn’t make things just! Feeling hostility doesn’t help us fix things. It just drains our energy and keeps us focused on problems instead of solutions.

A perfect world is perceived as impossible, so why bother? Utopian is considered “visionary reform that tends to be impossibly idealistic” (Britannica). You’re more likely to see a dystopia (a place of great suffering and injustice) than a utopia. Dystopias seem more doable.

Some people even say we’re in a dystopia now (see: Dystopia is Realism: The Future Is Here If You Look Closely).

See: The Miracle of Kindness

Journalist and Presbyterian minister, Chris Hedges, paints a dystopian picture: “The issue before us is death. Not only our individual death, which is more imminent for some of us this morning than others, but our collective death. We have begun the sixth great mass extinction, driven by our 150-year binge on fossil fuel….” (Confronting the Culture of Death).

Most of our problems individually and collectively are the result of hedonia or hedonism—from Greek hēdonē meaning “pleasure.”

Our inclination is to enjoy and seek escape by indulging in TV, video games, golf, food, drugs, drinking—whatever it takes to detach from what is displeasing (see also: Facing a Pine-scented Breeze).

Image by Jon Kudelka

Trouble is, for some of us, no sooner is a pleasure over when it’s wanted again (just ask any addict). The ancients knew this. Aristotle (384-323 BC) said, “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self” (source).

Perturbed people perturbing.

For there is a danger in pleasure when people do what they please—especially when there are 7.9 billion of us (see Worldometer). By focusing on personal pleasure we put our self before others and neglect responsibilities.

Moreover, some people are susceptible to the disorder of psychopathy which is a lack of care for others, extreme egotism and a failure to learn from experience (source).

What do you think?

Get to know yourself with this interesting test:

Measure your degree of psychopathy with the:

Psychopathy Spectrum Test.

The philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) promoted pleasure but not a materialistic money-oriented version because it lacks prudence, as in, “the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason.” Epicurus taught that “grabbing easy worldly pleasures is a mistake because ultimately they don’t satisfy” (source). His goal was the pleasure of not suffering.

The Roman Stoic Epictetus (c. 50–135 AD) seems to agree saying, “Don’t demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well” (The Enchiridion).

This is where the Greek eudomania (U-de-‘mO-nēa), ataraxia (at-a-rax-ia) and “Oh Yeah!” comes in.

Eudomania means “good spirit,” or “happiness” in English. Aristotle said that eudaimonia is “the only human good that is desirable for its own sake (as an end in itself) rather than for the sake of something else (as a means toward some other end)” (Britannica).

From eudomania comes ataraxia which is “tranquility” or serene calmness “untroubled by mental or emotional disquiet” (Merriam-Webster).

For ancient philosophers like Epicurus, Aristotle and Epictetus (along with most religious traditions), serene calmness or peace of mind is the ultimate pleasure, but it only comes by way of practicing self-control and virtues like justice, prudence, fortitude and temperance.

Source: Benjamin Franklin Classical Charter Public School Character Education

Here’s the kicker:

You can be in a good spirit in a good place here and now! No need for dope, booze, or anything in particular. You don’t do anything but watch how thoughts come and go. Watch how thoughts stir up emotions that can rob you of joy and trouble the world.

Forget concepts and look around. We’re in a utopia now. It’s called Earth. Only, we don’t see it as it is (Anaïs Nin, 1961).

We’re blinded by profit margins and personal desires, but if you practice virtues like prudence as advised by anyone wise, you can enjoy simple moments of beauty, tranquility and transcendence until you too get it and say, ” Ooooh Yeah.”

Enjoy.

Happiness or Wisdom? Enjoy A Clearer Picture

In this time of pandemic, amidst threats of death and illness, social distancing might just be the ticket to give us time for contemplation. We begin by looking at our self (which may not be singular) and then we look at the question: happiness or wisdom?

Like a Polaroid picture that develops in front of your eyes, from whiteness into shapes that become more visible, so too do ideas mix and mingle in your mind, to form a clearer picture.

It was in a Human Resources Leadership seminar that a Power Point slide with two bullet points was shown:

• • • “People are not thinking creatures.”
    • “People are feeling creatures.”

(See also: Enjoyment, Cookies and Purposeful Purposelessness.)

What the would-be leaders didn’t know was that these bullets were misfires from what brain researcher Jill Bolte Taylor said, which was, “biologically we are feeling creatures that think” (My Stroke of Insight, 2006). Her point being: we feel first, then we think.

