Good Stuff on the Good Life

Okay, to run this nepotism thing into the ground, I thought I'd share in its entirety this post, written by my son, Philip, on his blog. It's called The Good Life:

I was with a friend the other day and somehow or other we got to talking about how life can feel unfulfilled. The problem stems primarily from society's poor definition of what it means to be happy. In other words, this is a story of two happinesses.

While I was talking to my friend, I managed to recall something that I had once discussed while in philosophy class. It was the difference between psychological happiness and ethical happiness. (Yes, philosophy can actually help you in life.)

Psychological happiness is the happiness we experience when we get a new bauble. We are so happy with a new pair of shoes (we believe they will make us run faster), or a new book (we believe we will learn so much), or a new album (we believe we have finally found the next Beatles); that we cannot contain our joy. There is nothing really wrong with psychological happiness. We are told to enjoy this life, and part of life's enjoyment comes from experiencing new things or getting something that we have worked really hard to possess. I myself am terribly happy with my computer and my room full of books. But, in the end, does it really matter? If all my stuff was taken from me, would I feel bad?

Of course I would. I would be quite put out, and would be justified for being so...to a degree. But, in truth, it isn't things that define who we are as humans, it is happiness. In our society of buy-this-and-be-happy consumerism and deeply jaded sarcasm; we feel happiness constantly being squeezed out of us. Even I can do this from time to time. I will be cruel to someone by taking a joke too far or be so focused on buying something that I don't need, that I need to ask myself, "am I really happier because of this."

Happiness is fragile and strong at the same time. It can be a transient state of mind a la psychological happiness or it can be something deep in our bones. This kind of happiness is called ethical happiness. This is our inherent happiness. It springs from goodness and it is what every human being is searching for whether they know it or not. Don't believe me? Okay, believe Aristotle. He states in the Nicomachean Ethics that, "Happiness then is the best and noblest and pleasantest thing in the world..." Sure, he admits, outside forces definitely contribute to our happiness; but in the end it all comes down to our souls.

Ethical happiness takes all our outside influences and filters them through us. Hopefully when crap happens we can say, "well, that was pretty bad; but at least I am still happy." Its a choice. Aristotle believed that happiness was a gift from the gods. Christians believe that Happiness is God.

God even spoke on Happiness when he was on earth. In the beatitudes the word blessed is translated as happiness as well. This means that we are happily blessed when we are meek or peacemakers or cheese makers (as some British comedians would say, and I am sure that cheese makers are blessedly happy for the most part). We become happy by being virtuous. We become happy by doing what is good, because that is what God does and we live in his universe. Its like moving along with the forces that undergird nature, we can feel that it just makes us happy to be virtuous and to have ethical happiness.

So as we enter into a major national holiday that celebrates a few guys penning a document; I say Jefferson was wrong. We are not pursuing happiness as if it were some outside goal. We are being happy because it is in our intrinsic natures to be happy; and that is the great difference between the two happinesses.

Here's a link to Phil's site.