“Happiness is a virtue, not a reward.”- Dutch Philosopher Spinoza
Imagine a woman whose desires were unfulfilled, but she didn’t realise it. Just assume for a moment that her pleasures derived from misunderstandings and deceptions.
For instance, her husband deceived her, but she didn’t know about it. Her child failed at school but told her that he passed. She was thinking that she had the admiration of her colleagues; however, they were laughing at her behind her back. Finally, she had a potentially perilous tumour in her body which she hadn’t found out about yet.
She was happily living in a paradise derived from a lack of information or misinterpretation. And, one day, she got hit by a car and died in the blink of an eye.
Should we sum up her life as happy or not?
Ignorance is bliss, as they say
If Happiness is really a virtue as Spinoza rightly tells us, we can not claim she was happy for any of the reasons of which she had no understanding. this is not to say she was not truly and happily virtuous in other respects. Ask Gimpel the Fool by Isaac B. Singer
Here is my two-cents’ worth: There is a saying that it’s not possible to beat an ignorant person in an argument. She blindly believed she had a well-rounded and blissful life. If she had been told that her life was not what it seemed before her death, I doubt she would have considered it for a short second! Unfortunately she was mislead and deceived but was she aware of any of that? She was happy with all that she thought she had. Happy ending!
The woman’s happiness does not happen inside of a paper box of circumstances. Her happiness is the framework inwhich all of these events occur- the woman’s happiness is the circumstance. She is not the ping pong ball, she is the table.
Now, if her paradise was based on lies, she never had the chance to be happy. If she was, it would only be the ‘sense’ of paradise shattered.
Its really sad cuz she was just living a lie. I kindda know people like that who are happy cuz they believe in something i know for a fact is not as they picture it. And I feel really bad because at leat to one person, in some way, I am contributing to their happy lie.
You could use this argument for anyone who has a religious belief. Lets go to the extreme… Take you average suicide bomber. They blow themselves up, murdering innocent people. Some people (mentally retarded, usually living in a dusty, fly invested shit hole and living 2000 years behind the rest of civilisation) would say they were a martyr. The bomber believes it’s a way to be a fast tracked to heaven. Is The bomber any more deluded than someone who believes in the second coming? Reality and truth are whatever your beliefs and ideals, and to a degree what your subconscious wants it to be… The woman was happy up until the time she met with the car.
Psst SE this ‘woman’ (does she by chance suffer from rigor mortis in both index fingers) whose ‘desires were unfulfilled’ can Cad offer any assistance?
Clearly, this woman is not an existentialist nor truly has any concept of self. One could argue that true happiness could not be attained if one was not truly honest with the details of their existence. Then, much as the above comments stated, this chick may *think* she’s honest with herself, and therefore, is happy. However, I say hogwash to ignorance! It might be blissful to be a complete dolt, but in the end, you’re a complete dolt. Is it not a lie if she doesn’t realise her life is a lie? Yes, it’s still a lie, she’s just such an ignorant goober she doesn’t see it. Also, I must further point out – it would take an intelligence below monkey to not realise your hubby is a deceiving schmuck. Women’s intuition after all… PS – love the blog, darling
We all have different Ideas of what happiness is which stands to reason that the desires unfulfilled were not hers hence she didn’t realise it (the same way you cannot think of something you don’t know)and she didn’t have to. Even if she did realise it before she met with the car we can’t possibly hope to know what her state of mind was. What we individually perceive as happiness is entirely different to each and every one of us. Maybe she did realise that her life was a lie but she chose not to believe in it because that’s what made her happy and no one should have the right to tell her otherwise. After all what everyone in her life were really doing is protecting her happiness by making her belief that she was happy and everything was okay. In some sense they were the ones who cared the most otherwise they wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble to cover things up.