Bolte Taylor’s message: “Based upon my experience with losing my left mind (the result of a stroke and not misplacement), I whole-heartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain” (TED Talk, 2008).

But back in the leadership seminar, inner peace isn’t on the agenda. Attendees prefer coffee with their accreditation. Their brains’ position between rationality (left brain) and instinctive, sensual responses (right brain) remained skewed leftward.

Source: Artclass Challenge

Note: Researchers determined to debunk clear left/right brain functions as endorsed by people like Matthew Fox (the priest, not Lost actor), Oprah Winfrey and author Daniel Pink, for self-help and spiritual purposes, have found that logic, intuition and creativity engage both sides of the brain (Beyond the ‘left’ and ‘right’ brain…).

As William James put it in 1901, “A mind is a system of ideas, each with the excitement it arouses, and with tendencies impulsive and inhibitive, which mutually check or reinforce one another” (Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 194).

Said James, “… our moral and practical attitude, at any given time is always a resultant of two sets of forces within us, impulses pushing us one way and obstructions and inhibitions holding us back. “Yes! yes!” say the impulses; “No! no!” say the inhibitions” (ibid. p. 256).

It could be because, as psychologist Brian Little says, we have three “selves” that argue (How Many Selves Do We Have?…).

The first “self” is “biogenic” (bio as in biology). It comes from our genes (note: saying, “My genes told me to shoot people,” doesn’t make it OK).

The second “self” is “sociogenic” (socio as in social). It’s how surroundings, family and culture shape us (note: saying, “My culture made me racist,” doesn’t make it OK).

The third “self” is “idiogenic” (idio as in idiosyncrasy). These are the things that make you you—the features that, as Little says, “emanate from our core concerns… the things that matter most… and afford us the opportunity to be stewards of our destiny” (TED talk 2016).

Needless to say, not all our “selves” play nicely. This explains why you might act like someone you don’t know, as if driven by outside forces.

As Little explains, the quality of your life is “contingent upon the sustainable pursuit of core personal projects” (Little, 2008).

The question is: What’s your core personal project? Do you have one? Is it happiness or wisdom? (unless they’re not mutually exclusive).

(see also: A Way of Seeing (Part 2))

Writer and teacher Andy Wood put it this way, “Wisdom is a boring, party-killing, nag… Wisdom asks questions about consequences when all I want to do is enjoy myself…,” and yet, “I can’t remember seeing any wise people fired for cutting corners. Or arrested for embezzling money” (LifeVesting, 2010).

Happiness refers to quality of life or well-being. It implies that life is good without specifying what exactly is good about life.

Some philosophers say wisdom is a supreme part of happiness while others maintain that a wiser view on reality can make one less happy.

Ad Bergsma and Monika Ardelt (2011) found that wise people possess positive qualities such as “a mature and integrated personality, superior judgment skills in difficult life matters, and the ability to cope with the vicissitudes of life.”

They found that the development of wisdom may be joyful by way of self-transcendence. Viktor Frankl, for example, found his higher purpose while suffering in a concentration camp.

Nisbett, Grossman, and other researchers found that happiness fosters wisdom when feelings of well-being facilitate wise-reasoning which helps us to navigate life’s challenges (source).

In this graph we see the association between well-being and wise reasoning by age—the wiser people were, the higher their well-being (source).

Ralph Waldo Emerson observed how wisdom engages a “special kind of happiness that transcends normal pleasures.” He broke it down into two camps, Materialists and Idealists: “The materialist insists on facts… and the animal wants of man; the idealist on the power of Thought and of Will, on inspiration…” (The Transcendentalist, 1842).

Through advanced technology, researchers are finding connections between materialist and idealist, between spirituality, art, the brain and states of consciousness. It may well be that we are more than “meat puppets” controlled by robot-like brains.

Thousands of years ago Epicurus observed how you can have the most happiness by prudently evaluating things to avoid and things to choose.

Wisdom and happiness go together like “milk and cookies” for the ultimate enjoyment (unless you are lactose intolerant).

(Cue music: Beegie Adair Trio, “Autumn Leaves”).

The trick: Enjoy being wise by wisely enjoying.

