Chapter 5 on happiness

I picked up Vigny's "Journal dunpote" at a second-hand bookstore, and as I was flipping through it, I came across an interesting item.He said that in French, the noun of joy (bonheur) is made up of the words "good" and "hour", which shows that good things take a long time and are just a matter of hours (Si le bonheur ntait quune bonne denie!).We think of the expressions in our native language, which also have profound and eternal meanings, like the quick words for joy or happiness, which clearly indicate the fleeting glimpses of all the joys and joys of life.So we sighed and said: "Entertainment makes the night too short!" Because when people are happy, they live too fast, but when they are bored and bored, they feel that the day's feet are limping, and they walk very slowly.The word "langweile" in German means "long time" according to the literal translation.The little monkey said to Sun Xingzhe: "One day in the sky, one year in the lower realm." This kind of myth really reflects human psychology.The sky is more comfortable and joyful than the human world, so the gods live faster, and the human world is only one day in the sky in a year.By analogy, hell is more painful than the world, and life must be more difficult; Duan Chengshi's "Xiyang Miscellaneous Cu" said: "Ghost talk for three years, and the world for three days." People who think life is short are really the happiest people; On the other hand, a really happy person, no matter how old they live to die, can only be regarded as a short-lived death.Therefore, it is not worthwhile to be a god. A person who has lived for thirty years in the mortal world is still a child under the full moon in the sky.But this kind of "heaven's fortune" also has advantages: For example, Dai Junfu's "Guang Yi Ji" records that Cui joined the army to catch the fox monster, "five hits with peach branches", Changsun Wuji said that the punishment was too light, Cui replied: "Five hits It is five hundred blows in the human world, but it is not a small punishment." It can be seen that selling old people to celebrate birthdays and so on is the most appropriate on earth, but the punishment should be received in heaven.

The phrase "happy forever" is not only too vague to be realized, but also so ridiculous that it cannot be established.What passes quickly is never permanent; we speak of eternal happiness, as we speak of a square circle, and a still motion is equally contradictory.When we are happy, we cry out to the fleeting time: "Stay a while! You are so beautiful!" What is the use of that?If you want to be permanent, you should look for it in pain.Don't talk about anything else, just a night of insomnia, or an afternoon when you can't make an appointment, or a dull lecture - these are many, more effective than all religious beliefs, and can make you taste what is called "eternal life" .The thorn of life is here, nostalgic for what you don't want to go fast, but it is something you don't miss.

Happiness in life is like a sugar cube that lures children to take medicine, and more like an electric rabbit that lures dogs to race in a dog park.A few minutes or a few days of pleasure have earned us a lifetime of suffering.We hope it will come, we hope it will stay, and we hope it will come again—these three sentences sum up the entire history of human efforts.While we are pursuing and waiting, life slips by unknowingly.Maybe we are just a bargaining chip for time consumption, and we live a life as a funeral object for the years of that life, and we don't think of happiness at all.But we didn't realize that we were fooled until we died. We still imagined that there would be a heaven after death, there - thank God, there will be such a day!We finally enjoy eternal happiness.You see, the temptation of happiness is not only like electric rabbits and sugar cubes, making us endure life, but also like bait on a hook, making us willing to die.In this way, although life is painful, it is not pessimistic, because it always holds the hope of happiness; we have paid in advance for the present bills in the future.In order to be happy, we are even willing to die slowly.

Mill once compared the "painful Socrates" with the "happy pig".If pigs really know happiness, then pigs and Socrates are almost the same.We don't know whether pigs can be as happy as humans, but we often see people easily satisfied as pigs.Dividing happiness into physical and spiritual is the most confusing analysis.All enjoyment of pleasure is spiritual, even though the cause of pleasure is physical stimulation.When a child is born, it sleeps obediently after being fed with milk, and does not know what happiness is, although it feels comfortable physically.The reason is that the spirit and body of a child have not yet differentiated, and are just a chaotic nebula state.Take a bath, look at a flower, eat a meal, if you feel happy, it is not all because the bath is clean, the flowers bloom well, or the food suits your taste, but mainly because you have no worries in your heart. A relaxed soul can Focus on the physical feeling, come to appreciate, come to judge.If you are not happy, it is like a farewell banquet, cook it however you want, it will only smell of earth and taste of mud.The soul at that moment is like a sick eye afraid of the sun, and a torn wound afraid of the air, although air and sunlight are good things.When you are happy, you must have a clear heart.If you commit crimes and really feel happy, you must have the same peace of mind as a moral and cultivated person at that time.Having the purest conscience is as effective as having no conscience or the darkest conscience.

It was discovered that happiness is determined by the spirit, and human culture has gone one step further.Discovering this truth is as important as discovering that right and wrong, good and evil depend on axioms rather than violence.After the axiom was discovered, there is no one in the world who can be completely subdued by force.Having discovered that the spirit is the basis of all happiness, pain loses its horror, and the body reduces its vitality.Spiritual alchemy can turn physical pain into material for pleasure.Therefore, when a house is burned, there are people who celebrate; there are people who don’t change their joy when they eat a basket of food and drink a ladle;So we said earlier that although life is not happy, it can still be optimistic.For example, from Solomon who wrote the "Book of the Prophets" to Mallarme who wrote the poem "Sea Wind", they all felt that the pain of civilized people is physical sleepiness.But there are some people who can take pleasure in bitterness, filter out happiness from illness, and make compensation for the disappearance of health.Su Dongpo's poem said: "Being idle due to illness is not evil, and reassurance is medicine, and there is no prescription." Passionate and humane!" In the West, which focuses on sports, we can also find people who are equally optimistic.Novalis, who is a melancholy and sick man, established a philosophy of illness in "The Collection of Broken Gold", saying that illness is "a female teacher who teaches people how to rest".In Rodenbach's collection of poems "Les Vies Encloses" (Les Vies Encloses), there is a volume dedicated to sickness, saying that sickness is "the purification of the soul (puration)".Physically fit and active people adopt this view and perceive pain in a different way.When the stubborn eighteenth-century German poet BHB rockes fell ill for the first time, he thought it was an "amazing discovery (Eine bewunderungsw rdi ge Erfindung)".For such a person, what threat is there to life?This kind of happiness, turning endurance into enjoyment, is the greatest victory of spirit over matter.The soul can be autonomous - and perhaps self-deceived at the same time.A person who can consistently hold this attitude is of course a great philosopher, but who knows that he is not also a great fool?

Yes, it's a bit of a contradiction.Contradiction is the price of wisdom.This is the joke that life makes on the outlook on life.