Everyone wants to be happy and so do
I . But, what is happiness? I have been thinking
about happiness a lot and find that it's one elusive emotion to
define! I can easily define and recognize other emotions such as thrills,
excitement, nervousness, relief, fear, depression, and anger . But happiness is
something which I either 'rarely' experience or can't recognize it when I
do. Yet, like everyone else, I seem to do things because
I want happiness or avoid unhappiness.
Daily, I go through a range of emotions(and
thoughts). And like most people, I try to do whatever it takes to experience pleasant emotions
& avoid unpleasant emotions.
Listed below, are the pleasant emotions I feel
when I engage in some activities. I wonder if happiness is simply
another word for these emotions? or is happiness something else?
- Pleasure: when
I eat something tasty like a Tobelerone chocolate or any other favorite
food. But this pleasure is brief...the pleasure ceases when I have
swallowed the chocolate and the taste is no longer on my tongue...so this
pleasure is as brief as a few minutes. Pleasure can be got through any of
the 5 sensory routes...taste, touch, smell, hearing and vision. Yet,
happiness is more complex than what we experience through our 5 senses.
The touch of a massage is pleasurable; the smell of aromas we like is
pleasurable; Listening to music we enjoy is pleasurable; seeing
a lovely scene can be pleasurable.
- Mild pleasure: smelling rain on earth, any pleasant smell like flowers or
perfumes you like. This too is brief and after a couple of minutes, I
either stop feeling that pleasure or my attention is not on
the fragrance anymore.
- Laughter & smiles: when I make a joke or hear one, when I watch funny stuff on TV or
read funny stuff or a witty conversation. Here the sense of joy is much
longer and the wittier and longer the show/book/whatever, the longer the
duration of laughter/happiness. Recalling and retelling the jokes of the
show later brings about the same elevation of mood as when I was watching
the show. Here the sense of joy lasts for half hour or an hour and the
happiness can be re-experienced by the memories. (Recalling the taste of
the sweet does not create the same pleasure/happiness as when
actually having the sweet sitting on the tongue)
- A physical kinesthetic sense of
pleasure: a.while coming down when on the giant wheel...this again
lasts for 3-4 seconds. b.Being on a swing.c.Being jolted when sitting at
the back of the bus travelling on a bumpy road...some hate this jolting
but I love it! d. watching a movie where the plane swoops fast and your
eyes are following and you feel dizzy (like in the 2018 movie black
panther).e. any of those rides for adults in places like Disney land,
Canada's wonderland, etc.
- Thrills, excitement & an adrenalin rush: when reading a crime fiction book or watching an exciting TV
show/movie especially when at an exciting junction. Here the emotions of
thrill, etc. last for the duration of the book reading and may last for
many hours. The thrills wax and wane depending on whether the part of the
book being read is exciting or not.
- Relief: When
I have been holding my urine or poop for ages and finally reach a
"decent" toilet! The feeling of relief is exquisite! This can
last for up to a minute or more. Or when I have been working for hours and
finally get to bed...that moment when I get to lie on the bed, flat
on my back is wonderful! Other mildly pleasurable reliefs are : when you
sneeze and the tickle in your nose stops, untying your tightly braided
hair and vigorously rubbing your scalp, picking at dried scabs, ...finally
getting to remove the edge of your finger-nail which has been painfully
growing into the nail bed with a nail cutter and rubbing the sore spot,
etc. This list of 'relief-giving' things may look ridiculous to some.
But I find these experiences note-worthy!
- Physically pleasant sensations for
which I cant find descriptive words: 1.Scratching when it feels
itchy or 2. getting a good massage when a muscle is hurting. That feeling
is so great! I can get a massage for ever and a day! 3.The pleasurable
pain of digging a nail deep into a painful swelling(swelling caused by an
insect bite) on skin is another great sensation. The relief I experience when I scratch and itch or massage away a pain is a sort of happiness maybe. 4.when something, weightless
and light, touches my skin, like a feather or thread, I love that
sensation too. But I can't find a word to express what that feeling is!.
