Monday, June 30, 2014

Happiness is imagination

It is our need to be happy, to have a healthy life but more than that it is the necessity to remain at peace with everything. Physical laws never lie and hence taking an analogy from zeroth law of thermodynamics,which states that when two bodies are in equilibrium with a third body then all are in thermal equilibrium. If our body is at peace with our soul, then anything which comes to either body or soul would be at peace. It

Unfortunately zeroth law talks only about the final state of equilibrium. The eternal peaceful state. But it doesn't talk about the path taken to achieve that. To our rescue comes in the First law of thermodynamics, which talks about the balance of energy. It broadly says to give something, a part of it would be consumed and the rest given out. The law balances out everything. Again if I try to make an analogy, in order to be at peace with anything, which is the ultimate thing, I have to take in something, give out something and can consume. 

Psychology says that, a person who smiles a lot or laughs a lot, is unhappy deep inside or sad. So the person is giving out happiness by consuming the pain, when the input was the experiences of life. Another example is of the Taj mahal, everyone appreciates its beauty, architecture, but no one talks about the amputated 22000 approx workers who were amputated by the emperor. In another example, of marriage, when the couple are unhappy but cant separate due to social causes, they pose their happy face all around but they are unhappy within themselves. In an another example, when we say Gandhi was responsible for non violence, he was the winner, yes he was, but at the cost of many many lives. This list of examples are umpteen. In all the examples, it can clearly be understood what the inputs, outputs and consumed are. 

Now it doesn't stop here, there is another law, the second law of thermodynamics, which comprises of two statements, and each of the statement starts with , '' it is impossible to ...'' . Briefly speaking about the first statement, it says, '' it is impossible to work with a single reservoir''. hence lays the importance of having a source and sink. From the above examples it is evident that, when there is no source there cant be a sink. The second statement of the law states that, '' it is impossible to extract energy from low temperature to high temperature without doing any work''. If a person thinks that he/she is at peace, then little work by an external agent enough to disrupt the happiness. But those who are really at peace, it is very very difficult and hell a lot of energy is required to perturb them and they cannot go havoc by themselves. 

The bottom line is that, to remain at peace and to enter the real temple of peace we have to walk on the rubble of pain or suffering of self or of anyone. So my query is how can such a person be at peace? Because those things will follow us at some or the other point in our life and we cant discard them. Our memories and thoughts wont let that happen.

Also, state of happiness is never an absolute entity. It doesn't exist by itself. So this means, we really can never be happy . Happiness is just an illusion.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination .... # Immanuel Kant.  

3 comments:

  1. Eternal peace, everlasting happiness are always myths. They can never happen, as you said, without a dosage of pain and suffering, the memories of which will haunt us for life. The wounds heal but leave behind permanent scars.

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  2. Agree, infact we understand Happiness as a different state only as we know what pain is, or else wouldn't all be felt the same?

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  3. Yes , I do agree too.. there's nothing like eternal happiness..but small things do make us happy sometimes..aren't they ?

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