on happiness
this post starts out as my lowkey attempt to post my philosophy notes somewhere, with the background noises of summarizing what I've learned in that class. however, as I continue to read more books, it evolves into the search for happiness across disciplines. hence, I write this blog in the spirit of seeing what each field, and what I have to say about happiness, a concept that has puzzled humans' minds across millenia. here, it's less of seeing if theories are right or wrong, but seeing what happiness could be.
happiness, as in ancient thought
we're speaking from the povs of plato and aristotle, which are very alpha males in a time that people still keep slaves. in republic, plato ties this concept of human happiness to the social stability of a city, and develops (pretty heinous) schemes to build perfect cities, like *coughs* eugenics and hardcore training for the guardians. plato's method for derriving happiness (aka justice) is finding justice in a city (collective justice) before finding justice in just a person (individual justice). after numerous rounds of arguments, they eventually decided that aristocracy, where the best rule, is the best form of government, cause it allows most justice, where people mind stuff accordingly to their levels. republic is 10 books long, so I definitely missed a lot of points here. however, plato's main point here is how humans are not sufficient by themselves, but needs something greater (like a city) to bring together harmony between one another in a city and in the soul of oneself.
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| republic by plato, see full work summary here |
plato's approach is, in a nutshell, top down (from the city to the individual), whereas aristotle's is bottom up (from the individual to the city). in nicomachean ethics, aristotle deals with happiness at a smaller scale, a person instead of a complex of people. happiness here is the final end, or the final motivation why we do things after tracing our actions to the very core. here, happiness is tied to being virtuous, as being virtuous = justice. virtue is a state found in the golden mean of our actions between the states of excess and deficiency. for example, instead of being too humiliated (deficiency, -) or too proud (excess, +), you should aim to be modest, which is the middleground of humility and pride.
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| as we left, my phil prof always said: "have a great weekend and remember to be virtuous/hit the mean/etc." now I can't get it out of my head, it is here to stay. |
in addition to that, aristotle also spends a great deal of his work talking about friendship. there are different kinds of friendship, and the true one is where people are friends for the sake of another, not for what they can provide (money, fame, etc.). aristotle also stresses the importance of being a good friend to oneself, for a friend is another oneself.
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| nicomachean ethics by aristotle, see full work summary here |
TL;DR
plato: the city has to be happy first, then the inhabitants will be happy (how would the city be happy? by having guardians following a moral code and making sure others do the same thing)
aristotle: the inhabitant has to be happy first, then the city as a whole will be happy (how would the inhabitants be happy? by acting accordingly to the golden mean and by having virtuous friends)
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| if you want more epicureanism, stoicism, etc., give this a try |
happiness, as in modern psychology
after seeing what the philosophers have to say about happiness, we now consult the psychologists, because both of them all deal with the soul using two different methods, one from sitting and guessing, and one from doing scientific research. for this, I read the good life by robert waldinger and marc schulz (this book also has a video version on ted talk). the authors don't want to waste your time, you see the answer from the very first minute of watching video and reading the book's blurb: relationships. however, it's still worth buying the book as it provides a more in depth guide on how to handle different types of relationships as a whole, and why relationships are worth trying. this can be explained by a model that I still remember from high school ib psychology. the prospect theory by kahneman suggests that people attributes more value to losses than to gains.
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| the gradient for losses is much steeper than the one for gains; that illustrates how we takes perceived losses more seriously than perceived gains. yes it also has quite a lot of applications in economics. |
in terms of happiness, this means that even though the joy of having people in one's life cancels out the burden of having them by a great extent, many people still decide to tangle with the least amount of people as possible as they are busy looking at the losses. however, years of scientific research proved that relationships are worth it, and you should definitely give it a try.
how? here's a lil toolkit for reevaluating your life that I've adapted from the diagrams of mechanisms that the book offered. it's not really helpful on its own except for the wise part, but will help you visualize quite a lot as you use it in tandem with the book.
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| the good life by bob and marc, see main diagrams here |
happiness, as in daily life
so far, our definition of happiness has been "having quality relationships in one's lives and putting one's effort into it" as in nicomachean ethics and the good life. it's also in this overlap between philosophy and psychology that I start to question. if happiness = having quality people, how do you explain the origin of quality relationships in one's lives? quality people won't just get attracted to anyone and everyone. in other words, in order to attract quality people, you need to be a good person first.
whether you're a good person or not boils down to who you are when you are alone. do you get angry or sad? are you calm? many of this tie back to having a routine and the many myths about having one. after reading daily rituals: how artists work by mason currey and sketchnoting all of it (yes it was 48 pages and 10 days of art block), I can say that there is no rule in having one. successful authors write at 5am, midday, even midnight, and their routines even changes throughout the course of their lives. it's also a good idea to take breaks between work sessions. if you need more proof on this, consider reading when: the scientific secrets of perfect timing by daniel h. pink (or just check this for quick stats). a trend that I've also seen is that lots of artists use mental stimulants (caffeine in coffee and tea, mental stimulants - amphetamines like benzedrine, corydrane, etc.). you don't have to be like them? but I guess you can try and learn your lesson.
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| daily rituals: how artists work by mason currey, see full work summary here |
the chopstick theory
"you're the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with" (jim rohn). here, we recognize the bilateral relationship that one can have on one's social sphere and vice versa. it is a two-way street: alone time and time with people go together, like 2 sticks of in a pair of chopsticks. when spent correctly, the two sticks are equal in length and complementary enough to build a functional and meaningful lifestyle. for more tips on treating oneself and treating others, feel free to visit the further read part, where I listed all the books and summaries.
and chopstick facts
pls just some bs facts before we leave.
I was very thrilled to learn that chopsticks are baguettes in french. not just chopsticks tho, even magic wands are baguettes. in fact, baguette refers to oblong stuff, and the baguette that we know these days is just a shortened version of baguette de pain, or stick of bread. also, france eats 30 millions baguettes a day, that's roughly 0.5 baguette per capita.
I came up with the chopstick model while scrolling tik tok with my sister. in this reel, the sister asked her brother if her mom or dad was more important. her brother quickly took away 1 stick and asked her to hurry up. she was like how do I eat with 1 stick? that was when she learned that both are equally important and you can't eat with one (although you can use one of them as a skewer I guess).
reading lists and summaries
remember to take them with a grain of salt because most of these authors are weird: western, educated, industrialized, rich, democatic, and overwhelmingly male.
nicomachean ethics - aristotle
the good life - marc schulz and robert waldinger
what makes a good life? lessons from the longest study on happiness - robert waldinger
ok a fun footnote on this one: I knew this from the ted talk first, then I realized that one of the authors (marc) is actually a professor at my college. after a few emails back and forth I finally got him to sign my book for one of my high school teachers. it made her day and I couldn't be happier.
keep going - austin kleon (this led me to the daily rituals in the first place)
daily rituals: how artists work - mason currey
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