A little long ago, I used to think that people should do what makes them happy, and that when everyone does the same, the world is going to be a happy place. But when I later realized the inherent flaw in this logic, I felt timid. How ignorant was it to assume that the world will have the maximum happiness if everyone does everything that gives him or her the maximum happiness!With due respect to the concepts of free will, I will have to acknowledge that they are so alluring that you will be enticed to believe that individual happiness is the way to collective harmony. But then, it takes a little bit of extrospection, if I may be allowed to construct that word, to realize that the other way around may perhaps be a possibility, but pure individual happiness may not lead to collective harmony.
So, does everyone have to sacrifice own happiness for the bigger harmony? In some cases, they may be sacrifices that are worth making, but in most cases they may not be sacrifices in the first place. I can give you a few examples. If you think stopping on a red light is making you unhappy, then there is some problem with you, not with the system. If you think not coaching a junior is the best way to ensure your own safety, you've got the fundamentals of ecosystem wrong, the ecosystem itself is not wrong. If you think blocking imports is the best way to grow trade inside the country, it's again a problem with your understanding of economics, not with economics itself.
Before the examples get more complex, if you have still not learnt to derive self-happiness out of keeping the system happy, then I think it's you who has to grow before the system can start growing again. If you believed individual happiness comes before collective harmony, think again, you might be cutting off the branch on which you're sitting. There might be many ways to not have individual happiness while upholding collective harmony, but there may be at least one way for each one of us to ensure both. After all, the system comprises of all of us. The question is not about whose happiness it is, the question is, whose happiness is it anyway?
extrospection.... hmm... let me think... its after all your bday eve, so I allow you to construct a word.... be happy :P
ReplyDeleteRead this and wanted to relate to your post:
ReplyDelete"culture cannot determine me from without, and the ambiguous relation that I have with it must be expressed always by conjoining these two prepositions:first, I am it, and to this extent it structures and limits me; secondly it is I, and to this extent I structure and limit it" You can say the same about happiness it has to be an individuals as well as the group's - both within and without :)
And thanks for sending that article too, haven't read it still, but let me bookmark:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.urbanmonk.net/59/what-your-ego-is-and-how-to-stop-it-from-obscuring-your-inner-peace-and-unconditional-love/1/