Breathe in the air (and enjoy)

“Long you live and high you fly
Smiles you’ll give and tears you’ll cry
And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be” (Pink Floyd, “Breathe”, 1973)

Contrary to popular belief (and advertisers everywhere), people don’t need a product, service or lifestyle to enjoy life.

A moment of peace in a park or beside a drainage ditch with a Great Blue Heron can stop a busy brain from blocking beauty.

Without the blinders of identity and self-interest, a person can go from listening to an interior monologue capable of souring any perspective (and ruin your life), to enjoying the smallest things—a ladybug on a leaf, ducks quacking and water vapour (for no reason).

Breathing can be enjoyable. In the midst of a problem, you can enjoy breathing (assuming that it is safe to do so).

If you hold your breath long enough, your body breathes for you. Combine this breathed sensation with a heart beating autonomously and you can appreciate self-driving organic automation. 

But breathing and heart-beating (consciously or not) gets boring. After breathing (even if it is enjoyable), people get distracted and ask like Peggy Lee did, “Is that all there is?”

What’s easily enjoyed is easily ignored. We might want to enjoy more, but therein is our problem: What we enjoy triggers our brain’s “reward” centers and makes pleasure habit-forming (see also: “Hedonism, Selfishness and a Womb with a View”).

A pleasure repeated can “set up potentially harmful routines, such as overeating, smoking, drug or alcohol abuse, gambling and even compulsive use of computers and social media” (Breaking Bad Habits).

Enjoyment (and addictive drugs) prompts the brain to release dopamine—a chemical responsible for transmitting signals between nerve cells.

Dr. Russell Poldrack, a neurobiologist at the University of Texas comments, “If you do something over and over, and dopamine is there when you’re doing it, that strengthens the habit even more. When you’re not doing those things, dopamine creates the craving to do it again” (source). 

(Saturday Cartoons)

Therefore, it isn’t prudent to do whatever thou wilt. One will soon find one’s self on auto-pilot, following a predetermined sequence of operations conditioned by habit prompted by pleasure.

One may soon find one’s self on a Hedonic Treadmill chasing a craving for happiness that becomes evermore unattainable.

source

“The hedonic treadmill, which is also referred to as hedonic adaptation, is a metaphor for your set point of happiness. The idea here is that no matter how good or bad something makes you feel, you will eventually return to your original emotional state” (developgoodhabits).

Cue music: “The Windmills of Your Mind“:

“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon…

Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream…”

“

Aristippus (435-356 BC) the philosopher saw danger in pleasure and advised, “It is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without being worsted” (source).

“The vice lies not in entering the bordello but in not coming out” (Aristippus)

The philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BC) agreed, but his idea of pleasure was ataraxy, “a state of serene calmness.”

Epicurus advised us not to be ambitious but to live in harmony with nature and strive for tranquility brought by contentment with simple things and the absence of pain.

Existential Comics: Was Epicurus Really a Hedonist?

Our happiness formula is backwards. We think, “If I do something great, work overtime, get straight A’s, achieve some goal, then I’ll become more successful, and then I’ll be happier.”

But a few weeks after a goal is achieved, the trip over, the new treasure made familiar, happiness levels return to normal and a new goal is needed to achieve happiness later.

The trick to evading the trap of cravings and treadmills is to not wait until later to be happy. Save time and be happy first! To do that, it’s quite simple: Go without expectations, forget who you are and shift from thinking, “I must do something,” to, “I must do nothing.” The real trick is to enjoy reality as it is, because it is.

You are free to enjoy, but enjoying the world as it is, as you are, is difficult for people who are weighed down by time and things to be done.

Accepting reality without need, fear, or demand, with a sigh, without resistance, “this is what it is,” you suddenly find yourself relaxing into what there is (see also: “This too shall pass“).

Enjoy A Good Laugh

“Now, too, on melancholy’s idle dreams 
Musing, the lone spot with my soul agrees”
(“Sweet Was the Walk” Wordsworth).

To understand humans, just watch them. See what they do. Fascinating creatures. Watch their facial expressions and actions. Listen to their words and intonations.

Watch a man drive aggressively. He tailgates. He cuts in and out. He races. He honks. He stops only when he must. Can you tell by his driving what he’s thinking? Probably.

Hurry puts people in bad humour. Look at the face of an aggressive driver—narrowed eyes, angled eyebrows, gritted teeth—unless he’s a constipated criminal or Paul Anka singing, “Having my baby”, this is not the face of peace. This is the demon face of frustration and anger—not to mention arrogance and thrill-seeking behaviour.

