THE WORD happiness is almost redundant these days. It is used as an alternative for joviality, mirth and merriment. But we can laugh when we are unhappy. It is used interchangeably with contentment and pleasure. But these are only temporary forms of happiness. It is confused with leisure and rest.
Even these words are not even contingent on happiness. We have millions of songs and stories about love but any celebration of happiness is as possible but as improbable as a polar bear on Tory Island.
Happiness is a beautiful disposition of heart not a laugh in dull times.
Blue skies add no more to a person’s happiness than grey skies can take away. Happiness, or the lack of it, lie far beneath what the eye can see.
Most Christian saints have terrible biographies. Sometimes when reading these it would not be unreasonable to think they might be a bit melodramatic or exaggerated. However, all these stories return to the same point. They had terribly tragic lives but they always radiated a sense of peace and joy.
The ability to be serene and open-minded in the face of adversity is still attractive to many people who seek the same for themselves.
Unlike the many words we use interchangeably for happiness, happiness differs because it is the only one that cannot come from outside. Happiness is the visible face of a person who has learned how to enjoy peace. We all know that it is possible to artificially stimulate our senses of peace and joy; but that is not the same as finding them. Arrogance is the ironic wall that prevents most of us from finding happiness. And it is ironic because it wants to understand everything but refuses to engage with unscientific concepts. Anything that cannot be measured and classified or placed within a preset psychological sequence, as defined through clinical trials, is not real. But all of us know we need to love.
When those who are sceptical about religious beliefs compare religious systems they often identify the quest for happiness as one of religion’s common goals. This similarity is cited as evidence of all sorts of claims.
It indicates that all religions come from a common source for some people.
To others it indicates that religion is simply the commonly used opium for the people. And for others it is the response to a deep human need for peace and joy. It is easy to classify things. It is simple work to measure, label and compare items. Knowing the length of a rose’s stem won’t make the rose more beautiful just as knowing a particular fish is a pike doesn’t make you an angler. Being able to compare and contrast the hot cross bun and the London bun might help at a table quiz but certainly won’t add to your personal peace and joy. It’s the curse of Aristotle; we confuse knowledge with identification and classification. You can even be a top-class librarian without ever having read a book.
A celebrity admitted to having never read a full book despite having written two autobiographies. C'est la vie!
Ken Dodd sang about happiness as the greatest gift that he possessed and thanked God for having more than his share of it.
Now that’s life! Can we dare to wish for an ideal situation where everybody might be happy? That wish is also possible but improbable.
Maybe happiness embarrasses us sometimes; maybe it's the way we use the word that makes us feel guilty but, whatever it is, we do have it in great store. It would be nice to share it a bit more but then we would have to believe in . . . well, something! – FMacE