I was talking to a friend, yesterday, about how we are too afraid of sadness In response, another of my friends stormed through the room and declared angrily, "I'm happy all of the time." What a contradiction! However, it did get me to thinking. Was I wrong? Should we strive for unconditional happiness? Or was I right, is sadness a necessary part of existence?

I have chosen the later and I'll tell you why. They did a study with chimpanzees where they hooked electrodes up to their brains and then had a researcher be sad, happy or angry across from them. As the chimp watched, it's brain lit up in exactly the same patterns as it would when the chimp itself was sad, angry, happy or angry. This is the basis of empathy. So imagine for a minute, that someone was incapable of having those electrodes firing (ie: was incapable of being sad). What a horrible person that would be? If they bumped you in the street and you fell over, they would not feel sorry for you. If they saw someone beaten and starving by the side of the road, they would not even think to stop.

We are sad sometimes, but this is not a bad thing. It is a sign that we are still human, still capable of knowing our own sorrow and knowing the sorrow of others... even if we would rather not.

Your friend thinks they're happy all the time? Whaaaa?
» randomjunk on 2012-04-03 11:58:53

Lol @ Randoms comment.

I don't know, I do think sadness is necessary but not necessarily for the same reasons. I don't feel sad if I accidentally knock someone over, embaressment or guilt maybe but not sad. I would also not stop for someone out of sadness but out of humanity and decency instead. I can feel sympathetic towards someone without being sad. That said, I do still think it's a part of life and relatively necessary.
» lyndeep on 2012-04-04 08:25:37

Oh my gosh, I was reading this article in the New Yorker about why you shouldn't have kids, and I disagreed with every single thing they said in the article. It was kind of like the one you were talking about a while ago. One guy said that if you lived and you suffered one pinprick in a life of happiness, that would still be worse than never having lived at all (which is neutral). They were saying that it was basically immoral to have children, because you bring more suffering into the world and making the world crappier for the people already in it by taking up resources. They also quoted that study that said that on any given day, women had more fun talking on the phone and going to the gym than taking care of their children, and thus having children was contrary to our own happiness. AS IF HAPPINESS IS THE GOAL OF LIFE!?!? AS IF THERE IS NO VALUE TO SUFFERING!?!? As if there is no value to working hard for a bigger payoff down the road? Freaking ridiculous. Clearly I need to write a blog entry of my own. Luckily those people will go extinct. ;)
» Zanzibar on 2012-04-04 02:37:15

Name.

URL.

[to enter your email, use "mailto:[email protected]"]
Subject.

Comment.

Word verification.

Copy the first 4 characters only.

If you are a member, try logging in again or accessing this page here.