[HN Gopher] Different Cultures Define Happiness Differently
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Different Cultures Define Happiness Differently
Author : pseudolus
Score : 33 points
Date : 2021-07-18 16:41 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| A decade ago when I did leadership training one of the key
| exercises was developed so that you could demonstrate to yourself
| that happiness is a choice. Happiness doesn't come from anywhere
| outside of you, it comes from you.
|
| You could be sad or angry that something bad happened, or you
| could be happy that something worse did not happen, or that you
| are still alive, etc. You can be sad that someone is dead, but
| happy to have known them and gotten to share moments in life with
| them.
|
| The hard part is practising until your brain believes it.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| You can't have enough contempt for that culture-bound crap.
| rohan_ wrote:
| This doesn't make any sense - are people who are suffering from
| depression "choosing" to be depressed ?
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| In his world they are - they could reflect on the fact that
| they do not have Morbus Huntington and the fact that they
| fail do to so and be happy, that's on them. It's the Just
| World theory, the secular version of the heresy of
| Predestination. (The heresy bit, that's actually serious, the
| poster speaks false dogmata.) Now pass a bucket, I'm going to
| throw up because of the unctuous self-righteousness.
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| Please see my other comment. There is absolutely no
| expectation that it is possible to simply think ones way
| out of depression. Having already said enough that can be
| misinterpreted I will say only that clinical depression
| (and many other diagnoses) fall into a different category.
| The attempts by various parts of society to pretend that
| either there is no such thing as "normal" or that everyone
| is "normal" have done unspeakable harm to individuals where
| to the best of our scientific and medical knowledge there
| IS a difference. It is quackery, bordering on murderous
| intent to think that, much less tell someone with
| depression that they should just think happy thoughts.
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| My original comment does not cover depression. Without going
| into the underlying biology, it is safe to say that it is
| exceedingly rare for individuals with depression to be able
| to break out, because there are biochemical or structural
| changes in the brain that require either substantial changes
| in the individual's environment, or clinical intervention to
| overcome.
|
| There is also a fundamental difference between the experience
| of feeling happy and viewing something from a positive
| perspective. Even someone with depression could choose a
| positive interpretation for an potentially saddening event,
| but that choice alone would be unlikely to result in the
| experience of happiness, precisely because depression impacts
| the very ability to experience happiness, it is something
| more fundamental. There is also the question of whether
| depression makes it difficult to pick positive
| interpretations for events, but that is orthogonal to the
| point here.
| duncan-donuts wrote:
| As a person with depression I really, truly wish I could just
| choose to be happy.
| gremloni wrote:
| Unless it's a tiny percentage of people that have a severe
| chemical imbalance, absolutely.
| nawgz wrote:
| I think that reading about meta-level thinking & decision
| making and bad-faith railroading that as implying chemical
| balances within the body don't exist is pretty silly. Surely
| you could have taken a different meaning quite easily.
| raincom wrote:
| Of course, I can define the word 'happiness' as a square root of
| the natural number '4'. So what does it tell?
| [deleted]
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