The emotion/feeling last for the duration of the experience i.e. many
seconds or minutes. 5. Tickles...but I don't think tickles are
100% pleasurable as I start screaming for the person to stop tickling!
Maybe some things like tickles are a pleasure, only if limited. Could the tickles and sensation when the thread touches my skin be tactile pleasure?
- The emotion I experience which is
a combination of Pride, excitement & joy:
When I win a prize or praise especially from someone 'high-up' or from
someone who rarely praises. This feeling lasts for many seconds at first
and maybe a few minutes. This emotion can come and go depending on how
often I recall the moment of achievement or winning the
prize/praise, etc.
- A sense of achievement and
satisfaction: when I have completed some creative task or finished
some difficult job. When someone thanks me for my help or praises my
cooking while eating. This sense of achievement and satisfaction too is
for a few seconds, but can be experienced again and again when I recall
it.
- Sense of purpose: I am not sure if this is an emotion or an 'aim' or a thought.
But this is very very important for us humans to carry on with our lives.
I experience this sense of purpose when I am helping someone and it is
intensely satisfying! I have helped my family a great deal financially and
otherwise. I have helped family, friends and clients with psychological
counseling and it has made a big difference in some of their lives and
given me great satisfaction.
I think having a purpose in
life is the one vital element which prevents a depressed person
from attempting suicide.
Sense of purpose makes life meaningful for
adults . Life is difficult to continue when we don't feel
a purpose. {one reason rich people should not make too much money and
property for their kids is that the wealth will rob the children of the
drive to strive; they may become bored as they have everything and there is no-need
to struggle or work for anything i.e. no purpose in life...then they may slip
into naughty stuff like drugs for thrills and to avoid boredom}
Sense of purpose is different from and
superior to other emotions because, it is something which keeps me
striving, even when I am experiencing difficulties.
Sense of purpose is one thing which makes people
sacrifice things which make them happy or do things which they find
painful or boring or dangerous.
I am trying to analyze if sense of purpose is
an emotion but it does not feel like one. It seems to be a combination of
thought, ambition and efforts. But since all human action is to attain
emotional satisfaction, I am trying to figure out what is the emotion I am
aiming for through sense of purpose. I think the emotion I experience
is a combination of sense of satisfaction and avoiding the experience of
guilt (feeling guilty because I am 'only enjoying' my life and
not 'achieving' something). I am not able to pinpoint the precise moment when I
experience this emotion of satisfaction. Maybe at the moment of a milestone
such as completion of a task or someone I helped reaching a stage of
recovery...it's difficult to say when I experience the emotion, how long it
lasts, is this emotion ever experienced at the conscious level or not...it is
difficult to identify, pinpoint, define, label and measure! (The west has
this great need to label and measure every single thing, even those which
cannot be such as poetry....and I am trying to do the same here!)
- Enjoyment: The
state of enjoyment I experience is longer than other emotions and
sensations mentioned above; however the intensity of enjoyment
is not 'consistently' high all through the activity. Some activities
I enjoy are: spending time with a few friends(by my
choice),eating favorite foods, sleeping especially when I have had a long
hard day, reading a book I really like, watching a TV show or movie I
really like, travelling on a vacation, meeting and playing some
games either alone or with people, penning down a great idea which flashed
to me. This sense of enjoyment lasts for the duration of the activity. But
it is tricky in some ways. I eat fast when I love the
food and try as I might, I simply can't slow
down to make the enjoyment last longer! Similarly, when I read a good book,
I race through and cant slow down to prolong the pleasure.
- Feeling good:
This emotion is felt when I look in the mirror and like what I
see. I also feel good when complimented either with words or looks by
strangers or friends. I feel good and happy when someone talks
well of my relatives or friends. If I analyze 'feeling good' I think
it's a combination of pleasure, pride and joy. Feeling good too is
something which lasts for a matter of seconds. I am not going to have the
image of myself looking good, for the entire day and feel happy the entire
day! My attention will be diverted to many other things the entire day and
so I feel good when I pass a mirror..i.e. for a few seconds.
