One theme I'd like to develop in this Primal Happiness blog is the idea:
"You are lucky to even exist, so you should be happy!"
How is each of us lucky to be alive?
Some of the reasons come from the world, and the universe around it.
- We are lucky the universe came into existence.
- We are lucky that matter was able to clump together and form stars and planets.
- We are lucky that our planet was close enough to the sun for ice to melt, yet not so close that all the water boiled off into space.
- We are lucky that another planet crashed into ours, left most of its metal core behind, and then settled down enough to orbit us and become our moon.
Why is the last one such a great thing? Because the moon gives us our tides - it churns the seas and makes things happen.
What things?
Well, how did life begin? Leaving religion aside, we have the question of: how did strands of DNA become long enough, and sophisticated enough, to copy themselves? Remember, in the early days, there was no life. The earth was just a big rock with salty water sloshing around on it. (Sloshing because of the moon!)
Perhaps those tides created by the moon stirred up pools of molecules. There's a theory that crystals formed attachments to strands of proteins, which became DNA.
We don't yet know how DNA came into existence.
But we are lucky it did, as it builds all other life (along with RNA, of course).
- We are lucky that life evolved to produce multi-cellular creatures, eventually mammals, and eventually humans.
- We are lucky that around 200,000 years ago, something happened to early humans, where they became self-aware.
- We are lucky that our ancestors developed language and tools.
- We are lucky that our ancestors didn't kill each other off right away.
- We are lucky that they survived horrible conditions (life was "nasty, brutish and short") and began to spread across the earth.
- We are lucky that they developed agriculture and figured out ways to live together, without everyone fighting all the time.
These are some of my "big-picture" reasons for why each of us should be very, very happy we exist at all.
Any one of these things could have gone the other way, and none of us would exist.
So, be happy!
It's a miracle we are here at all!
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Life is For the Living
Another quotation that I like is one that my grandmother used to say: "Life is for the living."
We called her Grossmutter, which is German for "grandmother".
(Which is a little strange: how many people use the formal name "grandmother", instead of a nickname like "grandma", "grammy" or "maw-maw"?)
Grossmutter came from Germany to the United States in the early 1930s. She was following Grossvater, who had come to New York in the late 1920s. They married and had three children: my father, my aunt, and my uncle Johnny.
Grossmutter lived through her fair share of tragedy. She grew up in central Germany during World War I. She lost a number of relatives in Germany during World War II, including her younger brother, who was a soldier in the German military. He was run over by a German tank in a road-side accident in northern Italy. He was everyone's favorite in the family.
What was probably her biggest loss was when Johnny was killed at age 12, after being run over by a truck in their town in Long Island. He was riding his bicycle; heard the truck behind him; swerved to his right; bounced off a parked car; and fell under the back wheels of the truck.
The tragedy was terrible: in the weeks before his death, my father spoke to us for the first time about how Grossvater had dealt with Johnny's death. My father told us of a family get-together soon after Johnny died, where his father ripped open the front door, and called out: "Johnny, come home!"
But, as family, they never spoke about Johnny. My aunt was suprised to hear that my father had talked at all about Johnny: in the 53 years between Johnny's and my father's deaths, my father and his sister never talked about Johnny, or about his dying.
My father died suddenly - his COPD robbed him of his breath in his sleep. Maybe he felt his end was near, and decided to tell us about Johnny and some stories about him and his passing.
"Life is for the living." - the quote becomes more profound when you understand that Grossmutter buried her youngest child; her baby.
But Grossmutter chose not to dwell on the dead - she thought that life is to be lived, and not spent on thinking of those who have gone before us.
It can be seen as a strange way of thinking about happiness, but Grossmutter lived through the tragedies, had a happy life, and lived well into her 90s. She was tired toward the end, but spoke about looking forward to seeing loved ones again.
"Life is for the living" - People die, but we are alive, and we must live our lives, and be happy.
We called her Grossmutter, which is German for "grandmother".
(Which is a little strange: how many people use the formal name "grandmother", instead of a nickname like "grandma", "grammy" or "maw-maw"?)
