Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Happiness

  • Why are Israelis so Happy?

    Here

  • Happiness

    I am happy. I am living my kind of life in my kind of way, the life I envisaged and aspired to when I was 20 years old and wrote in my journal, "To live a philosophical life in a tumultuous, uncertain world is my goal." I am pulling it off, and have been for…

  • A Dangerous Property of Worldly Things

    Al-Ghazzali, The Alchemy of Happiness, p. 48: Another dangerous property of worldly things is that they appear at first as mere trifles, but each of these so-called 'trifles' branches out into countless ramifications until they swallow up the whole of a man's time and energy.

  • I Get a Rise out of Aristotle

    Substack latest. Is the political life the highest life?

  • Alain on Monasticism

    Stack leader.  The other morning I recalled the passage in Alain where he recorded his boyhood visit to the abbey at La Trappe and his visceral revulsion at the life of the monks. So I pulled his On Happiness from the shelf and to my surprise opened right to the passage in question. Coincidence, or synchronicity?…

  • Ingredients of Happiness

    Top o' the Stack.

  • Why Am I So Happy?

    From my Facebook page, three years ago, pre-COVID-19, pre-Biden, before things really got bad. But I am still happy. For some of us happiness is a basal state, bred-in-the-bone, affected somewhat by external circumstances, but not by much.   ………………………………   My beloved country looks to be going the way of the Roman empire: overextended…

  • Ingredients of Happiness

    What makes for happiness? Acceptance is a good part of it: acceptance of self, of one's ineluctable  limitations, of others and their limitations, of one's lot in life, of one's place in the natural hierarchy of prowess and intellect and spiritual capacity, acceptance of the inevitable in the world at large.  Gratitude is another ingredient…

  • Happiness Maxims 2021

    They work for me; they may work for you. Substack latest.

  • Why am I so Happy?

      Every day there are multiple outrages from the Left as my country turns into a police state. Why should I be happy?   Well, I live in Arizona, a destination state if ever there was one, and I have lived here for going on 22 years. Today is another one of those exquisitely beautiful,…

  • Happiness and Suicide

    Happiness eluded this student of happiness despite his career success and the admiration of his peers. So at age 38 he jumped off a tall building. 

  • Why are Lawyers so Unhappy?

    Martin P. Seligman explains. 'Seligman'! Now there's an aptronym for you. Selig is German for happy, blessed, blissful, although it can also mean late (verstorben) and tipsy (betrunken). So Seligman is the happy man or happy one. Nomen est omen? Give some careful thought to what you name your kid. 'Chastity' may have an anti-aptronymic effect.…

  • Happiness Maxims

    Just over the transom: I do want to thank you again for the 'happiness maxims'. I've been reading them to wifey recently, and over time I've benefited hugely from them. Here they are again, easier to read, and slight emended.  This is a re-post from 26 May 2013. ………………………………….. These maxims work for me; they…

  • Happiness and Contentment

    He who is content with his lot, is happy a lot, much more than those who are not.  (A sorry sing-song stab at a saying?)

  • Happiness

    The happy are those who do not allow themselves to be much affected, and certainly not disturbed, by the judgments and expectations of others. How much validation by others do you need? The less you need, the more mature you are.