Poor selfish lout, so stressed out. One might feel pity if he weren’t scary. Here is machine man surrounded by machine people who have become as gods to themselves. He might prefer to relax and enjoy a nice ride, but he’s too busy listening to reptilian brain chatter.

“Blocking My Reptile” by Stuart McMillen

We’ve all been there. The good old basal ganglia (aka reptilian or primal brain). It’s the part controlling automatic self-preserving behavior and the four Fs: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing, and…. Reproduction (source). It’s the part that defends self, family and personal property and performs socially acceptable actions like handshakes and head nods.

The doer is revealed by the deed but it could be argued that everyone does the best they can—even if it is terrible (see  related post: “World Views, Weird Edges & Higher States of Consciousness”). If people could do better, they would, wouldn’t they? If we don’t pay attention, it is only in yesterday that we realize what happened.

As an individual, you live a life that no one else will live. Knowing yourself will only come from an intensely personal and passionate pursuit of what gives meaning to your life. Consider what brings you joy and focus on that.

Beyond the emptiness of perpetual pleasure-seeking and bad tidings of your disappearance in the wake of time and a society that’ll suck you dry…… there is another way.

The trick is to become aware of your true self subjectively. This is the psychology of religion. To feel yourself as your true self is to have a profound feeling of yourself not in an egotistical sense—not in sadness, anger, fear, envy, jealousy, despair or some negative feeling—but by a silent awareness, a perception that, this is me. I am here. Look at this world. Isn’t it amazing? These people are like me.

If good old Aristotle with wine on breath, asked you point blank—BAM: “How should we live?” Dear reader: What is your answer?

Is the  focus on yourself or on society and its rules? As your mind races for words to answer Aristotle (how’d he get in here anyway?), you think about how life feels accidental. In flashes of memory you see your past and like a Talking Head ask, “Where does that highway go to? And you may ask yourself: Am I right?…Am I wrong? And you may say to yourself: My God!…What have I done?!” (“Once in a Lifetime”).

Life stretches ahead as the past falls away (see: “Enjoy A Perfect World”). You enjoy yourself when you can and work hard as you must. You enjoy the cake you get and sing with defiance, “I will survive. Yeah, as long as I know how to love, I know I’ll be alive” (“I Will Survive”).

“How should we live?” Good question. Decisions made thoughtfully when young feel arbitrary when old. We have pleasures and aversions and find love where we can. When young we sing, “I hope I die before I get old” (“My Generation“) and when old, we sing a different tune.

Things happen. Like Sid Vicious, Sinatra and Elvis, we too sing, “Regrets, I’ve had a few;  but then again, too few to mention. I did what I had to do. And saw it through without exemption” (“My Way”). We have reasons for what we’ve done but we might wonder at times, “Is it me, or is life meaningless? Where’s the fairness in this?”

One person has a fantastic life and another is subjected to misery. Why is that? If God is randomness, then you are a believer.

Maybe philosopher Albert Camus (1913-1960) was onto something when he said that existence is absurd.

“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world” (The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays).

In 1960 Albert Camus (aged 46) died when the Facel Vega he was riding in crashed.

How should we live? Why should? Who says should? Is this about ethical living? In the dictionary should is a verb indicating “obligation, duty or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions.”

We know we should give more weight to promoting social welfare than to achieving personal gain but what’s more important, you or society? Here we come to the crux of the matter. A body with a brain is a person, but is there more to a self?

The trick is to enjoy yourself without causing harm in this perfect life that is all your own. Think of a person trying to decide whether to play video games, watch TV, go to work or go for a walk. The different “yous”—aspects of your personality—are conflicting, but the conflict itself is part of what makes you you.

Old wise Epicurus (341-270 BC) said in a letter, “It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and honorably and justly, and it is impossible to live wisely and honorably without living pleasantly.” Dance to your song and let the wheels of time turn as they will anyway.

Enjoy.

Enjoy A Space For Happiness

The question to ask of a philosophy is not whether it is original but whether it is true (Cicero, 45 BC). A philosophy of enjoyment is based on the premise that you know what is true by way of experience. In the same way that you know fear by having been afraid, you know enjoyment by having have enjoyed.