My comment to men and women who work so hard to buy
expensive stuff is this...whether you own a million dollar
pair of emerald earrings or a cheap pair of green glass earrings, the
happiness you experience when you wear them is momentary. So, is it worth,
the trouble, to struggle so hard for such a momentary feeling of happiness?
- Joy: when
I am waiting for someone and they arrive. I feel such a joy when I see
them and then the emotion subsides. This is what I mean by saying that
happiness is elusive. With the exception of 'enjoyment', all of the above
mentioned pleasant emotions last for seconds or perhaps a
minute. I don't experience these emotions for several minutes or
hours at a time.
- Feeling 'relaxed' or feeling a 'pleasant
buzz": A few minutes after a tea spoon of
codeine, I feel pleasantly dizzy, my mind is calm, I experience zero
anxiety or sadness; there are neither happy nor sad nor neutral
thoughts racing through my mind ...instead I am able to
focus on the activity I am engaged in completely. I am not a codeine
addict yet but it felt great when I had the sore throat and had to
take this codeine!
- Excited anticipation and wait: This is one of the most pleasurable states to be in! When one is
waiting for something good, one's mind is in a pleasant, excited state. I
have experienced this many times but not as often as I would like! Waiting
for the summer holidays or Dusseera holidays when I was in school was one
fantastic mood elevator! Waiting for a letter from a friend who has
promised to write is another. Waiting for my birthday and the presents
especially in my childhood was another pleasurable wait. Similarly waiting
for things I have bought on Ebay to arrive, books I have ordered in the
library, friends from distant places, cousins from another country. The
rich people miss the pleasure of getting something after a long wait. I
think I have brought up this issue in another article in this blog(the
pleasure of poverty). Sometimes, the excitement of waiting is more
pleasurable than the happiness one feels when the object arrives. It's
like the hunter...the hunt is more exciting than after the animal is
caught. The pleasure
- Brain numbness through addictive games: There was a time when I played 2 card games on the computer for
hours and hours ! Solitaire and free cell. The games were a time
consuming, brain numbing addiction! When I try to recall and explore, the
emotions I experienced when playing these games, I cant find any
emotion at all...not pleasure, not happiness, nothing. Yet I played these
games, hour upon hour and the only emotion I can recall is feeling irritated
if called away from the game before I was ready to stop. There was no
'jump of joy' if I won; there was no anger if I din't. I simply kept on
playing and playing and playing. I wish I could label the emotion I had
when I played these addictive games;What do you call the empty calm,
non-emotion state as you play a game repetitively feeling nothing at the
end of the game..winning or losing has no effect on the emotions
experienced. you simply start playing again at the end of the game?
- Many of these emotions disappear, when I
stop to 'analyze' or think about or understand the emotion I am
experiencing at the moment. As you all know, emotions cease when
thinking starts and vice versa. Rarely can one feel and think at the
same time.
Below are other pleasant emotions I have
experienced; However, they are emotions which didn’t strike me as I was writing
the article… I got the emotions below by googling ‘pleasant emotions’ after I
finished writing the above
- Curiosity: When I see something
amazing which I don't understand, my curiosity is piqued and I enjoy the
process of hunting for the answer. It may be a sense of marvel and wonder
when I see a magic show or some miraculous thing I don't understand. Joy,
amazement and wonder mixed with awe and curiosity is experienced when I
see someone do something exceedingly well or exceedingly fast...Like when
I see my husband make Bisibelebath in the time I take simply to wash the
coriander leaves!
- Admiration: I
have experienced this when I see skilled people at work. I have admired
and longed to watch forever a psychiatrist interview a patient! This
psychiatrist is so respectful and humble and sweet that the patients love
him and talk freely and it is such a joy to watch this guy! The joy of
knowing and interacting with a fantastic person who is not only highly
intelligent and skilled and humble is such a fantastic
happiness. This happiness is wonderful as such people are as rare as
the Kohinoor!
