Existential Happiness
“Love and work… work and love, that’s all there is.” – Sigmund Freud
Suspension of disbelief regarding self-determination is a useful skill, that in combination with nature’s soothing defaults can offer a path to happiness. It is important to believe that it is possible to effect levels of happiness deliberately. However, some people might be happier living with the truths of the matter rather than to drift away with pragmatic rationalizations.
It is, of course, obligatory to state that happiness (like everything else) has something to do with ‘balance’… however unsatisfying and threadbare this truism is. It seems more than sufficiently evident that good health is the greatest contributing factor for prolonged happiness. Engagement in and cultivation of rich social relationships is important. Now with the obvious out of the way, some inspiration then, the hard stuff.
There is a path to peak experience that exists if only one can apprehend it. Nature has its rules and is a difficult master, but the human animal is adept at exploiting what is available for change. With some insight and effort we should be able to increase the frequency of peak experience and build a happiness supporting infrastructure of behaviour.
Stark existential truth has been dubbed ‘the abyss’ (look it up). The misconception is that, along with the apprehending of this truth comes a despairing hopelessness that removes any possibility of happiness. This is bullshit. Yes, maybe it is shocking, disturbing, disorienting and confusing, but in reality the capacity for happiness is built into our biology so deeply that not even perception of the abyss can subdue it. There is nothing dark about the abyss, it just is just a fact of the matter which is temporarily shocking until familiarity is achieved. Besides, with the dissolution of all things, even death looses its importance and is no longer a difficult preoccupation, one is liberated to be happy with the moment. The reason existential shock or despair is temporary is because our natural physiological default settings are able to pull us back into a secure mode of being. One asks the question “yes or no?” – if yes is the answer then you go on living life to the fullest. (Depression is a physiological condition afflicting an individual, and has little to do with realization of existential truth.)
In most cases levels of overall happiness for an individual are tied to a natural hedonic set point and fluctuate mildly and for brief lengths of time in the wake of external events, sickness or health. Winning the lottery will raise happiness in the short term but then ones affect will return to the default. The same is true for incidences of misfortune, our affective set point will be recovered eventually.
Purpose is not the key to happiness. Purpose may give a boost to happiness in the short term, but like winning the lottery or like a typical hedonic pleasure, our happiness will return to the default level. Purpose will have to be rediscovered as goals are achieved or if the overall purposeful vision looses its lustre. We will chase meaning and purpose restlessly. (but at least chasing purposes will leave useful products as a by-product)
Inevitably and naturally we will find reasons to move forward, one way or the other. Even if we are simply pursuing hedonic pleasures we will need to devise a set of goals that must be achieved in order to get what we want. If you’re lucky you will find a major purpose for which a long string of goals can be devised that are worthy of striving towards, and in the building of a meaningful thing, motivation can be sustained. The achieving of a goal is rewarded by the brain, which will temporarily satisfy our need for hedonic pleasure, but is followed by an emptiness, which must be filled with another goal.
One can hack the reward system. The brain contains a pharmacy that is responsible for all the feelings we experience. With concentration it is possible to adjust ones affective state deliberately. It is possible to make oneself feel good without any external cause.
The senses can be heightened with concentration. There is a very fine level of detail to all aspects of the external world that can be appreciated with the focusing of attention. There is a jewel-like quality to the deep perfection of even ‘disordered’ environments. Beyond what is physically apparent, the mind’s pattern recognizing tendency can project an expanded level of detail of its own. Additionally, our understanding of how things work and are arranged physically at very minute scales adds an epistemological level of detail that is enriching.
When in the mode of full attention, we can make the world into a spectacular, bright and detailed object that reflects our heightened state of being. As our environment expands in detail and noteworthiness so does our ability to live in accord with the truths of the matter, we recognize how things work and become a more fully actualized self. It is imperative that one actualize a greater self. Happiness has a better chance to arises when we have taken the steps to reduce the needless suffering we might experience if we where blind to the many pitfalls inherent to low resolution existence.
Programming oneself can be a productive preoccupation. The human nervous system is incredibly capable, and can be sculpted in fascinating ways. Skills and competence building can provide one with a particular confidence that supports sustained happiness. With luck one will find worthy programs to deliberately install. The physical being you are is a sandbox with rules of operation that can be worked with. Some well considered skill trees can lead to snowballing of competence. It is possible to sculpt the self and the world, provided the inclination is accessible.
A belief in self-determination is helpful. Indeed, it is surely the greatest skill one can cultivate – the suspension of disbelief about ones lack of agency. To be able to believe for a period of time that one has the self-determination to become what is possible in the greatest of imaginings is a powerful thing. Then to return to truth for grounding and perspective. Make this the trunk of the tree, the skill that proceeds all others, then build systems for automating happiness into oneself.
In the end we can not take our possessions with us… is an overstated truth. Neither can we take our memories, or our friendships. Just like possessions, we can not take the our opinion of whether or not we had a good life. Whether we are satisfied overall or have regret doesn’t matter, it is all equal in the eyes of the end. Suspend disbelief and enter into the present happening as fully as possible.