I think we're losing signal here. What's a perfect wold to you? — Caldwell

There is always something to be happy or sad about. Very nice homes throughout the West are full of older folks that (even if they have checked-off all the boxes) are neither happy nor content.

Contentment is a state that generally takes a great deal of work and persistence, as opposed to happiness which is widely available (with free 2-day shipping!).

Whereas I do believe people need to come to grips with their past, it seems like the most important part of growing-up is when you finally acknowledge that the past is past and your future is going to be determined (to a great extent) by what your own actions.

And isn't one of the great benefits of mindfulness?

Being present (cultivating awareness) creates a true past.

I disagree. Rationalization is much a strategy to remedy a situation. "Has made peace with them" is not gonna cut it for this happiness -- this is not contentment, but acceptance when all else failed. — Caldwell

Then how can anybody be content (or happy) in such an imperfect world?

Everything becomes and recurs eternally_ escape is impossible.' — Jack Cummins

Perhaps he referring to the little voice in our minds that play events over and over and over...

Of course no one says to accept a wretched condition -- if you find yourself in this situation, please do something to get out of it. Contentment requires work. Don't just accept your situation, work on it, until you can honestly tell yourself "I'm okay". — Caldwell

Much of this is a matter of definition, but contentment can exist without happiness. Take the person who can have a number of serious health issues but has made peace with them. They can be content, but not necessarily happy.

So you think that a positive emotion must entail a negative emotion?

This isn't rocket science (we are not dealing with moving masses). The reverse should be true in your scheme that terrible grief should lead to immense happiness, and joy should be followed by sadness. That isn't how my universe works. — Bitter Crank

People who have been through really difficult periods in their lives are often able to handle other issues in their lives (going forward) with a much higher degree of skill. In going through these trying periods, people learn to adapt, add skills and coping mechanisms, as well as, have realizations specific to their experiences.

One negative occurrence does not have to immediately follow a positive one (although it can). Sometimes, it may take a lifetime to reveal.

And it is actually how your universe works, you just haven't been around long enough to realize it. This is why everybody should have a natural respect for older people (which used to be the case).

With the ascension of science to the top of Mt. Olympus over the past couple of centuries, it makes perfect sense that dependency on the manipulation of data (mathematics being the language of their holy journals) will be seen as a more efficient method to control the affairs of man than is the application of human compassion.

After all, could there be better method to disguise the true intention of of any system then to package it in mathematical mumbo-jumbo and then tell people, "You must follow the science."

Any movement towards the "positive" must have an equal movement back towards the "negative
— synthesis

Why? How? Where did this come from? — Bitter Crank

It seems to be how the Universe works.

Yeah, but what about orgasm? Intense pleasure morphs into deep relaxation(depending on who you’re with, of course) and then maybe sleep. No necessary transition to sadness or letdown — Joshs

It would be negligent to assume that life is not a cornucopia of things good and bad happening each moment so no one event exists in a vacuum.

On the ledger of good/bad feelings, it all works out.

And besides, if orgasms were the answer, you might have more folks dedicating much of their time to this activity.

What to you, would be happiness. It wouldn't be anything you've experienced because then you'd know or at least be able to rationalize why not everything is so simple. — Outlander

To me, happiness is a feeling people get when they believe something good (or positive) has happened in their behalf. It is more often then not mere illusion and melds quite nice with my favorite aphorism from Mark Twain...

"Some of the worst things in my life never happened."

So, sure -- one part of happiness is (privately) feeling good. And the other part is being productively and publicly engaged. — Bitter Crank

The example doesn't matter. It holds regardless. Any movement towards the "positive" must have an equal movement back towards the "negative," i.e., there's no free lunch :).

I used the example I did because it's generally one to which nearly everyone can relate.

YES, but does happiness always result directly in sadness? — Joshs

Here's one of the great all-time examples of this cycle...

...Monday (sucks), Tuesday (a bit better), Wednesday (hump day), Thursday (it's Friday tomorrow), Friday (TGIF), Saturday (Yeah!!), Sunday (oh no, tomorrow is Monday)...

I dunno some people have all the luck. — Outlander

The Grand Illusion.