Happiness and enjoyment are related but where enjoyment is temporary, happiness is durable. If enjoyment is the journey, happiness is the destination. If tears of happiness come from the heart, tears of enjoyment come from the belly from laughing. If enjoyment comes as a carefree feeling, happiness comes mainly from caring.

Enjoyment and happiness can be tested for validity. It’s a “proof of the pudding is in the eating” type thing – like in the movie Scrooge (1951) where nuances of happiness and enjoyment in relation to pudding are revealed.

Tiny Tim looks forward to pudding. His mother worries that it won’t be any good but his father, Bob Cratchit, assures her that it will be perfect because he knows the merit of the pudding is incidental in relation to the love they enjoy together.

It’s a John Donne (1572-1631), “No man is an island entire unto itself” type thing – or as Robin Williams put it, “No man is an island but some are peninsulas.“

“Man On Desert Island” by JGZON.

The Cratchit family in A Christmas Carol (1843) is poor and happy. Scrooge is rich and unhappy. A church moralist might say that if Scrooge had virtue, he wouldn’t have been miserable. The moral: with virtue comes happiness. But the philosopher Freddy Nietzsche said that it’s the other way ’round! A happy man is naturally virtuous. The moral: with happiness comes virtue.  

“Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard’s rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment – a little makes the way of the best happiness” ~ Thus Spake Zarathustra.

Nietzsche said that church moralists say, “Do this and that, refrain from this and that – then you will be happy! Otherwise…” but if you watch a happy man, you will see how he carries happiness into relationships in ways that make him virtuous.

In Twilight of the Idols (1888) Nietzsche wrote, “Every mistake in every sense is the effect of the degeneration of instinct…All that is good is instinct – and hence easy, necessary, free.”

Observe animals. Feel natural. Ever notice how a reality of rocks, clouds, birds and trees becomes boring to people? Why does this happen?

Why doesn’t reality blow us away like it did when we were children?

A little cock-sparrow sat on a high tree … And he chirrupped, he chirrupped so merrily.

There was a time when the world perceived with our senses was not named. That’s when the world was your miracle and will be again.

Just listen. Don’t say a word about what you hear. Going into the space between one thought and another is like splitting the atom.

Nothing blows up but consciousness opens.

As long as you remain an airy nothing in reality, you are an angel in a space called heaven. Space is nothing but a continuous expanse of height, depth and width that is free and unoccupied within which all things (including you) exist and move. Space is within you. Space is infinite. It’s within and around everything you see and don’t see.

“Space: the final frontier.” To be “spaced out” is to be stupefied in quietude as if from a drug. It’s when words in your brain fall silent. It’s when you’re aware of yourself in a now state of mind that is free.

Contrary to what manufacturers of desire and discontent spin, it doesn’t take much to be happy. More than what would satisfy a sparrow is superfluous. A wish for happiness is a will for perfection (source) but a wish will only become reality through an effort of will. It’s a “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” type thing.

A quick trick to make a wish for happiness come true is to enjoy whatever comes to you.

Nietzsche admired Epicurus’s idea of a happy life, “A little garden, figs, a little cheese and in addition three or four good friends – these were the sensual pleasures of Epicurus” (source). To Epicurus and Nietzsche happiness comes  from a modest existence cultivated with “spiritual joyfulness” (Freudigkeit) and not over-indulgence.

In the end, it isn’t a matter of getting what you want. Can you make yourself want something? Can you will yourself to want something? Wants come unannounced. Ask yourself, “Why do I want this?” again and again and you might find the reason for wanting is a habit of mind.

Here we think about time and space – not time as in a rotation of the world or as in a chronological birthday countdown increasing in number. Here we think about enjoying for reasons of happiness and a better world because just as the band Crowded House sang it in 1992, “Everywhere you go you always take the weather with you.” You effect your surroundings by the person you are. Lighten up and love one another without fault-finding.

Enjoy a new you in old shoes (or an old you in new shoes). See the baby that was in the eyes of a grown up other. Here’s to the love in everyone!

References

Nietzsche’s Therapeutic Teaching: For Individuals and Culture (2013) edited by Horst Hutter, Eli Friedland.

Ansell-Pearson, K. (2013). Heroic-Idyllic Philosophizing: Nietzsche and the Epicurean Tradition.

Hedonism, Selfishness And A Womb With A View

When it comes to pleasure of the simple sort that is neither decadent nor salacious, there are two kinds of people. You have people who do not (and will not) enjoy anything (no matter what) and you have people for whom personal pleasure is the only thing that matters even if their enjoyment is at the expense of another.