- Joyful learning: I have had the great good luck to have had amazingly good
teachers. It was a joy to sit in their classes. I loved their classes so
much that I would not miss their classes even when I was sick. This joy
was the joy of learning, hero-worship, love and admiration. I had these amazingly
good teachers who loved their subject(English and psychology lecturers),
who were fantastic teachers and great human beings. Their classes were
something I never wanted to end.
- Love, tenderness, laughter, wanting to
protect, playfulness: This combination of
emotions I feel when with babies or pets. This too is a great feeling and
I can play with a pet for as long as it wants to without feeling bored or
wanting to stop. Wanting to protect is something I feel with regard to all
of my family members, close friends, pets of course, random babies,
children, etc.
- Relaxation: I
feel this when I get to sit and stretch my legs after a long walk,
when I wake on a Sunday morning, knowing that I don't have to
get out of bed. This too is a great feeling but it does reach a saturation
point.
- Satisfaction: When I got good marks with the remark, 'good' in red ink
on my school tests! When I taste what I have cooked and it's good. When I
wrote a great skit and read it.
- Thrill of the chase(similar to excited anticipation
and wait listed earlier) This is a low-key prolonged sense of joy and
thrill and pleasure when ends when the object I was hunting for is found.
The joy of owning the object is so brief, it's sad! I experienced this
when I was buying used books for my collection, searching for old coins
and stamps, bird nests, rocks, antique brass and copper vessels and
whatever else I collected over the years. I had this nice feeling when I
was roaming in various areas of Bangalore looking for used books,
when I was in my village searching for birds nests such as the weaverbirds
nests, hunting for unusual rocks in villages, by the sea and rivers, etc.
I also experienced this when I went to used book stores and thrift stores
in Toronto. I experienced fantastic thrills when I was bidding on a set of
books on Ebay! I have now realized that the thrill of the chase is a
greater happiness and the pleasure of the chase lasts
much much longer than the happiness of actually finding the desired
object. Even if the chase is long, the thrill never wanes for me. The
thrill of the chase is greater than getting the object of the chase for
me; I have searched for books on the internet, shops and other places. But
once I get the book I don't read it for quite a while! Why the heck did I
chase it for so long if I am not going to read it? I think the chase was
satisfying and once I get it, I tell myself, now that I have it, I can
read it any time...I needn't read it right now.
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Paradoxical emotions: Paradoxical emotions is feeling the opposite
of what one should logically feel. For example, one should feel happy when one
gets a job. One should feel happy if one is getting married. But paradoxically,
I felt stressed at the time I
started work after getting the job and stressed before the wedding.
I felt relief along with some
happiness after the events. I may have felt
satisfaction but at a much later time! I wonder if others feel the
same as me.
I feel a lot more of pure happiness and
satisfaction about small things. But anything big, the stress while
doing is more than the satisfaction after completion, even if the job gets
done.
Below are a few other positive emotions, akin to
happiness I have experienced at various times.
- Quiet joy: Good
memories bring a quiet joy to my mind.
- Feeling energized: I get this when a vacation is decided. On a vacation, I am
bursting with energy, even if I have not eaten for many hours! I simply
can't understand where I get my energy from when I am on a holiday,
roaming around some foreign city.
I get this sense of energy when I am window
shopping or looking in a used book store or antiques store!
- Orgasm:
There is no 'emotion' word for the intense physical pleasure during
orgasm. It's brief, intense and great.
- Peace: I
don't know if I ever experienced peace after a positive event. I seem
to experience peace after a fight has been successfully resolved between
family members. I wish I could experience peace without peace being
the outcome of resolution of a conflict.
- Hope: I
am not sure if it is a positive emotion for me or a mixed one. This is
because I am pretty pessimistic and when I feel hope, I also feel
hopelessness and that things will not work out! Due to my
intense pessimism, I vacillate rapidly between hope and hopelessness
and so this is not a purely positive experience.(I picked hope
from Dr.Fredrickton's list on the internet)
- Gratitude: I
have felt this many many times when I have received help from various
people. I have also felt pleased when people expressed gratitude to
me.
