Finding Happiness

My friends and I once had a discussion over soda, barbecue and beer. We discussed the purpose of life. The usual bullshit was put on the table, like how there is no purpose and this is all a random occurrence, to how there is a divine being or beings and there is an overall plan, to the idea that life on earth is a proving ground (I think that was stolen from Pierce Anthony) to how aliens set this all up as an experiment. Never mind all that.

The part I remember best is how we talked about how life is about finding happiness. The counterpoint to that was a question – what is happiness, and is it the same as contentment. When do you know you’re happy? When you have no more wants? Then there’ll be very few truly happy people. Contentment might be a bit better, because contentment is a state that one chooses to accept. You say, yeah, I might not have everything I could want, but what I have right now, and what I know I have coming, that’s pretty sweet and I’m ok with that. Problem there is that, will contentment with life wipe out ambition? In a sense, yeah, but it doesn’t eliminate the ability to continue to explore things. You many choose not to give a lot of weight to wanting stuff, but it doesn’t preclude trying out new things as you get the opportunity to.

Swing all the way that way and you have something like Buddhism and their state of detachment from the physical. That’s a cop out, as if you’re ignoring this existence and choose to sleepwalk through the damn thing. Or it could be that that Piers Anthony story was right and everything is just a temptation.

Interesting to think about these things once in a while, but in the end it’s pointless. Try not to take having and having not to seriously. It’s not good for your heart or your soul.

Whatever a soul really is.