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+---- Thread: Look at me!! (/showthread.php?tid=10846)
Look at me!! - Szar - 03-22-2007
This is an assignment I'm working on for my Creative Writing class. We're supposed to be writing Memoirs, but since I hate the idea of writing Non-fiction in a Creative Writing class, I choose to take a different approach.
Without further ado:
Have you ever stopped to wonder what it is to be happy? To feel joy, what does it mean? Is it the simple idea that one finds enjoyment through a certain pursuit? Is it simply a process of the mind releasing dopamine when influenced by external stimuli that defines what humans consider ?being happy??
Or, is happiness so complex a thing that humans, with our limited levels of understanding, are unable to properly define it? Certainly we all know the word, as well as what sorts of situations to use it in, but do we truly know what it is? Or, do we know what society has taught us to know?
It?s a difficult line to trace; where fact is separated from opinion. From a scientific standpoint, happiness can be described as an elevation in mood altering chemicals, like dopamine, in response to a particular stimulus. But, that is not a practical definition. Happiness is much more spiritual than that, it just has to be?right? It?s illogical to say that we find joy in what we do, or like certain things, due to chemical shifts.
If the previous statement is true, than perhaps looking at it from a less scientific standpoint will provide insight. We often describe being happy as having ?a good feeling about something?. But, what is good? It depends on the person, so it is impossible for a singular definition. However, as with happiness, we all have a pre-conceived notion as to what good is.
Where do these notions come from? Are humans born with the innate sense of happiness and the knowledge of the characteristics that come with it? Or, do we assume what it is based on the world around us? If so, then where did the world come up with the notion on what happiness is? If they took it from the world around us as we do now, they must have as well. If the cycle continues as such, where did the world?s first man get the idea? There was no society around them to draw conclusions from.
This would mean, then, that humans are born with the idea of what happiness is, and society serves to either reinforce, or refute these ideas. It?s safe to say, I think, that this is accurate.
It's not completed yet, but that is what I have thusfar. Tear it down as you see fit.