- Freedom: I
felt this when I passed out of a department with a very controlling
HOD, got out of a family with a very controlling head and got out of a job
with a very controlling & bossy boss. I felt relieved and enjoyed my
freedom after my exit, but I don't remember feeling elated or
ecstatic....I think it took me a lot of time to recover from the negative
emotions which had piled up during the unfree phase and it took time
for me to 'stop being wary' and start enjoying the freedom. (I picked
freedom from a list on the internet and did not come up with this emotion
myself)
- Interest: I
have felt interest often and this goes with curiosity. (I took this
emotion off a list of emotions on the internet).
- Spirituality: I cannot really describe what I experience when I pray. My daily
or almost daily morning prayer is nothing but asking God(I read out a list
of God's names) and ask them to bless me and my family and friends( I read
out a list of names of family and friends too). I notice a definite
reduction in anxiety or anxiety type feelings and feel calm and sort of
have the belief that all my family and friends will be safe and problem
free; this emotion of calmness lasts for a few minutes/seconds after my
prayers. Then I am engaged in whatever activity after my prayers and
I am neither anxious or happy or whatever. On the days I miss saying my
prayer, but I am aware that I didn't pray, I have a few seconds or
minutes of uneasiness but this vanishes as my mind gets busy with some
other thoughts or work. Sometimes I think my praying is simply an anxiety
reduction activity and not really one which makes me experience joy or
spirituality or any of those 'better' emotions. It would be nice if I
could get something more out of my prayers emotionally.
Nostalgia: This is one emotion I forgot to add. I love to indulge in this mood or emotion or thoughts or whatever...I feel nostalgic when I see or recall things form my childhood and even recent past. It's hard to describe this nostalgic feeling...I have experienced it often but how to describe it(without looking at google). It's a warm feeling of joy at happy memories and wish I could have the same experience again, now...but things have changed and so even if the same event/experience is repeated, I doubt if the same feeling can be experienced. Because I have changed, things have changed. Maybe for food items, I can get the same joy now. But for movies I can't get the same emotion. For example, I ate the Thombittu my husband got from my mother from India yesterday(14th March 2018) with hot milk and ripe banana and loved it! It was just like eating Thombittu on Shivratri for Phalahara. The taste was such pure pleasure for me and nostalgia of course!
But when I tried to see a favorite movie of my childhood days i.e. Marocharitra(Telgu), I could not bear to sit through it for even half hour! I have changed so much!
So many things bring Nostalgia in me...each visit to India and roaming the streets of Gandhi Baazar, Malleshwaram, Yeshwantpur Santhe, city market and avenue road, etc. Certain books (Enid Blyton books)make me feel nostalgic but I can't read them anymore as my attention wanders.
Nostalgia is an amazing emotion. it's gentle, it makes you feel a little sad that the days are over and no longer can you experience those days and events. I want the simplicity of the life of the 70s. I want the quietness of Bangalore, the less population, I don't even mind the hardships of life of those days as we had less money and less amenities.
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Yet, we humans labour so much and so
long for these exceedingly brief moments of happiness.
Why am I writing this? Why am I analyzing what I
feel?
Recently, I have asked myself whether I am happy or
depressed? Thinking about my feelings, I discovered a few things about myself.
One. When I am awake/conscious, my mind is
never blank. It has a thought or more likely a stream of thoughts or an
emotion. Like most people, I find it impossible to be both conscious and
without any thought in my head.
Two. Often, I seem to fill my mind with thoughts,
simply to keep out worries. My mind seems to be an empty space which HAS
to be filled... if left vacant, worries will fill up the space. So I have
to make a conscious effort to fill it with neutral or positive
things.
