Objectivity, and the path to joy
Are we really objective when evaluating our own happiness? Maybe if one were really responding to a need, and not a want (driven by social validation or self image), one would be in the moment, and experience joy.
Tag: happiness
Finn, Tolstoy, and happy families
Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” A.J. Finn’s character in The Woman in the Window says that “No family, happy or unhappy, is quite like any other.” Who is right?
Peak Abstraction
Our capacity to feel, imagine and visualise led us to abstractions which allowed us to communicate with each other. Even the idea of consciousness is an abstraction of complex neural interactions. Over time, abstractions have made their way into many spheres of our lives. What lies next?
Project Happiness
Our “big” annual vacation typically happens around May-June. But at least six months of preparation precedes it, and my levels of preparation (which D has now been almost coerced into) might be considered way too orchestrated for practical purposes. My defense is that in all probability, this would be the only time we visit the […]
Prisons of happiness
I read a few articles recently debating whether the purpose of life is happiness or usefulness/leading a worthwhile life. The Aztecs as well as contemporary thinkers favour the latter. I am not convinced though. For starters, I think ‘purpose’s is something our consciousness insists on. The world will go on without us, it is for us to derive […]