Happiness
The drops of oil on the spoon
I'm reminded of their faces
When our forces are resolved
If I had The Sads
Joy in the merely attainable
But the really fundamental problem with desiring the unattainable is that as soon as you actually get it, it stops being unattainable. If we cannot take joy in the merely available, our lives will always be frustrated.
The threat of happiness
Dr. Saavedra had diagnosed a case of anhedonia, a disease defined by the British Medical Association as a reaction remarkably close to mountain sickness resulting from the sudden terror brought on by the threat of happiness. It was a common disease among tourists in this region of Spain, faced in these idyllic surroundings with the sudden realization that earthly happiness might be within their grasp, and prey therefore to a violent physiological reaction designed to counteract such a daunting possibility.
A strangely negative character
Utility has a strangely negative character. We speak of the secret of happiness, for its causes are elusive; but there is no secret about the causes of unhappiness: thirst, hunger, want of sleep, exhaustion, pain, constraint of movement and too great heat and cold, are evils which can effectively prevent happiness. Utility has a negative character, because useful devices are adopted in the main for the sake ultimately of avoiding such evils.
From the fact that deadly injury, pain, and exhaustion prevent the fulfillment of the universal wish for happiness, we have always tended to infer that if only life were safe, comfortable, and effortless, we would be happy. It does not follow.
A being-without
Not having a toothache is no goal for a lifetime. Happiness, however one defined it, is not something negative, a being-without.
The search for happiness
If the search for happiness is the underlying quest of our lives, it seems only natural that it should simultaneously be the essential theme to which beauty alludes.
More by accident
In an intentional bout of concentrated major thinking, where you sit down with the conscious intention of confronting major questions like 'Am I currently happy?' or 'What, ultimately, do I really care about and believe in?' or— particularly if some kind of authority figure has just squeezed your shoes—'Am I essentially a worthwhile, contributing type of person or a drifting, indifferent, nihilistic person?', then the questions often end up not answered but more like beaten to death, so attacked from every angle and each angle's different objections and complications that they end up even more abstract and ultimately meaningless than when you started. Nothing is achieved this way, at least that I've ever heard of. Certainly, from all evidence, St. Paul, or Martin Luther, or the authors of The Federalist Papers, or even President Reagan never changed the direction of their lives this way—it happened more by accident.
The Architecture of Happiness
A Book by Alain de BottonGood Things
A Website by Melanie RichardsThanks Doc
An Article by Robin Rendle & Craig ModA couple of months back, Craig mentioned in a video that he has a doc filled to the brim with snippets of text—nice words, compliments, and thanks that had been sent his way for his work. Whenever someone says something nice he just copy/pastes it into that doc.
It sounds silly at first and perhaps a little egotistical. Behold! I have a document that proves how great I am!
But I started doing it just to see what it feels like and…hey…actually? It’s so great! When I’m feeling low (often) or whenever the world feels unstable (extremely often) it’s so very nice to return to a few kind words about my work. It reminds me just how much these words of praise mean, it reminds me that I ought to pass that favor along.
Five Nice Things
An Article by Siobhan O'ConnorAt our dinners, we sometimes played a game we called Five Nice Things. It is what it sounds like: You take turns naming things that are nice. Five is the number. It can be a thing that makes you happy, a compliment for the other person, a win at work, “This broccoli is tasty,” whatever. It’s a bit sappy, but it’s not the sappiest, and the rules were: Don’t overthink it, and be specific.
Shinrin-yoku
A DefinitionForest Therapy, also known as “Shinrin-yoku,” refers to the practice of spending time in forested areas for the purpose of enhancing health, wellness, and happiness. The practice follows the general principle that it is beneficial to spend time bathing in the atmosphere of the forest. The Japanese words translate into English as “Forest Bathing.”
The Cycle of Emotions
An Article by Jessica FanWhen we do not cultivate our Pillars, they grow weak and our Platform of Radiance becomes unstable, causing us to fall into one of the four Pits of Suffering below.
Each Pillar has a corresponding Pit of Suffering:
- Love > Attachment
- Compassion > Sentimentality
- Joy > Elation
- Equanimity > Apathy
To supersede the span of individual life
A QuoteNothing gives man fuller satisfaction than participation in processes that supersede the span of individual life.
— Gotthard Booth
Numbers/Words
Christmastime 04:04:04
Turn it upside down.
I was in a hotel room a few years ago and I woke up in the early hours and glanced at the digital clock radio. It displayed the time using six digits HH:MM:SS
Just at the moment I glanced it flicked over to 04:04:04. It occurred to me that, using calculator word logic, this would read ‘ho ho ho’ if viewed upside down. That year I produced a Christmas card with those digits on the front and ‘Christmastime’ printed upside down as the message on the inside. In the absence of any further explanation, absolutely nobody understood the card.
4:56
I was looking at my digital clock last-night and it occurred to me that 4:56 is quite an interesting time.
4 uses four segments of the seven-segment display
5 uses five segments of the seven-segment display
6 uses six segments of the seven-segment displayNumeric anagrams
"Eleven plus two" is an anagram of "twelve plus one".
— Craig Sharp
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Twelve + One = Eleven + Two
I love the beauty of this numeric/anagram equation for 13— Linda Vanderkolk