Are we happy or are we embracing mediocrity?
The concept of happiness saddens me,
is there anything in this world that can excite me?
The search for joy led me to agony,
and made me realise there’s only apathy.
— taken from my poetry, Concept of Happiness
Not to come off as a totally apathetic and rude person, but if someone asks me whether I am happy — I respond to them by saying — “No one is…, really!”. A sense of excitement in my response is majorly due to my acceptance of the fact that the search for happiness would only lead to agony. Which reminds me of Friedrich Nietzsche, who on his magnum opus — “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” had mentioned people to not strive for happiness.
If we talk about the philosophy of happiness, there would be a plethora of branches within them — each explaining happiness differently (and the name of the branch only gets difficult to pronounce as we dig deeper, so is the explanation). That’s why I love how Schopenhauer’s thoughts on Happiness aligns with my opinions (not another worship of Schopenhauer) — simple. He says happiness is not a positive phenomenon, instead a negative one. Prolonged satisfaction leads to boredom, and hence unhappiness.
My views are almost similar, except that I would touch on the subject of mediocrity. In the sense, happiness should always be short-lived — because if something makes you happy for too long, probably you are just embracing mediocrity. In other words, it’s often mediocrity that satisfies most people. Which perfectly explains why people love comfort. The very reason why I feel people never find happiness in life as they will never see everything the life has to offer (thanks to their comfort). It is almost like a 10-min read Medium post → it is too long that people just read half of it and think that is enough information for them, and being happy for what they read (No offense to those who write big articles — I have nothing but respect for them).
Am I afraid to generalize my statements on happiness — absolutely No! But does that you shouldn’t be happy or you shouldn’t strive for happiness — I don’t know, its up to you. Like my friend says — it is often mad men who think of such small things (like happiness) to such a large extent (and then post it on medium).
Note: I also post regularly on my personal blog, where I can just bash long post Medium writers without being too nice (joking.., or am I?).
Let I be known to me, and unbeknownst to many — because this concept of happiness saddens me…
— from the same poetry: Concept of Happiness
