What is happiness?

There is that (very beautiful) Russian lady Professor at Stanford University who is conducting this well-funded research on what happiness is. Hm, how very Russian, indeed! She has been all over TV in the States and, in her opinion, or so I gathered, happiness boils down to these:

• gratitude
• contentment
• the ability to step outside yourself for others' sake
• humility

How very true. However in her research, I see no separation between joy and pleasure, which are very different. Pleasure is a sensation, fleeting as its nature behoves it. Joy is a more sustainable state of mind and is the gate to happiness.

Wisdom and humility

We all are on our own quests, different for every one. It is impossible to make decisions or dispense advice to others as per to what direction they should go in life or how they should improve themselves, or what they should think or do. God operates in mysterious ways and it is not up to a mere mortal to know what the other person's goal and meaning in life is.

Unless, someone comes and asks you for a piece of advice or help. You can then share whatever wisdom you have acquired for yourself, and that will be just your contribution to that person's making their own informed decision. Our own experience really matters just to ourselves. Hence the eternal problem of parents and children, when the latter won't listen to what the former say, because really we all need to gain on our own that empirical knowledge, which is true wisdom, as opposed to intellectual knowledge, which is just acquired wisdom, that we may agree with because it sounds logical but can never internalise because we have never actually experienced it.

See, humility is an indispensable part of wisdom, without humility wisdom is but spiritual arrogance.

Material and spiritual planes: are they in conflict?

Funny, someone told me just that the other day that I really sound like a monk who lives in the mountains on a different plane of existence. To which I replied that I may embrace lofty views and spiritual pursuits but I still enjoy my tailored pants, swish shoes, fancy dinners, nice travels and of course, some cock.

Those two planes of existence do not conflict with each other at all. Au contraire, they just influence each other in a very profound way and they are not separate, they exist in the same time and place, like the material surface and the spiritual depth of events, things, people and their actions. They both are important, they can't exist with one another, but just on their own they are quite meaningless too. Embracing both gives you true wisdom.

When you just see the material, you miss out on the meaning of what you see, because the meaning of things and events is never on the surface. But if you only see the meaning but never embrace the material, you end up with spiritual arrogance, that denies the beauty and enjoy of God's creation. Both extremities are detrimental.

Optimists and pessimists

It's funny: people who bitch the most about life are those who are most afraid of death, while those who love and enjoy life, don't really mind leaving this world when the time comes.

Pity and compassion

Pity is a very destructive emotion. Everything done out of pity eventually destroys both sides.

Compassion has nothing to do with pity. Despite the origin of the word: con-passion (felling together, felling for), it is only true when clear of emotional involvement. The latter knocks you off your peace of mind and bogs you down in the other person's misery. Compassion is an understanding of the other person's plight that, in its turn, triggers the will to help them. Empathy is this case would be detrimental.

Clever, smart and wise

You can be intelligent in three major ways or, if you are lucky, a combination of those.

Clever - bookish knowledge you've picked up from school and books. Applicable strictly in the related field, or - with caution and moderation - at cocktail parties.

Smart - streetwise prowess learnt at school of life. Helps you deftly navigate the vicissitudes of human existence, but fails you variety of profound ways, e.g., won't spare you the midlife crisis and won't make your life any meaningful

Wisdom - lesson you have learnt observing world and your own mistakes. Gets only better the more you work on it, addressed the most important questions you may ever have.

Joy and pleasure

The difference between joy and pleasure is the difference between exploring the infinite depth of wisdom, love and growth and chasing the infinite numbers of ripples and waves of nice sensations. In philosophy they call those two qualitative and quantitative infinity. The former is ever-lasting and the journey is toward God, the latter is never-ending and the journey is toward a trap.