Anyone who does not cringe at the pain and suffering of life may be ignoring reality and avoiding empathy.  To put it in the real terms of an example, a mother duck around our back yard lake had over a dozen ducklings.  By the second or third day of their little lives only a few were left.  Then a few days later none were left.  Anyone could see she was devastated; I swear she was crying.  It's hard to be happy in a world where young, innocent beings suffer and die horribly all around us.  Yet it it is the way of things.

Well put.

To use a much less sad example, I am constantly weeding out optimistic little elm and maple seedlings from my yard. Each of them (I anthropomorphize!) would love to become a tree, yet of the millions of tiny little lives that spring up every year, most perish. How sad that there cannot be room for each of them.

OK.

First of all, feelings and emotions are not the same...we feel things, like premonitions, that are not emotions. We might get emotional over the premonition, but that's different.

Second, it isn't utopian concerning happiness. It's an inborn state, one that, like love, can be overrun by other factors, but,like love, is consistently present. All one needs to do is remove the block.

I guess what I am saying is that neither happiness or love exist in duality mode. They are like rivers, you can dam the river, but once the dam is removed, the rush of either can sometimes be overwhelming. And, of course, emotions play their part.

The lack of this sort of recognition in Western thought is a huge Achilles heel in western living. We search for happiness rather than research the block. Hey! Good for business! Unhappy? Go shopping!

So, what's the problem? Why doesn't it work? Why do we always have to go shopping or some such manipulative effort? Why doesn't the "happiness" (which isn't really happiness, it's excitement, thrills) last. One reason I included in parentheses. But the big one is expectations.

In matters of love, for instance, expectations run rampant. You meet someone. She is dressed and made up to be attractive. It worked. Now what? OMG! she thinks. I gotta look good for him! I can't let him see me like this! and so on. You, the man, run similar thoughts. I have to live up to certain expectations generated by____(fill in the blanks). What a mess!

What to do? If I may suggest, begin by organizing things into two categories; Needs and Wants. Food, shelter, water etc are needs. All the rest are wants. Now, reclassify the Wants into Preferences. Bingo!

I need a new car gets to be I prefer anew car. I need to go shopping changes to I prefer to go shopping. And so on.

It really, really works. Every time I get into a tizzy over some event or another, the resolution lies in making that determination. I am pissed and agitated because I perceive an event as a need.

The license plate holder that illustrates this profoundly is the one that says "I'd rather be ....). No, not really. If true you would rather be fishing, you would be fishing. But to say I prefer to be fishing, well, now I can be at peace with going to work instead, and fishing will happen. The glow of happiness is freed up once more.

So, don't pursue happiness. You already have it. Rather, examine your blocks and drop them, stating with expectations.

So how does preferences clear up the love mess mentioned above? Simply by seeing that while having a person in one's life may rise to the level of a need (Maybe!) it doesn't have to be that particular one.  A bit callous, maybe, but reasonable. And if both people can go there, the connection may well be strengthened rather than defeated. The real person shows up fully. For better or for worse, as the vows proclaim.

But then, what do I know?

Blessings are the expectation element, writ large by kicking the blessings and rewards into the afterlife, which is neither provable or falsifieable by human methods.

That is such a non-starter for me.

Restating "If things didn't suck, then things couldn't be cool!":

Q: Why are you beating your head against the wall?

A: Because it feels so good when I stop!

I get it...I think!

Yes, block the sun in such dramatic ways:

©2011Lawrence Hudetz

the_wine_snob wrote:

 

Now, if we only had some crepuscular rays...

 

They also "rain and snow on everyone... "

 

Hunt

So THAT's the technical name for that special effect. Beats "inspiratinal light beams coming from above". Another obscure word I can use to annoy/delight people with.

(I have a friend who, like me, just likes words for their sound, obscurity or just general cromulence. )

" If I reprehend any thing in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue, and a nice derangement of epitaphs!"

- Sheridan

Nothing seems to please a fly so much as to be taken for a currant; and if it can be baked in a cake and palmed off on the unwary, it dies happy.

-- Mark Twain

Eschew obfuscation

Unknown

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs...

...you'll be a Man my son!

-Poet Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep a cool head while all about
you are losing theirs...

Clearly you don't understand the problem.

-Unknown Realist

Nah, that one pre-dates me.

There are 3 kinds of people in the world...

Those who know how to count, and those who don't.

-Noel

There are two types of people in the world, those that use Adobe software and those that don't.

The answer is roughly one, within tolerances.

-Engineer

The answer cannot be derived mathematically.

-Scientist

What would you like the answer to be?

-Statistician