Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Obviously he is talking about where the two are mutually exclusive.
I'm not sure that ultimately that is possible.
But the depends largely on what one means by "happy." If you mean "feels good at the moment," then hey! Heroin makes you happy. Oxy makes you super happy.
But I don't think "feels good at the moment" is any sane definition of happiness.
It's tough one. I really value honesty, BUT my mantra is like the physician's: "First do no harm".
Sometimes "truth" is just to assuage the teller's guilt (in the case of a long-ago indiscretion, imo). Motivation needs to be looked at.
Here's an example: a friend here at our condo just informed us he thinks the U.S. will collapse and therefore he's cashing out and running to a popular mountain town where he'll put his money in CDs which pay 9% here. We figured what's the point in trying to convince him if the dollar fails in the U.S. it will here too and affect the entire world.
He's moving for other reasons too, so no need to burst his bubble, right? He's seeking his own form of "happiness".
Another example is would you feel compelled to tell your partner about your former "partners", if you sensed you had more than he/she did? I see no reason for that kind of "honesty". Certainly would not produce "happiness".
Here's an example: a friend here at our condo just informed us he thinks the U.S. will collapse and therefore he's cashing out and running to a popular mountain town where he'll put his money in CDs which pay 9% here. We figured what's the point in trying to convince him if the dollar fails in the U.S. it will here too and affect the entire world.
For me it depends on what I am being told, so to speak. It depends on how much it matters.
For example, if we are talking about something my hair looking well styled when it doesn't, I rather be lied to to be happy about it because it doesn't hurt anything. But if someone notices my hair is falling out in the back of my head and it might be a medical problem, yeah I want to be told and want the truth over being happy about my hair.
Another example, a friend could tell me I have a lovely home when they don't think so. The compliment makes me feel good and therefore happy. But I don't want a real estate agent lying to me that the house is lovely if it isn't, it needs work, and I am trying to sell it. I want to truth so I can do something for a better sale.
And all that said, you can be truthful and be tactful about it in such a way where it doesn't take away happiness (even if it doesn't add to it). Or in some cases, just don’t say something. In my examples above, there is need to lie and tell someone their hair looks good house is lovely if you don’t think so, just don’t say anything.
If you tell me that my dress is stained when I can do nothing about it, my presentation may be diminished by self consciousness. It may be truth, but it does harm, not good.
If you saw my soon to be husband dallying with another woman a week before our wedding, please think of my long-term happiness, even if the truth will make me unhappy for a few months.
How about if you have a stain on your dress just before giving a presentation on stage? Do you want someone to point it out to you as you are walking up, when there is no time to do anything about it?
That wouldn't make me unhappy. It's trivial. I'd just laugh about it to the audience before the presentation began.
If you could plug yourself into a machine that would then stimulate you mentally to have happy experiences (say it simulates you going on a perfect holiday). You can't tell the experiences you have in the machine apart from real world experiences, so the happiness inside it feels real in every way.
Are you really happy in the machine?
I think you answered your own question i.e. the happiness (only) feels real and is dependent upon a stimulus; it’s not reality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter600
Consider you were happy for 20 years in your marriage. Then you find out your spouse was cheating on you for 19 years of that 20, and actually did not love you for most of those years, instead they were simply keeping up their appearances for practical reasons.
Would you consider that you had 20 happy years, followed by unhappiness after finding out? Or would you consider that none of those 20 years were truly happy, because the happiness was built on something that was not true? It is an interesting question.
Except you appear to be under the assumption one’s happiness is one-dimensional and relies entirely on a spouse or on any one person/thing outside ourselves. For that matter, one would have to be incredibly unaware/disconnected from their relationship (not to mention reality) to spend twenty years with someone who was cheating/did not love them for nineteen of those twenty years to simply ‘keep up appearances’.
That said, the bigger (and more obvious) point relative to your question/thread is the cheating spouse who stayed in an unhappy marriage for nineteen years in order to ‘keep up appearances’, lol. Apparently neither happiness nor truth was important to said person.:-)
Last edited by CorporateCowboy; 01-20-2022 at 10:09 PM..
Reason: added last paragraph
Truth first.
My happiness wavers , truth rarely does.
Challenge is not in the ' balancing of ' when to tell the truth. It's deciding if it is the truth, the whole truth.
I think you answered your own question i.e. the happiness (only) feels real and is dependent upon a stimulus; it’s not reality.
Are you saying that happiness is beyond a feeling? If I felt happy all my life and died without knowing a truth that would have made me unhappy, was I not happy in my life?
Is not happiness an emotional state characterized by feelings of joy, satisfaction, contentment, and fulfilment. Can not that emotional state be achieved by a deception that you don't uncover?
I have not made up my mind either way, but I'm trying to explore the idea.
Truth first.
My happiness wavers , truth rarely does.
Challenge is not in the ' balancing of ' when to tell the truth. It's deciding if it is the truth, the whole truth.
Truth is painfilled if a lie was the foundation.
Truth does bring peace though too.
Yeah I would agree. What I am trying to unfold, and I don't know the answer myself, is does discovering a painful truth then undo the happiness one felt when they didn't know the truth? Or was the happiness one felt every bit as real even though it was based on something false?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
