{"id":6942,"date":"2015-10-06T05:18:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T05:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/10\/06\/what-it-takes-to-be-happy\/"},"modified":"2015-10-06T05:18:10","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T05:18:10","slug":"what-it-takes-to-be-happy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/10\/06\/what-it-takes-to-be-happy\/","title":{"rendered":"What It Takes to Be Happy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Flaubert\"<\/a>Attributed<\/a> to Gustave Flaubert:  "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."<\/span><\/p>\n

Witty, but false.  Comparable and  less cynical is this saying which I found attributed to Albert Schweitzer on a greeting card: Happiness is nothing more than good health and a poor memory.  (Whether the good Schweitzer ever said any such thing is a further question; hence my omission of quotation marks.)<\/span><\/p>\n

I am inclined to agree with both gentlemen that good health is a necessary condition of happiness, at least for most of us.  But happiness does not require a poor memory, it requires the ability to control one's memory, and the ability to control one's mind generally.  I am happy and I have an excellent memory; but I have learned how to distance myself from any unpleasant memories that may arise. <\/span> <\/p>\n

An unhappy intellectual may think that stupidity is necessary for happiness, but then he is the stupid one.  A keen awareness of the undeniable ills of this world is consistent with being happy if one can control his response to those ills.  There is simply no necessity that one dwell on the negative if this dwelling destroys one's equanimity.  But this non-dwelling is not ignorance.  It is mind control. <\/span><\/p>\n

As for selfishness, it is probably true that its opposite is more likely to lead to happiness than it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The temptation to wit among the literary often leads them astray.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attributed to Gustave Flaubert:  "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless." Witty, but false.  Comparable and  less cynical is this saying which I found attributed to Albert Schweitzer on a greeting card: Happiness is nothing more than … Continue reading “What It Takes to Be Happy”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness","category-literary-matters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}