I’ve read your other responses, and while I don’t think my experience will assist you in an attempt to feel the emotion, it may assist in your ability to understand the emotion’s desirability.
I find myself more productive when I’m happy; my mind has less cluttered thoughts, due to less anxiety and cognitive duress (I can only best describe this as a state when my subconscious works overtime on thoughts I’m only barely conscious of, and each time I try to deeply contemplate a new thought, somewhere along the halfway point it’s unwillingly relegated to my subconscious as something I’m anxious over pops to the top of my mind).
I also notice a correlation between times I am unhappy, and a lowering in my self-confidence. Normally my confidence hovers right below what I would consider ‘a level of confidence conducive to hubris’, and when happy, it can tend to spill over into this danger zone. When unhappy, my confidence becomes akin to the normative level of confidence I’ve observed most people whom I’ve encountered to likely possess. This diminishing of confidence too lessens my productivity, and to reestablish my normative confidence level, I must then end my unhappiness.
Thus, for me, over-abundant happiness can be dangerous, but wading just above the happiness threshold gives me clarity of mind and purposeful focus. Hope this helped elucidate happiness’s utility for you. Cheers!
I consider my normative state to be just under or around the ‘happy’ threshold, which I’d consider as between happiness and unhappiness. Happiness essentially equates to a certain chemical balance in the brain, and the same holds true for unhappiness. When the brain releases neurotransmitters equitably, I’d postulate the brain’s chemical balance to reflect neutral emotions.
As an aside, I’ve heard genuinely, innocently laughing releases endorphins just as effectively as exercise; what do you emotively experience when these endorphins release? If you want to hack happiness, exercise or some media you find consistently hilarious might work through pure chemistry. (Note: I may be mistaken in the neuroscience, though doubt it; I’m working on a piece of paper that declares proficiency in the field.)
Might I recommend following Zaine’s description with this paragraph from Luke’s How To Be Happy:
IgnoreWe all want to be happy, as apparently you don’t, but continue with and happiness is useful for other things, too.2 For example, happiness improves physical health,3 improves creativity,4 and even enables you to make better decisions.5 (It’s harder to be rational when you’re unhappy.6)
EDIT: note that the formatting is off in copy and paste. Comments do not support subscripts. numbers 2-6 refer to notes in the article
I’ve read your other responses, and while I don’t think my experience will assist you in an attempt to feel the emotion, it may assist in your ability to understand the emotion’s desirability.
I find myself more productive when I’m happy; my mind has less cluttered thoughts, due to less anxiety and cognitive duress (I can only best describe this as a state when my subconscious works overtime on thoughts I’m only barely conscious of, and each time I try to deeply contemplate a new thought, somewhere along the halfway point it’s unwillingly relegated to my subconscious as something I’m anxious over pops to the top of my mind).
I also notice a correlation between times I am unhappy, and a lowering in my self-confidence. Normally my confidence hovers right below what I would consider ‘a level of confidence conducive to hubris’, and when happy, it can tend to spill over into this danger zone. When unhappy, my confidence becomes akin to the normative level of confidence I’ve observed most people whom I’ve encountered to likely possess. This diminishing of confidence too lessens my productivity, and to reestablish my normative confidence level, I must then end my unhappiness.
Thus, for me, over-abundant happiness can be dangerous, but wading just above the happiness threshold gives me clarity of mind and purposeful focus. Hope this helped elucidate happiness’s utility for you.
Cheers!
One fo the many things I dislike about the English language is that it does not readily acknowledge that “happy” is no excluded middle.
I consider my normative state to be just under or around the ‘happy’ threshold, which I’d consider as between happiness and unhappiness. Happiness essentially equates to a certain chemical balance in the brain, and the same holds true for unhappiness. When the brain releases neurotransmitters equitably, I’d postulate the brain’s chemical balance to reflect neutral emotions.
As an aside, I’ve heard genuinely, innocently laughing releases endorphins just as effectively as exercise; what do you emotively experience when these endorphins release? If you want to hack happiness, exercise or some media you find consistently hilarious might work through pure chemistry.
(Note: I may be mistaken in the neuroscience, though doubt it; I’m working on a piece of paper that declares proficiency in the field.)
Might I recommend following Zaine’s description with this paragraph from Luke’s How To Be Happy:
IgnoreWe all want to be happy, as apparently you don’t, but continue with and happiness is useful for other things, too.2 For example, happiness improves physical health,3 improves creativity,4 and even enables you to make better decisions.5 (It’s harder to be rational when you’re unhappy.6)
EDIT: note that the formatting is off in copy and paste. Comments do not support subscripts. numbers 2-6 refer to notes in the article