Three: Most of the time, I am either 'neutral'
emotionally or experiencing 'negative emotions' such as anxiety or worry,
sometimes, anger, sadness, frustration, jealousy, irritation. The positive
emotions mentioned in this article seem to last for a few seconds at a time, a
few times per day. I am sort of shocked and sad that no-emotion or negative
emotions are filling up most of the time in my mind! Do all others feel like me
or am I inclined to depression?
Four: Should I do something to reduce my negative
emotions?
Five: I have come to the idea that true and pure
happiness can be experienced only by children below the age of five or six.
They can be experience pure happiness because they are as yet ignorant of the
world. They are in the 'here and now' and if the here and now has what they
want i.e. playmates, toys, good food, they can be totally involved in the
activity and enjoy. However adults, are aware that unhappy things are happening
in the world and to be happy, they have to block out the world and enjoy
whatever is making them happy at the time; later they go back to remembering
all the unhappy things happening in the world. For example, how can I be
happy knowing that my friend is struggling without money or my sister is having
a tough time at work or my aunt is having health issues? These thoughts may not
be on the forefront but are definitely in my mind and memory all-the-time.
Ergo, happiness, for me, is an extremely brief period of time,
probably lasting seconds, when I forget the problems of
the world to enjoy whatever joke-I-am-listening or chocolate-I-am-eating.
I don't think I can be 'fully' or 'truly' happy, knowing that there is so much
suffering in the world.
Maybe this is what comes close to happiness for me
:
(a)when my attention is fully focussed on some
enjoyable activity, so engaged that I am oblivious to all else.
(b)those brief periods of time, I am able to
successfully block out worries about my families and friends current problems
such as worry about a close relative's unemployment, another's financial
problems, my own problems at work, etc. The stream of consciousness, for
some reason, has zero negative thoughts for several seconds to a few minutes at
a time and it is this period that I am labeling as happiness!
(c)The emptiness or calmness I feel for a few
seconds after my morning prayers. ( I don't mean emptiness in a negative way, I
mean empty as in absence of any thoughts or emotions). My prayer is a single
sentence (Devare-kapadappa...) in which I ask a whole list of
Gods(including the scary Shani... I dont dare miss his name out of my list!) to
bless me and a whole list of family and friends.
Since the last few years, I have
stopped reading newspapers online and otherwise, simply because they triggered
so much of sadness and anger and frustration in me. The news about animals and
children and women are especially disturbing to me. I have reduced the
triggers of my sadness by avoiding news but the increase in my happiness is not
much.
Six: I have had my share of blessings or maybe
greater than most people's share. Yet, I wonder why I am not as happier than I
am at present. I have a great husband, a great job, lots of good friends
and a wonderful family, no health issues, no money problems. I have a few
hobbies. I have a lovely pet. I enjoy some activities.
I am now wondering, what is the source of
continuous happiness? As mentioned earlier, I experience daily, these
brief moments of happiness...when the taste of the food is on the tongue, when
reading a book, when talking to friends and so on. But I wonder
if I can be happy without a cause i.e. happy
for no reason?
Can I be happy, even if I don't have what I
want?
Can I be happy, even if there is misery in the
world?
Can I be happy, even when my family and
friends are suffering?
Can I be happy, even if I am suffering or in want?
Can I be happy, even if my mind is blank i.e. no
thoughts, no ideas?
Is it crazy to be happy without reason? or is
it Moksha?
If I ever reach a stage of 'prolonged happiness'
will I then slip from this 'state of happiness' into 'boredom',
simply because my human mind reaches saturation point for happiness?
Happiness is also 99.9% of the time, 'tainted'.
I am not sure if tainted is the word I am looking for but I will give a
few examples to explain what I mean. I am happy that I won the slogan writing
competition but not fully happy as my best friend did not also win; I am happy
I got the job but my happiness is sort of tainted because the guy with 2
kids to support, who took the interview with me dint get the job.
Reading this article, I discovered three things
about myself
(1) I am a neurotic ...with some symptoms
of anxiety & depression.
