Happiness

[Anonymous No.10931248]

Hoping to make a /lit/ chart of books about happiness. Post suggestions in this thread. Give a short explanation of the main theses if possible.

I think separating them by genre rather than tier makes more sense... Will post a few very different books to get started.

>Philosophy
Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) - one of the earliest works on the topic of happiness; suggests practising moderation.
Tao Te Ching (Lao Tzu) - "do nothing", be content with what you have. Don't personally agree but I thought I'd include some Eastern stuff.
Walden (Thoreau) - live simply and deliberately, and be self-reliant. It's a good middle ground between the Stoics and Nietzsche.

>Psychology
Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor Frankl) - argues that we need purpose and that purpose can make us happy even in the worst conditions.
Affective Neuroscience (Jaak Panksepp) - more of a scientific text about emotions, less "therapeutic" but still has some important lessons.
Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman) - only part of it is about happiness, but it has some very good chapters on long-term decision making.

[Anonymous No.10931353]

>>10931248
Good thread OP, I don't have anything to contribute though. Do you ever wonder if people might confuse pleasure and happiness though?

[Anonymous No.10931567]

>>10931353
Sorry was eating.

It's been empirically shown that people disproportionately value pleasure over happiness, despite the fact that the very pleasures they chase don't make them happy. There are various reasons for this, I'll try to quote a few pieces here...

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about how we have a tendency to pursue luxury because the comfort and convenience looks attractive, but more often than not this comes at a huge cost, much greater than the comfort and convenience -- we have to constantly work to maintain those luxuries. Even when we're struggling financially we work stressful jobs rather than just downgrading lifestyles.

Herbert Marcuse builds on this in more modern terms. His main argument is that the free market, through very powerful advertising techniques, fools us into thinking the luxuries (products we don't need) will bring us happiness.

John Stuart Mill, on the other hand, thought that all humans deep down can make a distinction between pleasure and happiness, but sometimes, because of temptation and laziness, will succumb to their impulses and fall into addiction (being in a state where only lower pleasures can be enjoyed).

Other important concepts here are the Hedonic Treadmill, Freud's idea of "sublimation", and delayed gratification (something which a lot of adults still struggle with).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_gratification
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment (experiment on delayed gratification in children)

Finally, there's very good scientific evidence that shows that "wanting" and "liking" are completely different neurological processes, so it's possible to want something without even liking it (think about food addiction - nobody wants to be obese, it's depressing, but they still crave food).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3008658/

[Anonymous No.10931621]

>>10931248
I think you've misinterpreted the tao te ching a bit. I don't think that it suggests you do nothing, but rather that you do nothing effortful in the sense of resisting your nature.

[Anonymous No.10931653]

>>10931248
The Loser (Thomas Bernhard) -- all about confronting not being great at anything in particular, but living a happy life despite it.

Lord Jim (Conrad) -- Giving yourself a second chance despite having the idealism of your youth crushed by reality.

J.S. Mill -- On Liberty is great on happiness.

Essays (Montaigne) -- So many essays on living a worthwhile and happy life.

Letters From a Stoic (Seneca) -- Some stoic philosophy that isn't as concrete and rigid as most other stoics. Seneca is a soft stoic, which fits more closely with how stoics might act today.

The Sorrows of Young Werther (Goethe) -- Classic on love and happiness

Aristotelian Ethics

Platonic Dialogues

[Anonymous No.10931716]

>>10931621
It was a reductive summary, I'll admit.

Taoism, like much of the early Greek philosophy (that of the Stoics, the Ascetics, and Epicurean), preaches a simple life that is free from overabundant pleasure-seeking. It's hard to argue against this. It's also hard to argue against meditation, a common practice in Taoism.

His dogma, however - "do nothing" (Wu Wei) - takes this a bit too far. To him, you should be content with the state of things rather than trying to change them. He talks about the ideal person (the Master) as someone who doesn't try to win, doesn't try to gain knowledge or wisdom, and, more practically speaking, makes no attempt to create successful businesses, turn a profit, travel, achieve recognition - he is simply happy "being".

[Anonymous No.10931730]

>>10931653
Never read any Montaigne. Care to suggest an Essay you particularly enjoyed on this topic? His collection of essays is over 1000 pages long...

[Anonymous No.10931761]

>>10931730
On Physiognomy is my favorite one--though it isn't strictly about happiness. Read To Philosophize is to learn how to die, then On Physiognomy, because Montaigne pulls a 180 on how he thinks about his own death, and how one should live their life. It is about dying, but more than that it is about how to think about it, and how to live your everyday life. Its good. Always makes me feel happier. Also cool to see how his thinking changed after years of thinking.

