What do you take me for, an idiot? Charles de Gaulle, when a journalist asked him if he was happy.
My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met! Rodney Dangerfield
We can distinguish between two types of experiences that are referred to as "happiness": one is the transitory emotion of joy and the other is the profound sentiment of happiness. In a somewhat similar manner, we can speak about the transitory emotion of erotic joy and the sentiment of profound love. Although it is the profound experiences for which we typically look, in most cases these profound experiences require the presence of superficial joys. However, having those superficial joys does not ensure the generation of profound happiness and love.
An experience consisting of mere superficial joy, or sexual desire, may include immediately rewarding, relatively short-lived pleasure. Profound happiness is typically associated with optimal functioning using and developing the agent's essential capacities and attitudes in a systematic manner over a sustained period of time. Profound happiness is to be found in complex activities that we value for their own sake. Profound love is similar.
A distinction can be drawn between superficial pleasure and profound satisfaction. Superficial pleasure is an immediately rewarding, relatively short-lived experience requiring few or no profound human capacities. Profound satisfaction involves optimal functioning, using and developing the agent's essential capacities and attitudes. Part of profound satisfaction is the ability to overcome problems and make some progress. The optimal functioning of human beings differs from the minimal functioning of animals, which involves mere contentment or relaxation. People suffering from advanced states of senility, and infants, often have pleasant moods, but those are not the profound satisfaction typically sought after by healthy adults, many of whom would rather be a dissatisfied Socrates than a satisfied pig. If we were satisfied with superficial pleasure, we would have no incentive to pursue our ambitions or to seek fulfilling activities. In the long run, this would make us miserable. Gorging ourselves on consumer goods may give us short-term pleasure, but it is unlikely to make us substantially happier; gluttony is not the same as nourishment (see here).
Happiness cannot be achieved by merely repeating superficial pleasant experiences. An enjoyable event is often progressively less enjoyable with repetition. A new acquisition, highly valued at first, comes to seem ordinary. Hence, acquisitions alone cannot provide us with profound, enduring satisfaction. Happiness is not an isolated achievement, but rather an ongoing dynamic process. And so is profound love-never an isolated achievement but an ongoing experience of being together.
As an acute emotion, happiness is a short-term state of pleasure or satisfaction occurring as a result of a specific (real or imaginary) positive change. Even a person who is generally depressed can laugh from time to time and be pleased with a specific event. Senile people and infants may often be satisfied or contented with their situation. They may also be described as having a certain degree of happiness, but this is not the profound sentiment of happiness typical of healthy adults and desired by them. Profound happiness involves the optimal functioning of human beings, not the minimal functioning of mere contentment or relaxation which can be found in the life of dumb animals.
In light of its dynamic and ongoing nature an important factor in generating our profound happiness is the frequency with which people experience the occasional emotion of happiness and other positive emotions; this factor has been found to be the single best predictor of happiness as a sentiment. In a sense, happiness as a sentiment consists of the acute emotions of happiness; so a succession of specific positive experiences will increase our long-term happiness. Combining the two factors together generates the following practical advice suggested by the psychologist David Lykken: "A steady diet of simple pleasures will keep you above your set point. Find the small things that you know give you a little high-a good meal, working in the garden, time with friends-and sprinkle your life with them. In the long run, that will leave you happier than some grand achievement that gives you a big lift for a while."
Like happiness, profound love also does not consist mainly of a few magic great moments; rather, we need a steady diet of simple pleasures with our beloved. Profound love is not made up of some kind of heavenly substance, but of the ordinary, everyday substance of regular life, which becomes heavenly when shared with your beloved. In some cases this type of transformation can be easy and natural; in others it requires sweat and tears. There is no money-back guarantee for the success of this transformation, but when it succeeds, it yields great happiness.
Ultimately, our life may be easier than we thought: we do not have to choose between superficial joys and profound happiness (or love), as the latter encompasses the former. However, although the road to profound happiness and love involves many superficial joys, the presence of such joys does not ensure that these profound experiences will necessarily emerge. Life, after all, is not so easy. But as George Bernard Shaw said: "Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage-it can be delightful."
