Happiness is an Activity

The Spectator article says 'a choice,' but it's not just a choice: having made the choice, you must also do the thing. It is an activity, as Aristotle says, one that produces a happy and honorable life through action.

This subject was raised here in 2006, by the way. I happen to know that because I was trying to find an old argument in the archives, but was not able to do so. I was an almost unimaginably different person in 2006, which was before I went to Iraq and before returning to the careful study of philosophy. Yet I can see a clear link in the text between who I was and who I have become. 
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4 comments:

  1. Christopher B7:24 AM

    I don't know if this is seperate or a side effect of the focus on self-esteem but I've often thought we also spend too much effort on getting people 'in touch with their emotions' and emphasising they are 'authentic', which to me leads to people not considering they have control over their reaction to their emotion state. At least telling people happiness is a choice puts that into some balance.

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  2. Grim1:20 PM

    ... people not considering they have control over their reaction to their emotion state. At least telling people happiness is a choice puts that into some balance.

    Yes, this is the great Stoic insight: you can't really control what happens to you, but you can exercise a great deal of control over how you react to it internally.

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  3. Anonymous10:20 PM

    Victor Frankl - he could not control the Concentration Camp, but he could control his response to it, and he chose to keep fighting to live. And he did.

    I found his work useful to read before going back to re-read the Stoic philosophers. (I read them too young, intellectually speaking, and didn't really know how to approach the material.)

    LittleRed1

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  4. douglas5:14 AM

    Oh, now that's an interesting question- what's the right age to read certain philosophers, or other important works?

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