Nobody gets a free pass in this life.

I'm of a stoical disposition - IMO, stoicism is the route and recipe to true happiness. — Pantagruel

We all arrive and depart this plane (of existence) alone, so you might have something there!

Yeah, I just wrote pretty much the same thing.

Life is what it is and will hit all of us with all kinds of stuff. In order to be in position to enjoy the good and deal effectively with the not-so-good, you have to fortify your center. That way, you will not overly attach to the good (and be crushed when that is over), and be strong enough to deal with the not-so-good so you can be whole once it finally departs, as well.

Happiness seems to work like any other drug.

Although there is nothing wrong with happiness and pleasure, it can never take the place of doing what we must in order to achieve those things that bring us a sense of overall well-being...like working hard, eating well, getting regular exercise, having a spiritual life, and helping others (among other things), that is, living your life with meaningful purpose.

This puts happiness in it's correct place as an occasional dessert to be savored, not the main course day after day after day where it loses it appeal just like every other drug.

Your position essentially revolves around the question of definitions. — Pantagruel

What communication via language does not?

What you call contentment I think is a mature understanding of happiness. — Pantagruel

Contentment is being ok with whatever presents in life, and I would agree that this realization should come with maturity, but Western culture does not seem to be advocating such, instead, it offers the idea that attaining a state of happiness should be one's raison d'entre (and of course, nobody can maintain such a state, so it's the perfect lure).

Your position is quite clear. Hide behind whatever words you wish, but this is exactly how racists try to disguise their hatred. There is no justification for hating a group of people because of their skin color. I don't care what you call it.

Oh dear, yet another person who doesn't know what racism is. Gawd help us. — creativesoul

Isn't it funny how it's everybody else? I know what racism is when I see it, and it is you.

Oh dear, yet another white person that does not know what white privilege is, nor the benefits of acquiring such knowledge. So many people equate privilege to being wealthy. It's not about being wealthy. — creativesoul

What an incredibly racist thing to say.

Before you start telling other people what the story is, you might want to spend a few more years learning about people and the world and how it works.

Is this what you mean?

“Every questioning is a seeking. — Joshs

Not quite. It is as if the question is prompted by an already known (but unaccessible) answer.

On a spiritual level, I would agree, but on an intellectual level, it can get considerably more complicated.

Why do you say that?

It appears to me that, in terms of temporal sequence, a certain aspect of nature has to acquire some kind of significance in and of itself and this significance can be in the cultural, social, physical, technological, epistemological, etc. spheres/domains before a question pertaining to it can make sense and questions have to make sense for them to be answered, right? — TheMadFool

When you get down to it, the very nature of a question itself is pretty bizarre. For instance, let's say you Google, "What is the so on and so forth?" What you are getting back is a canned answer, the standard default that has no chance of being correct even it it was considered with great care.

Even something like, "What year was the American Declaration of Independence signed?" The answer would be 1776, but this would be true only if you are counting your years using the Roman calendar. It would also be ten other answers using ten other calendars, right? Applying this to something much more subtle, you can see the rabbit hole becoming large enough to take us all down (and it does on a regular basis).

My preliminary investigation suggests that time (when?) and space (where?) were conceived of by the human mind before when? and where? became meaningful. When? and where? would be meaningless without a frame of reference in which space and time didn't/doesn't exist. Likewise, it's my suspicion that without an established sense of personhood, free will, and responsibility, among other things, the question who? would be devoid of meaning. — TheMadFool

Yeah, but what all this have to do with living a meaningful life?

You have to figure out what makes sense to you. Opinions are a dime a dozen.

I would say that understanding of others needs to overcome the attempt to know what the other needs entirely, and keep an open mind, allowing for unique individuality. — Jack Cummins

The idea of awareness is that the person is going to tell you what they need (even though they cannot see it themselves).

As well, I believe the only thing you can tell somebody is that they need to figure it out themselves (because they are the only one who actually knows their stuff). The skill then becomes how to get that message across.

The best anybody can do for anyone (including oneself) is to achieve a measure of clarity (awareness) so you can not only accurately perceive issues, but just as important, react appropriately (with the greatest skill).

