The Paradox Of Happiness
The Paradox of Happiness: Between Joy and Suffering - Part 1
The Social Aspect of Happiness
We approach solitude with uncertainty, as if it were some alien task to master rather than a natural state of being. We run away from it and fear it, almost as undesirably as boredom. We feel we’d be disconnected from the world in our solitude but we consider what we would be making space to connect to. Yet it’s precisely when we accept life’s common sufferings, solitude among others, that the deepest changes take root within us. This is why most people seek distractions and change; they search for an antidote to their suffering—hoping to become some kind of perfect and happy person.
They believe they do it for themselves but if they do not have viewers to witness their happiness, the effort isn’t worth it—so in reality they do it for others. Truth be told, most would be more comfortable in misery, for that is an easier path. Consider the ancient Greek concept of eudaimonia, which suggests that true happiness comes not from pleasure or social status, but from living a life of virtue and meaning. Yet modern society has twisted this notion, making happiness itself the virtue we must chase.
Feeling above others give happiness this fake allure of being a higher emotion and thus it is the emotion of the privileged. It is the law of nature that happiness will always be transient. Most of all it is the wealthy and privileged who are expected to feel it eternally and maintain it. How should they do so with such a slippery snake—an impossible task with such an elusive emotion. This leads them to chase material solutions: clothes, possessions, and even surgeries that paint an artificial smile of eternal contentment.
The obligation to be happy in this society that is convenient, affluent and ever more status driven is something that would break the soul—it is breaking our souls. Where our true happiness was once found in community, relationships and familial bonds, we have given these all up in order to chase the elusive beast of happiness. As the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman noted, “In a liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change.”
We all chase happiness because society told us to. We got these ideas via Bluetooth. We thought it was a worthy pursuit, but those who have truly attempted it—the ones who have gone beyond and played the game—know it isn’t worth the effort. Happiness, so ephemeral and transient, refuses to stay with us. This chase moves forward, realising that happiness cannot be captured, to find a middle ground where one is numb to nearly all feeling. Where happiness is no longer happiness, nor what it used to be and sadness simply refuses to be felt. Thus, we arrive at a ground where we are numb to all feelings and happy in a fake exuberance.
Joy versus Happiness: The Prison of Perpetual Happiness
One must have people to show that one is happy. I doubt being happy alone by oneself is worth the effort—but being joyful is. Joy, often confused with happiness, deserves its own consideration. Being in a state of joy is worth it because it is not dependent on externals and it is not easy to discern whether a person is in a joyful state of being or not.
Joy is something that isn’t created but revealed and allowed to flood into our lives as we remove the obstructions to it. Rather than a state of action or doing, it is a state of being. This is something that is not easily made into a social requirement. Unlike happiness, joy cannot be manufactured from activities or their results. It can, however, emerge from repetitive activity and things that make no sense but somehow have profound meaning for us personally.
The Buddhist concept of mudita—sympathetic joy—offers an interesting contrast to our modern pursuit of personal happiness. It suggests finding joy in others’ happiness rather than constructing our own artificial euphoria.
For when joyful things are chased like one does with happiness, it simply spoils the good things in nature and makes them into resources—ends to be pursued not for the joy they themselves provide but for their fruits. Creating happiness through experiences that arouse our emotions and make us feel elated in a kind of surprising way, we feel as if we may be happy—but truthfully, we cannot be sure.
High arousal emotions distract us from the other side, against emotions that bring us down low. In these states of ‘high’ we find ourselves, so to say, ‘on top of the world’. The real shame is why we do not realize that, regardless of our experience, we always are on top of this world. The emotions that bring us down make us suffer and we are not being taught how to deal with suffering, how to make friends with it. We are simply told to run away from it, to not stay with it or to use our minds to trick ourselves into ‘thinking positively’.
It is in true suffering that we can experience a kind of joy that feels confusing to the modern mind but deeply religious to the ancient mind. A feeling akin to Christian grace or the Hindu concept of Ananda, the bliss of the compassionate God, this subtle and rich experience is a revelation of the interconnectedness of these emotions and what their true and sincere experience leads to.
It is in suffering that the soul shines and finds its truth. And joy, the state of being, much more worthy than happiness, is something we allow into ourselves much like suffering. It stands to reason that joy and suffering are the two ways we see the world, through our own eyes and those of the mind. Suffering grounds us and joy brings us into states of wonder, elation, awe and both can be associated with transcendence.
The Folly of the Happiness Chase
We must also wonder about art and if it can ever be fuelled by this numbing emotion of happiness. The happy person rarely creates, much like the despairing one. Neither finds anything in the world worth creating or wondering about. Wonder itself cannot be manufactured like happiness; it must be revealed. These higher emotions cannot be purchased, forced, or created—they must emerge naturally from a state of being that precedes them.
Conceptual thoughts fill a happy person as they descend into frustration at the obviously absurd attempt to capture an always slipping happiness. In a strange turn of events, they later welcome despair and depression for these states finally offer this person respite and a ‘deep rest’ from this exhausting search for happiness.
Consider the wisdom of the ancient Stoics, particularly Epictetus who taught that happiness comes not from getting what we want, but from wanting what we get. Yet modern society has inverted this wisdom, creating an endless chase for more.
The pursuit of happiness parallels the pursuit of pleasure—both inevitably lead to pain. The struggle to make these fleeting emotions permanent and become part of our empty lives reveals the shortsightedness of modern society’s obsession with progress and rationality. As philosopher Albert Camus noted, “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
Few will admit to the emptiness of this search, as doing so means challenging society itself—something most are unwilling to do since they derive their identity from it. No one can tell a seeker of happiness otherwise, for then they are offending them, keeping them from the goal of submerging themselves in an everlasting sea of positivity. Strangely enough, even trials and failures will not deter the seeker but only make their resolve stronger, believing the difficulty of their path is because the prize is valuable. So they will never admit to the folly and emptiness of this search, even if they have felt it. To admit that this search is wrong is to admit society is wrong and to rebuke something larger than ourselves in such a callous manner is something most people are not willing to do.
It is normal that most people derive their sense of identity from society. Only the rare few—those who might seem cursed rather than privileged—must forge their own identity. Yet in this apparent curse lies a hidden blessing, a paradox like the privilege of the perpetually happy person becoming their prison.
This paradox recalls the ancient Zen koan:
In our relentless pursuit of happiness, we have perhaps forgotten what the ancients knew: that happiness is not a destination but a by-product of a life well-lived. The modern obsession with happiness has created a peculiar paradox: the more desperately we chase it, the more it eludes us. Perhaps true contentment lies not in the chase, but in the acceptance of life’s full spectrum of experiences, including those moments of divine discontent that make us uniquely human.