You Don’t Have to Settle for Joy
It’s time for a new kinda kick
Popular culture would have you believe the pursuit of joy, through gratitude and self-acceptance, is THE path to happiness. But joy isn’t the only happiness worth pursuing — its nonconforming sibling thrill is a heck of a ride — if you can keep up.
Aristotle described these two modes of happiness as hedonia and eudaimonia — one embodying virtue and the other peddling evil, respectively. These two are in a fight ‘till death, and you better choose wisely.
Know the pugilists
“Aristotle emphatically rejected hedonism as a goal in life: “The many, the most vulgar, seemingly conceive the good and happiness as pleasure, and hence they also like the life of gratification. Here they appear completely slavish, since the life they decide on is a life for grazing animals.” ¹
He seemed to have a clear favorite in the fight, but don’t let this control loving dead guy ruin your fun — even if it’s for our own good.
Confirmation bias² may have gotten the best of him, so there’s still a chance for you to get in on the action.
Place your bet
I like to think of hedonia and eudaimonia as twins, Joy☺ and Thrill☻.
Joy☺ starts its day by declaring it’s perfect just the way it is and ends with an emotive gratitude journal entry.
Thrill☻ wakes up four hours later and quickly searches for something new, something electric, something to chase, mourn, and desire all over again.
Let the fight begin
Thrill☻ is inherently transient and is unsustainable at each turn — which is just the way it likes it. Joy☺ flourishes from stability and shines with practicality. For Thrill☻, nothing could be more droll and passionless — in this respect, to be practical is to be dead.
Joy welcomes and encourages contentment, a reward for maintaining a respectable character.
Thrill☻, always the contrarian, gets Joy☺ but would rather opt-out than give up independence. This confounds Joy☺, who traffics in maintaining the status quo.
Joy☺ welcomes children, accommodates in-laws, greets aging with kindness, and death with grace. It constructs its life to withstand the onslaught of time, each piece carefully selected to maximize utility and budget.
Thrill☻ does no such disservice to the fleeting chance of life. It doesn’t see time and its inevitable conclusion, death, as something to accept, but rather a partner to love, quarrel, ignore and cheat on.
For Thrill☻, a life worth living is not built, but conjured. Its power is the impractical — which it demands at a rate faster than can ever be procured.
…I need more…
Than I ever did before
I need a dissipate existence
And play scratchy records
Annd enjoy my decline
With more divorce recors, more distance
More future, more culture
More- I Need More written by Iggy Pop³
This terrifies Joy☺, but Thrill☻ knows it’s only in the impractical that we are deeply inspired, truly thrilled and maddeningly enraptured. This madness is where art lives, where passion thrives, where abandon is cultivated.
…If I could only find
Some new kind of kick
Something I ain’t had
Some new kind of buzz
I wanna go hog mad…- New Kind of Kick by The Cramps, Lux Interior and Poison Ivy⁴
The scorecard
Do you have fight in you, or have you settled already?
References
- “How Many Types of Happiness Exist?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 3 Sept. 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/curious/201509/how-many-types-happiness-exist.
- “How the Confirmation Bias Affects Sports Betting.” Sports Betting Dime, 8 Oct. 2019, https://www.sportsbettingdime.com/guides/betting-psychology/confirmation-bias/.
- “Iggy Pop — I Need More.” Genius, https://genius.com/Iggy-pop-i-need-more-lyrics.
- “The Cramps — New Kind of Kick.” Genius, 1 Jan. 1981, https://genius.com/The-cramps-new-kind-of-kick-lyrics.
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