[Anonymous No.10931775]

>>10931730
Really, though, you can kind of flip through and find ones you will like, and generally they will somehow fit into being a happier and better person. That was his ultimate goal in writing his essays, so most of them aim towards that goal.

[Anonymous No.10931791]

>>10931761
>>10931775
Great thanks.

This reminds me, Seneca wrote an essay "On the Shortness of Life". Also Heidegger talks about death in a "positive" way, if you can call it that.

[Anonymous No.10932023]

Is Team Chocolate objectively the happiest team?

[Anonymous No.10932033]

>>10932023
Stop that already. Is annoying how all the boards are filled with shitposting because of that

[Anonymous No.10932112]

Maybe chocolates are the least happy which leads them to read about happiness in order to attain it.

[Anonymous No.10932192]

>>10932033
This. I couldn’t believe the drop in fucking quality when I saw the catalog this morning.

[Anonymous No.10932877]

books tagged "happiness" on goodreads might be a good place to look

https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/happiness

[Anonymous No.10933776]

Bumping before I go to bed, hopefully Americans will be coming home soon.

[Anonymous No.10933792]

>>10931248
the book of Ecclesiastes by Solomon

[Anonymous No.10933881]

The Conquest of Happiness
The Happiness Hypothesis
Stumbling on Happiness
The Happiness Trap

[Anonymous No.10933914]

I think the Tao Te Cheng is depressing, is it just me?
I don't want to do nothing and be nothing and be both something and not that thing simultaneously while I strike desire from my heart, that seems empty as hell

The Tao would have me believe that that emptiness is englightenment I guess but that doesnt do a lot for me

[Anonymous No.10933971]

>>10933914
Yeah me too. Chesterton gives a somewhat relevant and amazing comparison between Christianity and Buddhism which, even if you aren't a Christian, explains part of why a lot of Eastern philosophy doesn't sit right with Westerners:
>Love desires personality; therefore love desires division. It is the instinct of Christianity to be glad that God has broken the universe into little pieces, because they are living pieces. It is her instinct to say ‘little children, love one another,’ rather than to tell one large person to love himself. This is the intellectual abyss between Buddhism and Christianity; that for the Buddhist personality is the fall of men, for Christianity it is the purpose of God, the whole point of His cosmic idea. All modern philosophies are chains which connect and fetter; Christianity is a sword which separates and sets free. No other philosophy makes God actually rejoice in the separation of the universe into living souls.

I love those last lines.

[Anonymous No.10934019]

>>10933914
>>10933971
Interesting. Speaking from personal experience, doing nothing to me means procrastination, and procrastination gives me anxiety. I could be doing so much, experiencing the world, learning things... this is when I'm most content with myself. If I waste a day doing nothing I'll regret it.

How can you be happy resisting your urge to be a human?

[Anonymous No.10934054]

Celine made me a lot happier, in a weird way.

I've been reading a lot of Vedic texts for class and all those great heroic men living royal lives of perfect dharma, having incredible spiritually fulfilling sex with devout and loving women, and achieving enlightenment because of their perfect souls and pure discipline makes me miserable in a way that's hard to explain, as do the occasional class discussions of "be yourself" and "muh sacred feminine". Maybe I'm simply too spiritually broken to appreciate these stories, everyone else seems to love them.

Celine joking about getting cukholded by some ditzy romantic American girl, getting sent to die by rich fucks who were making money hand over fist while expecting him to be overjoyed at the chance to "serve his patrie", describing life in all its cruelty and banality is refreshing. Even though life is terrible at points, Celine makes it feel somewhat less lonely and hypocritical.

>>10931716
>coming to terms with life in its most essential manifestations is inferior to going through the motions that society forces on its citizens in the material interests of the elite class (create a business, turn a profit, travel can all be reduced to CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME) or stroking your ego (achieve recognition)

[Anonymous No.10934106]

>>10934054
I feel this is a bit of a strawman. If recognition and success makes one happy and content with life, free of regrets on their deathbed, they should strive for it. This doesn't mean slaving away for consumerism and materialism.

[Anonymous No.10934135]

Regrets of the dying

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

[Anonymous No.10934431]

>>10934106
>jusht be urself lol :)

[Anonymous No.10934459]

>>10934135
I wish i had spent more time posting on 4chan