Most people fall somewhere in-between. This is called hedonism–from the Greek word “hedone” meaning “pleasure.” Most people associate hedonism with narcissism and extreme self-involvement, but that is misguided.

Hedonism isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Enjoying a cup of tea after you rescue 20 puppies from a terrible master is an example of hedonism.

According to science it’s really quite simple: to enjoy life all you have to do is create the mood for it and it is you yourself who creates your mood. Research shows that your brain sends “chemical neurotransmitters to tell you your mood” (source).

It’s all about serotonin and dopamine. 

Serotonin is a “neurotransmitter of pleasure and enjoyment” (source) and to get serotonin it’s as simple as going for a walk (source).

Dopamine is “in the pleasure system of the brain, providing feelings of enjoyment” (Psychologist World) and to get dopamine all you have to do is: 1) eat right, 2) sleep well and 3) move that body! (wikiHow).

Mungo Jerry explains: “We’re no threat, people. We’re not dirty, we’re not mean. We love everybody but we do as we please. When the weather’s fine, we go fishin’ or go swimmin’ in the sea. We’re always happy. Life’s for livin’ yeah, that’s our philosophy”  In the Summertime. 

Just another day.

Preacher says: “Hedonism is narcissism. A hedonist is one who lives a self-dominated and self-focused life. A hedonist is committed to satisfy, by all means, the lusts, urges, and appetites of his sinful nature” (Hedonism: A Heart Problem).

But the original Greek meaning of hedonist is just “pleasure, delight, enjoyment” (Etymology Dictionary).

The trouble isn’t with “pleasure, delight or enjoyment.” The trouble is with human beings.

No matter how incredible an experience is, you will still return to how happy you normally feel.

That’s the hedonic treadmill.

“Help!” shouts Bob. See treadmill scene from Lost In Translation.

“Expectations and desires rise in tandem” (Wikipedia).

Bootlegger Nucky Thompson in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire (2010-2014) looks back on his life and explains, “The first time I got a nickel tip, I thought the world is great. . . . But a dime would be better. Then I wanted a quarter.”

That’s the treadmill.

Hedonism holds that things are good as long as they are pleasant, and bad as long as they are painful. From the moment of birth, the good for each individual is that person’s pleasure. If you look back on your life and deem it a good one, then you yourself will have enjoyed it, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t pooh, pigs and wind!
Philosopher Robert Nozick (1938-2002) posed the following thought experiment. Imagine scientists have a machine – picture the Matrix or virtual reality – that simulates real life while guaranteeing only pleasurable experiences, never pain. The catch is, you have to leave reality behind.

Nozick asks, “If you were given the choice to sign up for that kind of existence, would you?”

We may not get what we enjoy. We may sacrifice freedom to look after babies, do jobs we don’t like or go to parties and funerals no matter what we’d rather be doing.

“You know, we’re living in a SOCIETY!” shouts George (see video clip)

For 300 years ancient Epicureans emphasized moderation over mindless hedonism because extravagant pleasures make us their slaves. Happiness takes courage, moderation, and other virtues (IEP).

“Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet” (Epicurus’s Letter to Menoeceus).

Bill Murray said, “The more relaxed you are, the better you are at everything: the better you are with your loved ones, the better you are with your enemies, the better you are at your job, the better you are with yourself” (Bill Murray’s Advice).

In the last analysis what makes life worth living is your enjoyment of it.

Joey from “Friends” (1994-2004) nailed it. “Look,” he said, “there’s no unselfish good deed… That’s because all people are selfish… selfless good deeds don’t exist!” (see video clip).

That’s psychological egoism. It says we’re always motivated by self-interest (IEP). The question is: Who is this self that is so self-interested?

The obvious answer is: I’m so-and-so; I like such-and-such; I hate this-and-that. But could this be a limited self-interested perspective?

When someone says, “My temper got the better of me. I didn’t mean it,” or “My lust got the better of me. I couldn’t help it,” who is doing that? who is that I? (What do you think?)

Is it: A) What you do for enjoyment and/or employment? or *B) Who you think you are when you’re aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it? *Note: If you picked B), you may be in a process of self transformation.

Delight in that happy feeling.

