Georg Friedrich Hegel (1795 - 1831) said, "Periods of happiness are empty pages in history." I have been down this road before, most recently in 'last week's post' where I examined cycles of peace and unrest. In that post I said that I was somewhat saddened by the realization that I had had "2 or 3 good days in a row." Some may not understand how sadness can come from happiness. Shouldn't we glory in peace and tranquility? While I understand the necessity of one (sadness or happiness) in order to quantify, appreciate, or even define the other, I still ask why I felt sadness in the midst of a 'good' week. This week I have been struggling with this incongruity.

Upon further analysis, (I think) there are multiple incongruities at play here. First I want to identify and understand these incongruities, then I want to come back and define 'a good day' as I intended it in last week's post and contrast that with previous definitions, and finally I want to revisit the concept of a 'utility of happiness' checking for new or evolving thought. When I reach this point I may decide that this exercise has merely been a (necessary) review, or I may find it a springboard to further written thought now or in future weeks.

The first incongruity is simply the rationality of disturbing the peace. Why would I do that? Tranquility is sitting within quietly minding its own business and I go and dump a bucket of cold sadness over its head. Perhaps it has to do with Hegel's quote above - if indeed "periods of happiness are empty pages in history" are happy people then contributing less, or even nothing, toward humanity's progress, as compared to those who struggle? (Keep in mind, I am discussing lower-case happiness here, defined throughout this site as everyday satisfaction and good cheer.) We learn and grow from pain and adversity and perhaps it is that simple - too much (lower-case) happiness (for me) indicates a quiescence that impedes progress. And though I believe this reasoning to be valid, it still does not change the disharmony felt with last week's sudden change of direction.

So perhaps there is a larger incongruity here; that being the tug-of-war between my physical humanity seeking comfort and my transcendental self seeking Truth and Wisdom. There are some who are satisfied with physical comforts. I am not. And I will not allow the lure of 'easy' to pull me away from my search. Because I am so adamant about this, perhaps this perturbation felt last week was simply my transcendental life support alarm telling me I had passed out and was in need of smelling salts. If I had ignored this alarm, I wonder how long before my transcendental life would have slipped into a coma.

An additional disharmony is that which is created between myself and others if or when I verbalize or act on these feelings of sadness, or expound on the virtues of pain and adversity. We are supposed to be happy. When someone asks "How are you?" we are supposed to answer "Good." John Stuart Mill said, "the despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement." He also said, "unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind." So if a majority of us are, in varying ways, unhappy, why do we insist upon a custom of pretending happiness, which in turn impedes 'human advancement'?

So this is great! Right? I have justified my self-imposed struggle with the help of some of history's great thinkers. Yet I still feel the fingernails-on-chalkboard chill of incongruity. Perhaps this residual dissonance is the frustration of mass conformity. Perhaps that 'tyranny of the majority' that John Stuart Mill, Alexis de Tocqueville, and others warned of is at critical mass and I fear being blown to (or swallowed up by) oblivion. Perhaps this feeling, frustration, and fear is societal dysrhythmia that I am unable to sync alone. Perhaps, eventually, it (society - nature - humanity) will rediscover its rhythm naturally. I think eventually, it will have to.

In the previous posts 'Happiness Left Behind' and 'Daily Happiness' (August and September, 2012) I laid the groundwork and then described an upper-case 'Good Day' as follows:

"Ideally a Good Day should be measured as a microcosm of a Good Life. At the end of each day I should be able to look back and say, "this day has been a fair reflection of how I want to remember my Life, on the last day of my Life."

Last week when I reflected on '2 or 3 good days in a row' (at the time) I was realizing greater physical comfort than normal, and minimal impact from other adversity / struggles. I was happy. And, I was reading, writing, working, and otherwise fulfilling my concept of a Good Day, but apparently, because I was in the midst of lower-case good days as well, it seemed to lack some meaning. I felt a little dull and a little lazy. I felt some unrest would help to re-sharpen my edge.

It is helpful to differentiate between 'good days' and 'Good Days' and to realize that though they are not mutually exclusive, occasional (or even frequent) 'not-so-good days' can boost the productive output of 'Good Days'.

So now I've come to the utility of happiness - is lower-case happiness useful? According to John Stuart Mill's math the reality of happiness only impacts five percent of us, though I might argue that it impacts all of us (on average) five percent of the time. I might listen to arguments for a slightly higher percentage, but anyone who claims 100 percent happiness is delusional. So, based on a minority percentage, I believe the reality of happiness is useful for obvious purposes of contrast, balance, and definition. Additionally I believe it to be the impetus for many to continue moving forward. However, for some, in our narcissistic culture of greed and (concocted) need, it is also the impetus for pretense. And while some very limited social 'happathy' can be justified, it is not the answer. I must learn to (in-the-moment) differentiate between the somewhat rare happiness (which I did experience last week) and the illusion of happiness; and I must avoid delusional happiness.

There is some seemingly new thought here (such as my examination of Mill, and the contrast between 'good days' and 'Good Days'), but for the most part this is a necessary rehashing of previous thought, from a different angle. Perhaps by re-emphasizing the necessity of unrest and seeing it (the past two weeks) through the eyes and thoughts of others, I have refined my understanding to where I can better 'actively accept' the unavoidable societal dysrhythmia, and recognize and manage personal disharmony. It feels I have evolved from a theoretical perspective to a more practical (and necessary) daily application.