(2) I want the impossible in order to be
happy...I want Utopia; I won't get it; so I will remain unhappy.(3)I may never
be happy...because I want 'other' people to change for me to be happy; I want
'things' all over the world to change for me to be happy...for example I want a
complete end of trapping, hunting, poaching, fishing,etc for me to feel happy or to
'stop worrying about animals' sufferings'.
(4) I am not generating happiness by my actions;
instead I am depending on others making changes or circumstances changing
for me to be happy...and that will not happen in a
million years! ergo...I am doomed to unhappiness !
Or I change and I actively seek the best ways
to be happy.
A major reason for exploring the
theme of happiness is that I feel so enraged when I read news about crimes
such as robbery, murder, rape, fraud, etc. When happiness is so elusive, but
pain is so long lasting, why the hell do people hurt others...is the so
called 'happiness' the perpetrator experiences, worth causing so
much pain for the victim ?Pain which is so long lasting to the
victim, but the act gives the perpetrator only momentary
pleasure? That is one un-understandable thing for me! Take rape for example...whatever
pleasure the rapist gets is so brief...but the pain he/she causes the victim is
so severe and damaging and permanent with ripple effect affecting others. So
why does the rapist commit this act when he can get only a brief
moment of evil joy ?
What triggered me to write this piece?
I have been meaning to write about happiness since
many months. But a major trigger was the killing of elephants for their tusks.
I know this sounds like an awful and really weird reason to write
about happiness. But let me explain. I HATE HATE HATE the poaching
of wild animals for their skin, ivory or whatever. Humans have populated the
world and taken over the entire planet, which ought to be shared with all the
species. We are putting all other animals, birds, insects, plants and trees to
unimaginable suffering by looting this planet. And when I saw elephants, those
glorious giants being killed for their tusks I cried with shame and grief. I
asked myself, why do people want that ivory? What kind of happiness do you get
by owning that ivory when you have caused immense pain not just to the one
animal whose tusks you stole but to it's entire family?
So you got the tusk? Now are you happy? No. The
tusk is carved into some ornament or statue and it looks beautiful but how long
does it's beauty give you happiness? Until your interest in this ivory wanes and moves over to
the next item of desire. The ivory statue may be beautiful forever. But you
are not going to be happy forever. You get bored and your mind wanders and u want something else. Your mind wants something else to be happy now. So, for the
few moments of joy you get by looking at a beautiful
object, you killed a great and gentle animal?
This makes me burn. Why do people kill and torture
animals and birds? Why do they trap them through cruel snares and put them to
intense pain and torture? The happiness you get is disproportionately brief to
the pain you put the animals through. Why cant you simply give up those few
moments of pleasure of enjoying the beauty of their ivories or skins or
feathers?
I know people get a lot of joy and pride by
'owning' these things. The rarer the thing they own, greater their joy and
pride.
Why
cant they tell themselves, " I am but a traveller on earth, here today and
gone tomorrow. For this brief journey, why do I want to own things? Why cant I
enjoy the things without this need to own them? I am not able to take it with
me when I die. I cant own anything forever. Why do I kill and hurt to enjoy the
brief pleasure of ownership?
- I HATE THE RICH WHO FEEL THE NEED TO OWN THE IVORY OF ELEPHANTS,
TIGER SKINS, LEOPARD SKIN SKIRTS, CROCODILE SKIN SHOES, BEAR CLAWS AND SO
ON.
- I read that a lot of this stuff is going to the rich people in
China. the killing of animals in Asia and Africa is due to demand of rich
Chinese and of course impotent Chinese men who think that eating the
powdered horn of the Rhinoceros would make them virile.
- I pray that people all over the world understand that animals and birds deserve to lead a life in peace and without being tortured and killed. Their skin or ivory contributes very little for your happiness. You should seek happiness WITHIN yourself.
- YOU WILL NOT FIND
YOUR HAPPINESS IN SOME POOR ELEPHANT'S TUSKS.
- YOU CAN FIND HAPPINESS ONLY IN
YOURSELF
