elements of happiness

The degree of happiness is hardly to be measured. A man says that something can make him happy it does not mean that that thing can also make another man happy. Some people say that happiness comes in wealth so people will be happy if they are rich. The riches can do anything they want, buy everything they want to buy. So different with the poor where they are difficult to own something to be them.

Some others think that happiness is in honour. The higher of the social position the more people respect and the more people tend to specialised them. People in this conception of happiness thing that honour more long lasting than wealth, for wealth is only exist as long as the people still live but honour will still be remembered although the people are already die.

We cannot say that the two conceptions above are wrong but we cannot also blame them. People who say that wealth refers to happiness maybe because they are in hard economic condition who cannot fulfil their need and those who say that honour is the passage to happiness maybe they ever experienced something related to that. In conclusion, people cannot exactly compose the patron of happiness because it is obviously something related to social life and human being is something fluctuated or changeable depends on the situation they have.

We found some comments on happiness in Tasauf Moderen by Hamka. Many kinds of comment, but we decide to use the general comment, which are not to religious and easy to be applied in the play. The commentators are Leo Tolstoy, Hendrik Ibsen, Thomas Hardy, Bertrand Russel, George Bernard Shaw, Aristotle, and Imam Al Ghazaly. There are two groups of seeing happiness; the pessimist group and the sharing group, there are also the ideas of making the elements of happiness, and Imam Al Ghazaly is on the religious side.

The first group is the group who feel pessimist and hard to find the essence of happiness. Hendrik Ibsen (1828-1906), thinker from Norway, he believed that the way of finding happiness is only to waste time, because for him, they way is full of mysteries, there are so many obstacles for people to reach it. He thought that people sometime tricked that they feel they getting closer to happiness, but actually they are getting closer to their own fall, as it is quoted by Hamka, “We have not reach happiness yet, because actually every single step to get closer to it just to make us getting closer to our own fall.” (Hamka, 1939). This conception can be possible if we see people nowadays. People who have career in politic think that their aim, and their happiness, is to have an important position in legislative so that they can fight for their right and needs, but when it comes the time for them to have the position, they forget about their basic aims and they turn to be tyrannical senator, and that cannot be said to be people who are already reach their happiness, because they actually just getting closer to their downfall.

The same thinker is Thomas Hardy. He also thought that looking for happiness is just an attitude to waste time. If we see the example above, we may cannot blame this kind of idea, but then if we try to thing more deeply, their conception of idea is just the same to the idea of pessimism and discouraging ourselves to get better life.

The second group is about sharing happiness. Leo Tolstoy, in Hamka, stated that, he see happiness is when we share it to others, it also the reason why people be pessimist in searching the happiness because they do not share it with others. The happiness that only achieved by and to themselves is impossible because it is automatically done by disturbing the happiness of others. Philosophers in included in the same comments are Bertrand Russel and George Bernard Shaw.

According to Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, and other Greece philosopher, there are four elements that build happiness, are Wisdom, Bravery, Honour, and Balance.

According to Aristoteles, the elements that build happiness are
1.Health
2.Enough wealth
3.Fame and Honour
4.Has achieved his life target
5.Sharp way of thinking and religious.

According to Tolstoy, there are two kinds of happiness are;
1.Ordinary Happiness, which is happiness for only oneself or privately
2.Real Happiness, which is sharing happiness with others.
The essence of it is when we love people like we love ourselves and we will be feeling happier if we can see people happy because of us. This conception then build such feeling that we were born for the sake of the community so that we have to serve the community.

This second conception of happiness is also the same with the comment of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz, he said, “To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of others”, it is appropriate for we are suppose not to give our love for only one or small coupe of community but also all people.

unchanted

My life is brilliant.

My life is brilliant.
My love is pure.
I saw an angel.
Of that I'm sure.
She (he) smiled at me on the subway.
She (he) was with another man (woman).
But I won't lose no sleep on that,
'Cause I've got a plan.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

Yeah, she (he) caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She (he) could see from my face that I was,
Flying high,
Fucking high,
And I don't think that I'll see her (him) again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
I saw your face in a crowded place,
And I don't know what to do,
'Cause I'll never be with you.

You're beautiful. You're beautiful.
You're beautiful, it's true.
There must be an angel with a smile on her (his) face,
When she (he) thought up that I should be with you.
But it's time to face the truth,
I will never be with you.

"YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL" by James Blunt