Grossmutter came from Germany to the United States in the early 1930s. She was following Grossvater, who had come to New York in the late 1920s. They married and had three children: my father, my aunt, and my uncle Johnny.
Grossmutter lived through her fair share of tragedy. She grew up in central Germany during World War I. She lost a number of relatives in Germany during World War II, including her younger brother, who was a soldier in the German military. He was run over by a German tank in a road-side accident in northern Italy. He was everyone's favorite in the family.
What was probably her biggest loss was when Johnny was killed at age 12, after being run over by a truck in their town in Long Island. He was riding his bicycle; heard the truck behind him; swerved to his right; bounced off a parked car; and fell under the back wheels of the truck.
The tragedy was terrible: in the weeks before his death, my father spoke to us for the first time about how Grossvater had dealt with Johnny's death. My father told us of a family get-together soon after Johnny died, where his father ripped open the front door, and called out: "Johnny, come home!"
But, as family, they never spoke about Johnny. My aunt was suprised to hear that my father had talked at all about Johnny: in the 53 years between Johnny's and my father's deaths, my father and his sister never talked about Johnny, or about his dying.
My father died suddenly - his COPD robbed him of his breath in his sleep. Maybe he felt his end was near, and decided to tell us about Johnny and some stories about him and his passing.
"Life is for the living." - the quote becomes more profound when you understand that Grossmutter buried her youngest child; her baby.
But Grossmutter chose not to dwell on the dead - she thought that life is to be lived, and not spent on thinking of those who have gone before us.
It can be seen as a strange way of thinking about happiness, but Grossmutter lived through the tragedies, had a happy life, and lived well into her 90s. She was tired toward the end, but spoke about looking forward to seeing loved ones again.
"Life is for the living" - People die, but we are alive, and we must live our lives, and be happy.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
It is Better to be Alive
I'd like to start writing about happiness by examining the attitude of: "be happy because you are alive".
In other words, just the fact you are alive should make you happy.
I have encountered this idea several times in my life - one of the first times was as a younger teenager, watching the 1987 movie "Full Metal Jacket".
Full Metal Jacket is an intense movie, and I especially like that it launched the career of R. Lee Ermey.
One scene in Full Metal Jacket that sticks in my memory takes place soon after the main character (Private "Joker") arrives in Vietnam in the late 1960s. He is a war reporter, and he witnesses a mass burial - a burial of dozens of civilians caught in the war's crossfire. The bodies are dumped into a shallow grave and are covered with a white powder, presumably lye.
Upon witnessing all these dead civilians, and how their bodies are being put into the ground, Joker observes (in a voice-over):
"The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive."
My interpretation of Joker's line is that it doesn't matter what the dead know: it is always better to be alive than dead.
This statement, then, is one of the elements of why I think a person should be happy. Let's call it Rule Number One. (Where the Rules are in no particular order.)
1. It is Better to be Alive
Be happy because you are alive, and not dead.
In other words, just the fact you are alive should make you happy.
I have encountered this idea several times in my life - one of the first times was as a younger teenager, watching the 1987 movie "Full Metal Jacket".
Full Metal Jacket is an intense movie, and I especially like that it launched the career of R. Lee Ermey.
One scene in Full Metal Jacket that sticks in my memory takes place soon after the main character (Private "Joker") arrives in Vietnam in the late 1960s. He is a war reporter, and he witnesses a mass burial - a burial of dozens of civilians caught in the war's crossfire. The bodies are dumped into a shallow grave and are covered with a white powder, presumably lye.
Upon witnessing all these dead civilians, and how their bodies are being put into the ground, Joker observes (in a voice-over):
"The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive."
My interpretation of Joker's line is that it doesn't matter what the dead know: it is always better to be alive than dead.
This statement, then, is one of the elements of why I think a person should be happy. Let's call it Rule Number One. (Where the Rules are in no particular order.)
1. It is Better to be Alive
Be happy because you are alive, and not dead.
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