Notes on happiness

1.    Happiness is the enjoyment of pleasant sensation objects of wants, needs, or desires bring.
2.    Resources are usually needed to secure objects of wants, needs, or desires.
2.1  There are, of course, pleasurable things that could be secured almost effortlessly and without spending any form of currency. Some of such things are memories of good things or happy thoughts.
3.    Some resources, at times, need to be sacrificed to secure happiness or sustain the enjoyment of objects of wants, needs, or desires.
4.    Could we possibly feel pleasure and be not happy at the same time?
4.1  For me, smoking is pleasureable, but if I'll do it it again, I'm sure that my guilt shall be so overwhelming that I'd hate myself for doing it again. I'd find smoking pleasurable and hateful at the same time. But since the latter is more powerful, I can't, on the whole, be happy despite the pleasure smoking will bring.
4.21 I think, it's not wrong to say that happiness is an instance of enjoyment of pleasure.
4.22 Pleasure is a desirable sensation brought about by one's contact with a certain object.
4.23 But then again, I can't enjoy the supposed pleasure massage brings if I'll have one inside a lion's cage.
5.   Not all things that make us happy are things that we seek. We may not have previous consciousness of the pleasure certain unknown things can bring. Such things could be new discoveries, friendly strangers, exotic food, etc.
6.   Happiness, as a context-free idea, is neutral.
6.1 But happiness derived from hurting animals or humans is both reprehensible and morally unacceptable.
7.   Sources of pleasure and happiness, if enjoyed excessively, could become toxic like alcoholic beverages.
7.1 If you doubt this point, try spending every second of your life with your girlfriend or boyfriend or with any loved one. 
7.2 So, even if blogging makes you happy, it's unwise to spend your entire waking moment blogging. There, too, are other important things that one must do aside from writing his/her thoughts on the Internet.

An essay on guilt and forgiveness

Guilt and Forgiveness, this article caught my attention as it is probably related to my post titled Sinning and seeking forgiveness. I'll get back to this later.

Sinning and seeking forgiveness

The man solemnly sought forgiveness from God, but it's quite easy and inappropriate, so he never felt forgiven. He turned to the people he had wronged, but he can't bring himself to say he sincerely regrets wronging them, so he remains soiled and unforgiven.

I who?

"I" is a weird pronoun, right? When you use it to mean yourself, do you include the person you were 10 years ago? If not, does it mean the person you are right now and not the other one, if you believe you were different, 5 minutes or an hour ago? I think I should suggest instead that we may or may not be the same person we were 1 year or 2 days ago. If you lost a love one a few moments ago, would you rather say that you remain the exact same person you were awhile back? The person you are right now, if you're a father of an adorable kid, must be different from who you were at the time when you were just dreaming to be a father. When you use "I," who exactly is the person that you are referring to? The person you are right now? But then again, here, the temporal referent of “now” is gone. What we actually have appears to be a simple series of nows, but this does not solve the problem. Saying that now covers the past, present, and future, is definitely unacceptable. Well, no one would like to say “now-now-now-now” either; that’s plainly crazy.

"ATLAS SHRUGGED" THE MOVIE: WHO'S GOING TO BE DAGNY?

Hey! I've been hearing that Angelina Jolie will portray the character of Dagny Taggart, but I've been hoping too that it's nothing final yet. It's quite a relief thus to hear that other actresses have been recently considered for the role: Charlize Theron, Julia Roberts, and Anne Hathaway. Check it out here. Well, I just don't think that Jolie has the required character depth to play Taggart. Roberts? Nah. Hathaway? I don't think so either. Maybe, Theron. Perhaps, Jodie Foster. Well, I just can't wait to see this Randian piece in motion picture.