Why is it that some days are filled with hope and love and energy..? and others just arent?
Is it hormones more than actual facts that define our mood? Is it what I ate yesterday and how much I slept and how well my body is functioning... or is it just thoughts that brighten up or gloom our spirits?
Whatever, I guess its everything mixed together... nutrition, rest, stress-free (or at least stress- manageable) days and happy thoughts... no matter what is going on in life, you can spare a happy thought or two.. It can't be so difficult I guess. I don't know why dark thoughts always tend to win the battle, when it's so much better to think of happy things.
Happiness. I remember all those conversations with my lovely Clo, sitting on benches overlooking the canals of Copenhagen and analysing what happiness is, and how we can achieve it. "Its the little moments" we would always agree, although we never reached a comprehensive conclusion and the discussion could go on for hours.
Thanks to Clo, that pursuit of the meaning of happiness stayed with me for the years that followed our eventful life in Copenhagen. It came and went as seasons changed, but I felt it lingering above me, this big question: "what is happiness, and how I can get there".
To make things more complicated, the pursuit of "happiness" is even more difficult in greek, where there are two words with intermingled meaning that basically both mean happiness, but with a different twist: "Hara" and "eytichia". So which one can be defined as happiness? and how do you reach the one and the other?
"Hara"/ happiness. I often feel it. Sometimes I look at the starry sky or at the endless sea, the faces of my loved ones around me and I am happy. But its an elusive moment and no matter how hard I try, I cannot keep this feeling inside me in all its intensity. It feels like an instant over-flow, followed by a shortage. Easy to reach, hard to keep.
But "eytichia"/ happiness is so much more difficult to grasp. It feels like it's something unreachable. This permanence in its quality. How can you be "happy"? It seems to me that it only exists in fairytales, a non-existing idea, this "happily ever after". Happily ever after doesn't ask questions on what happens next. Next, they were happy. And that's it. That's eytichia/happiness for me. The end of the road.
If we assume that "hara" is the temporary feeling of bliss, then "eytichia" could the more stable situation of well-being, which embeds "hara" in it, as well as serenity, cause serenity (rather than enthousiasm, which is embedded in "hara") is a big factor when you think of eytychia/happiness. The calm acceptance, the ability to bounce, to smile and feel "happy" whatever life throws at you. A buddha state of mind. Thats eytichia/happiness.
But my "happiness" today is based on hope. Its not instant and its not long-term. Its something in between, a state of euphoria produced of a vague belief that everything will be fine, that I ll make the path along the way and that things will work out no matter what, in a peculiar and magical way.
It's not every day I feel like that, (at least usually it doesn't come so easy and when you have to force it its not as fun) so Im savouring this precious feeling. Im smiling without a reason, Im calm and excited at the same time, I feel creative, I feel accepting, Im happy in a way that's neither hara nor eytychia,
Ok, the secret is that I invented this feeling. I made up something to look forward to. It may happen or it may not. But today Im happy and that's all that matters.
Maybe we can all make up our own ways to be hara/happy and maybe this will eventually lead to eytychia/happy.
I just got a spark and thought of the english word for hara. Its joy. But its still pretty mixed in my mind, joy and happiness.
I dont really have to figure it out, do I?
Is it hormones more than actual facts that define our mood? Is it what I ate yesterday and how much I slept and how well my body is functioning... or is it just thoughts that brighten up or gloom our spirits?
Whatever, I guess its everything mixed together... nutrition, rest, stress-free (or at least stress- manageable) days and happy thoughts... no matter what is going on in life, you can spare a happy thought or two.. It can't be so difficult I guess. I don't know why dark thoughts always tend to win the battle, when it's so much better to think of happy things.
Happiness. I remember all those conversations with my lovely Clo, sitting on benches overlooking the canals of Copenhagen and analysing what happiness is, and how we can achieve it. "Its the little moments" we would always agree, although we never reached a comprehensive conclusion and the discussion could go on for hours.
Thanks to Clo, that pursuit of the meaning of happiness stayed with me for the years that followed our eventful life in Copenhagen. It came and went as seasons changed, but I felt it lingering above me, this big question: "what is happiness, and how I can get there".
To make things more complicated, the pursuit of "happiness" is even more difficult in greek, where there are two words with intermingled meaning that basically both mean happiness, but with a different twist: "Hara" and "eytichia". So which one can be defined as happiness? and how do you reach the one and the other?
"Hara"/ happiness. I often feel it. Sometimes I look at the starry sky or at the endless sea, the faces of my loved ones around me and I am happy. But its an elusive moment and no matter how hard I try, I cannot keep this feeling inside me in all its intensity. It feels like an instant over-flow, followed by a shortage. Easy to reach, hard to keep.
But "eytichia"/ happiness is so much more difficult to grasp. It feels like it's something unreachable. This permanence in its quality. How can you be "happy"? It seems to me that it only exists in fairytales, a non-existing idea, this "happily ever after". Happily ever after doesn't ask questions on what happens next. Next, they were happy. And that's it. That's eytichia/happiness for me. The end of the road.
If we assume that "hara" is the temporary feeling of bliss, then "eytichia" could the more stable situation of well-being, which embeds "hara" in it, as well as serenity, cause serenity (rather than enthousiasm, which is embedded in "hara") is a big factor when you think of eytychia/happiness. The calm acceptance, the ability to bounce, to smile and feel "happy" whatever life throws at you. A buddha state of mind. Thats eytichia/happiness.
But my "happiness" today is based on hope. Its not instant and its not long-term. Its something in between, a state of euphoria produced of a vague belief that everything will be fine, that I ll make the path along the way and that things will work out no matter what, in a peculiar and magical way.
It's not every day I feel like that, (at least usually it doesn't come so easy and when you have to force it its not as fun) so Im savouring this precious feeling. Im smiling without a reason, Im calm and excited at the same time, I feel creative, I feel accepting, Im happy in a way that's neither hara nor eytychia,
Ok, the secret is that I invented this feeling. I made up something to look forward to. It may happen or it may not. But today Im happy and that's all that matters.
Maybe we can all make up our own ways to be hara/happy and maybe this will eventually lead to eytychia/happy.
I just got a spark and thought of the english word for hara. Its joy. But its still pretty mixed in my mind, joy and happiness.
I dont really have to figure it out, do I?
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