In “The Enormous Womb” (1941) Henry Miller wrote, “As far as I can make out, there is never anything but womb. First and last there is the womb of Nature; then there is the mother’s womb; and finally there is the womb in which we have our life and being and which we call the world. It is the failure to recognize the world as womb which is the cause of our misery” (p. 94).

Henry Miller says there are people alive and moving who live in bliss. Such people are less unconscious. They’re different because of their attitude. They accept the world as womb, not tomb. They don’t regret what’s past or fear what’s coming. They live in a state of awareness without fear simply by adopting an attitude — and so can you.

Now… go! Relax and be happy in your relaxing.

Ideals, Repose and the Prefrontal Cortex

An ideal is a standard of perfection. It lives in the imagination. It’s a conception of something excellent, an ultimate object, an aim or an ultimate “good” that we imagine. An ideal can be anything. It doesn’t have to be universal or other-worldly.

You can have your ideal summer, your ideal sandwich, your ideal bird. You can imagine your ideal wife or ideal husband. A parent can imagine their ideal child and a farmer their ideal cow. It’s a dream image of perfection. We invent ideals to serve our deepest needs and happiness. Our ideal life will be this way or that – ideal house, ideal lover, ideal friend, ideal environment – and then, we measure the success of our expectations against those ideals.

George Santayana (1862-1952)

The “surprise” is that most things don’t meet our expectations which makes things appear ugly. The philosopher George Santayana said that there are two modes of consciousness: there’s day-to-day life as a Homo sapiens (Latin for wise man or knowing man), and there’s escape. Escape comes as freedom from anxieties, cares and problems.

Escape is about seeing the whole forest that couldn’t be seen because you were too close, and focusing on trees. It’s when you realize the world is ideal as it is and you can enjoy whatever comes along. Ideal enjoyment goes with the Lucretian goal of “happiness.”

Lucretius, who probably died in 55 BC at age 44, wrote, “Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s tribulation: not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant” (Book II, Line I).

Lucretius loved Epicurus.

“What is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure” (Epicurus).

Epicurus (341-270 BC) was a gentle man who said, “The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity” (Vatican Sayings 8). 

Strife and violence in ancient Rome partly explains Lucretius’ commitment to the Epicurean ideal of “intellectual pleasure and tranquillity of mind” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Heraclitus (540-470 BC).

Aside from there being more of us and new technologies, Homo sapiens haven’t changed since ancient Rome. We’re still stupid. We lack higher levels of understanding. We can’t help it. It’s our brains. It isn’t easy being human. You can be absolutely certain about something and be absolutely wrong. You can plan ahead, but things change: you get sick, lose a job, fail, get old, disasters strike. Heraclitus said a mouthful when he said with his mouth full, “All is flux. Nothing is stationary.”

We’re overly optimistic, mechanistic and absorbed in “stuff.” We fool ourselves with gregarious pleasures we don’t really enjoy. To feel profound enjoyment, takes brain training.

In “The Vulcanization of the Human Brain” scientist J. Cohen (2005) describes the conflict between emotional and cognitive parts of the brain. We have an “old” brain (about the size of a fist) that makes quick, inflexible decisions driven by emotion, desire and physical needs, and we have a “new” brain (the prefrontal cortex and cortical layer).

This “new” part can override anger, pride and impatience, but it takes reasoned practice. You can train this “new” part through contemplation, cogitation, deliberation, meditation and rumination. You can override emotional vexations and frustrations by stepping back, reframing, reassessing and reposing.

Wisdom personified.

“Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy” (Proverbs of Solomon).

To feel this kind of happiness is to live the repose of a heath as described by Thomas Hardy in The Return of the Native (1874).

In the novel Hardy wrote, “To do things musingly, and by small degrees… not the repose of actual stagnation, but the… repose of incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life…” (p. 10).

Take lucky moments of awareness and mix them with moments of simple pleasures. Moments of pleasure are illustrated in the movie Chocolat (2000).

We would do well to take the kind advice of the young priest in the movie who said, “We can’t go around measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, by what we resist and who we exclude. I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”

The narrator is the little girl in the film who is now grown up looking back on her life. In her closing narrations she says, “The parishioners felt a new sensation that day: a lightening of the spirit; a freedom from the old tranquillity.”

This “new sensation” of lightening of spirit and freedom is to enjoy an escape from anxiety, fear and worry. In this, ideal enjoyment can be realized any time you so choose. One need only contemplate, slow down, reason and enjoy.