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Comment by nickpp | Hacker News Reader

You cannot be happy due to biological reasons. Happiness is a transient state, a peak, like an orgasm.

Knowing that, pursuing happiness is akin to pursuing highs: a futile endeavor.

You can only be comfortable. Financial comfort, emotional comfort, physical comfort. However, comfort makes you weak. Avoid it.

The rest is bullshit. Consumerism & earth saving crap have NOTHING to do with happiness. Just brainwashing. Avoid that too.

However, considering your field of interest and how you formulated the question, I venture to guess that is the main substance you work with. You came here not looking for answers, but just for affirmations of the things you are already thinking.

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Wow. I hate to think I am just looking for affirmations. Maybe you're partly right since making a documentary (or just a long-format video or print project) involves taking an angle. I think I chose my angle simply because we do have a website focused on "sustainability" (though this a complicated term and doesn't mean we just fall in step with whatever "green" issues are popular.)

Over the past few years we've simply begun to hear more and more people talk about how the lifestyle they've chosen- often for environmental reasons, but other times not- is something that has made them happier. Maybe happier because they're freer from debt or from clutter or because they've learned new skills that made them feel more connected.

Happiness is an overly simple word for a very complex idea, but it's the best we've got to describe both our search for both short- and long-term comfort and satisfaction.

I'm curious. Why such a violent reaction to the post? We can avoid the word happiness, but what is it you strive for in life, both short and long-term? What do you like?

One more point, I'm not out to say that there is only one route to happiness- and that it is an anti-consumeristic one-, but simply that it is possible- and possibly more common these days (given circumstances)- to choose this path.

This is simply a bit of counterbalance to so much television that sells the opposite stance. I know that on some of the tv shows I've worked on, I've been complicit in spreading this idea that stuff is cool. So perhaps this is my more personal response.

I don't mean to be rude but I agree with nickpp's comment. I don't know what the research says about this but I have observed that people say they feel "happy" when they experience any kind of big change in their life. One goes from being a materialistic junkie to a greenpeace activist; another goes from being a treehugger to a money-crazy serial entrepreneur. Both feel released from their old identities.

People crave change at some basic biochemical level and that's what makes them "happy".

I would agree with you that to a certain extent people crave roles that can give them an identity, like that of treehugger or entrepreneur. But I also think there are people who genuinely happy with either one: like many of the people posting comments here, I think genuinely want to start companies because they enjoy the thrill of starting something, not just to be an entrepreneur or company president.

The same goes for those who choose to embrace a more simplified lifestyle or whatever related to sustainability.

I'll agree with nickpp to a point: that happiness is transient, and that one cannot appreciate happiness without having suffered (however much or little - it's all relative, it's all in your head).

Having dabbled in Zen Buddhism, I don't like the thesis that life is suffering and to escape it we need to do away with want. If you want to be an emotionless zombie, sure, to each their own. But I now think that this tendency to deign "happiness = good; sadness = bad" and MINIMAX our lives is a huge disservice to our humanity. Hey, we're humans trying to make sense of a senseless world, and we're all on this crazy ride together. I'd rather collect experiences - happy AND sad - to remind myself that I'm alive, that I'm an emotional being, and so that I can appreciate others' experiences as well.

I'm much more fond of this take on happiness:

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?" -Kahlil Gibran

My husband would agree with you that happiness doesn't need to always be the end goal. I must have been raised with a Disney reality. Though I've realized I do need the sad; it's what helps me to think in a more complete way.

Using capital letters is similar to screaming, according to conventions understood by everyone.

I'd like to see some data on your statements here. It sounds a bit dogmatic, to say something is dogmatic without actually rebate it with ideas and data.

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