The Illusion of Happiness
A thought occurred to me as I made coffee… happiness and unhappiness are fictions of my mind. I am neither perhaps.
“Overcast or stormy clouds in the sky at night” by Anandu Vinod on Unsplash
A thought occurred to me as I made coffee… happiness and unhappiness are fictions of my mind. I am neither perhaps.
I had a thought this morning as I made a cup of coffee.
As I stirred in the milk I asked myself, “how do you feel?”
I got an answer and a feeling all at the same moment. The answer was that I was fine and the feeling was that it was not possible to be happy. And even if I was to be happy how would I know it?
How could I possibly define it?
I have come to feel that happiness and unhappiness are ultimately illusory. To me, in a place of self reflection they don’t exist. At least not ultimately.
Those who would peddle the idea that you can be happy above unhappy are mistaken in their assertion that you can be either. Both are required that you and I understand who we are and they misunderstand the nature of reality.
Happiness and unhappiness only seem to exist by virtue of a particular benchmark we may have set up in our surface reality minds. Perhaps they exist on a continuum. Maybe that’s too simplistic.
It’s more like a spiral either upward or downward in movement.
Like a storm.
We get caught in the storm and the storm can either be good to us in that state of mind, or bad to us. When we are in the storm we can’t see the reality of what we are, which is, the eye of the storm.
In this, to pursue happiness or to attempt to escape unhappiness is to miss the point of life altogether.
“To come to know that nothing is good, nothing is bad, is a turning point; it is a conversion. You start looking in; the outside reality loses meaning. The social reality is a fiction, a beautiful drama; you can participate in it, but then you don’t take it seriously. It is just a role to be played; play it as beautifully, as efficiently, as possible. But don’t take it seriously, it has nothing of the ultimate in it.” - Osho.
I get caught up in the storm of life circumstances too. When I’m in it I can’t see myself, I only see the storm of things around me. At night or early morning when I’m alone I can see myself.
I can take a breath and enjoy the space to be myself without the influence of other people.
That’s the place I like best.
Support my work for only $1
I’m Larry G. Maguire, writer and artist from Dublin, Ireland. I write Sunday Letters weekly for my growing readership. You can join them here. I’m working on a non fiction work called The Artist’s Manifesto, due out May 2018. I’m also working on a YA Mythological Fantasy based in Ireland.
Hook up with me here
Email | Facebook | Twitter | Podcasts | Instagram | Patreon
