I have come across the image above, posted on a Facebook arts Page. There was a “define happiness” message next to it, which is supposed to make me realize that happiness comes from within, maybe?, and if that’s the case, well, I have a different opinion. First of all, it doesn’t take much for kids to be happy.
… especially kids living in the less developed countries: those kids enjoy more freedom in a society that has lower expectations from them. They get more real life experiences, they socialize and play more with one another in a non-consumerist environment, where everyone shares pretty much the same living standard — no social classes, less frustrations.
As for the world of adults, I think happiness comes from the outside the same way light does: the image is created in the brain, indeed, and so is happiness as a reaction to the outside experiences. I would go as far as saying that happiness that has no outside correspondent (or a negative one) denotes a psychological disorder.
Now…
Happiness is a balance between one’s inner world and his / her outer reality. What makes one happy can be far from enough to do the same for another. The richer one’s inner world, the poorer the outer reality… although a few are lucky enough to be born in, or soon enough succeed in building a reality that supports their needs.
Those are the people who get far, and make a stand in this world: people that have a rich inside, a supporting outside, and a will to build.
I’ll tell you what unhappiness is: it’s being a prisoner in a reality that’s nothing like you. The society expects all John Doe’s to take the same small steps… which some can’t, because they’ve got enough brains to see far. The society asks the elephant to look down and take ant steps: and when the elephant doesn’t obey the system’s requirements it gets nowhere. Because the overwhelming majority of elephants are Nobody’s, and not Harvard drop-outs who go ahead and succeed in life anyways.
In my opinion, the system is tailored to promote mediocre inviduals to do the work, and above-mediocre ones to run the offices. The intelligent people will always fail, or end up selling themselves cheap. How many brilliant minds did you see gettin’ rich?, and how many Wall Street smugs make tens of millions and billions? I am not saying it doesn’t take brains to make money on Wall Street: but it takes brains to be a great military leader, as well, the same way it takes a good hunting strategy for Chimps to survive (ambush experts, look it up).
You see, there are different types of intelligence: the Wall Street and the Pentagon types would have never gotten the humankind too far out of the caves.
An 8er 