X-Message-Number: 10185 From: Olaf Henny <> Subject: Happiness Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 20:59:17 -0700 Hi Everyone. I have been following this "happiness" discussion with some bemusement. As long as we are discussing happiness as the result of ONE (or a few) items, such as long life, heroin, stimulation of the bliss center of the brain, we are missing the point of happiness altogether. To illustrate: My wife and I like to go in the middle of winter to Mexico to soak up some sun. When we get there, lying on the beach or beside the pool is absolute pleasure. However, after a few days another itch needs scratching, since life pool-side is starting to turn monotonous, no matter how pleasant initially. So we rent a car and explore the country side. After a few days of sights and dusty highways, pool and beach turn seductive again, and believe it or not after 3 weeks of that, we suddenly get the urge to go back and "accomplish" again, happiness is now putting the shoulder to the wheel again and to try to crank it a bit further. After going through that about 1/2 dozen times, we decided this year, that happiness would lie in Peru, hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, spending more than a week in Parque Nacional Manu and putt-putting about in a motorized canoe on the Rio Alto Madre de Dios and on Rio Manu. This will be happiness. It will be exiting. At the end, I am sure, happiness will be getting away from all these mosquitoes, having a nice shower and sleeping in a beautiful clean bed. If and when I am revived from cryopreservation, happiness will be initially to admire the wonders of a civilization, which will be much advanced beyond ours. Thereafter happiness will be finding my groove in that civilization, hopefully to study something entirely different from what I am doing now, to be ultimately creative, productive an contribute. You see happiness is an ever changing process, not a one-state-affair, no matter how blissful that state initially is, for any condition which endures will ultimately bring boredom and when that sets in happiness is long gone. Happiness is living a full and eventful life. The mishaps and hardships simply provide you with a scale to measure your good luck by. This life is much too short to accomplish all the activities I find exciting and by the time we are revived, there will be a myriad more of them. Many sports have passed me by, because they did not exist yet, when I was young or because I could not afford to participate in them. I will have young body and the means to do most anything I want, even if it takes me 1000 years to acquire these means. That is Happiness! Best, Olaf ___________________________________ Tolerance is wisdom's finest fruit ___________________________________ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=10185