Compassion is doing just this. Applying this to self would be like having a self and other in the mix. Seems unnecessary. Doing the appropriate thing is just doing the appropriate thing. Need more be said?

...I would say that our approach to others is connected to that towards others. The link is that our feelings towards others' needs stems from our understanding of our own individual ones. — Jack Cummins

And that's exactly the problem. We are projecting our stuff instead of seeing what they need (as each individual/situation is unique).

You can't have compassion for yourself? — frank

I don't know. Is masturbation having sex with yourself?

I believe people confuse emotion (empathy/sympathy) with compassion. Emotion is 100% about self, compassion (should be) 100% about other.

Compassion can take on any face.

Empathy is what prevents indifference, the root cause of virtually all suffering man will ever face. — Outlander

Please explain further.

For instance, location and time are crucial to living an organized life which itself is indispensable to living a meaningful life... — TheMadFool

Please explain both parts of this statement.

Asking a question presupposes the question has an answer, else the asking is a nonsense question. But certainly the asking is not the answer itself. — tim wood

All things are fluid, so just as the question changes its form moment by moment, so must the answer. The key becomes accessing the flow of change...accomplished through awareness alone.

And maybe in asking the question why, we are looking for an answer that has always been there. — Antony Nickles

My suspicion is that we have stored everything we have come into contact with since our inception. Asking the question might be the final conscious effort to find specific information.

The fact that there are individuals that can perform complex mathematical computations in their head suggests that we are all capable of this. Way beyond doing math in your head, just think how it is possible (and I use this example frequently) of preforming tasks like driving at high speeds in traffic.

It seems quite apparent that 99.999...% of our brain power is used for matters of which we are never aware. And just perhaps, questions that seem immensely complex to our conscious mind are ultra basic to that mind which lucks beneath.

It's certainly true that asking the right question is often 90% of the quest to find the right answer. — fishfry

I believe it is a matter of awareness. It also seems reasonable to assume that people who are really good at what they do are able to tap into this store of knowledge and formulate answers in the form of questions. Perhaps that's simply the intellectual process of finding out what we already know.

I would argue that only a possible answer must be consolidated - not necessarily known - before the question posited — Possibility

I guess that's a possibility but it becomes complicated because answers vary with constantly changing conditions that give rise to questions.

I’m a little confused by the question (if there is one) posed. Maybe there isn’t one and that’s cool. Is your post about whether or not conceiving of something means that you “know” about it?If so, know what about it? Anything? — Anthony Minickiello

The question still stands, "Is it the answer that precedes the question?" IOW, must one conceptualize the answer before the question can be posited?

I put this out there because people become stuck in patterns of thought that are nothing but habitual. As well, what's really happening is taking place outside of our conceptual thinking so perhaps that is playing a part, i.e., feeding clues to our conscious intellect or some such thing.

Like I could speculate over the existence of unicorns and have a preconceived image of what unicorns look like in my head, but it doesn’t follow from those facts alone that I know all there is to know about unicorns, right? Moreover, I could conceive of what a moral life is like, but does the mere fact that I posed the question prove that I know what a moral life is? So I could use some clarification. — Anthony Minickiello

This would be more specific. If you don't know about the subject-matter, how can you formulate a question? What I am saying is that we know a great deal more than what we think we know.

Or if the question has to do with “knowing the answer before the question is asked”, I’m not sure that is necessarily true for all questions. Maybe I could ask my teacher for clarification on a math problem without having a clue of their response, right? — Anthony Minickiello

In your example, how would you know what to ask?

The idea is that all true knowledge is gathered before the intellect kicks-in. Think about the processing that goes on in your brain when you are driving on the freeway at 85mph and there are vehicles all around you. There is no time to figure out what to do, you just do it by absorbing infinite data points and making constant adjustments to your vehicles speed, position, etc., all without being conscious of this process. How does that work?

Let's consider the question, "What's on the other side of the Universe?"

An interested observer might say, "There!!, I've got you, there is no way you can know what's on the other side of the Universe.........right?

Wrong. After all, isn't conceptualization, knowing? Is it possible to speculate on the existence of something you do not know anything about?

I am not really sure I understand what you mean by that.