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bhrgunatha  ·  2759 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How to be Perfectly Unhappy

I think a lot of people would benefit from the shift in perspective this comic gives. ...but...

    But I've never felt "happy".

    I've felt joy. I've felt bliss.

    But those feelings are ephemeral.

    Being "happy" implies permanence

I don't agree with his premise that happiness is permanent and unchanging though. Why would it be?

I think he's using happiness as a blunt euphemism for "a successful station in life" where we're given never ending short term goals to be measured against some kind of material criteria (test scores, grades, a job, a promotion, a boy/girlfriend, earnings, a car, a house....,) rather than an internal sense of well being (yeah and now I'm being obtuse and vague.) These things are ridiculously difficult to describe - "like catching water with a net".

I'm eternally grateful I learned meditation in my mid 20s because that gave me an alternative perspective earlier than I think I would have found without it. That's part of what this comic is alluding to (reading a bit between the lines) as well as the idea of "flow" or being absorbed timelessly in your current activity.