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Essays on the pursuit of happiness
Essays on the pursuit of happiness
Pursuit of happiness essay introduction
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Happiness plays an important and necessary role in the lives of people around the world. In America, happiness has been engrained in our national consciousness since Thomas Jefferson penned these famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” (Jefferson). Since then, Americans have been engaged in that act: pursuing happiness. The problem however, as Ray Bradbury demonstrates in his novel Fahrenheit 451, is that those things which make us happy initially may eventually lead to our downfall. By examining Guy Montag, the protagonist in Fahrenheit 451, and the world he lives in we can gain valuable insights to direct us in our own pursuit of happiness. From Montag and other characters we will learn how physical, emotional, and spiritual happiness can drastically affect our lives. We must ask ourselves what our lives, words, and actions are worth. We should hope that our words are not meaningless, “as wind in dried grass” (Eliot). History Before we look into specifics, we’ll examine the history and development of “happiness” as a philosophy. Of course, the emotion of happiness has always existed, but it began to be seriously contemplated around 2,500 years ago by philosophers like Confucius, Buddha, Socrates and Aristotle. Shortly after Buddha taught his followers his Noble Eight Fold Path (which we will talk about later), Aristotle was teaching that happiness is “dependent on the individual” (Aristotle). Probably more than any of the early philosophers, Aristotle promoted happiness as a central component of human life. The Greeks used a term, eudaimonia, which is often used as the Greek word for happiness. However, most scholars translate it as “human flourishing” or “well-being of the spirit.” Along with eudaimonia, terms like arete, “virtue”, and phronesis, “practical or moral wisdom”, are at the core of Greek philosophy. So if you could have asked Aristotle “What components or values must a person have in order to live a fulfilling life?” He probably would have answered, “Virtue, wisdom, and spiritual well-being.” Would Aristotle have been pleased with the futuristic world of Fahrenheit 451? Probably not. Certainly, the lack of virtue, learning, and the false sense of happiness would have astonished any of the early philosophers. Physical Happiness
Are you really happy? Or are you sad about something? Sad about life or money, or your job? Any of these things you can be sad of. Most likely you feel discontentment a few times a day and you still call yourself happy. These are the questions that Guy Montag asks himself in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In this book people are thinking they are happy with their lives. This is only because life is going so fast that they think they are but really there is things to be sad about. Montag has finally met Clarisse, the one person in his society that stops to smell the roses still. She is the one that gets him thinking about how his life really is sad and he was just moving too fast to see it. He realizes that he is sad about pretty much everything in his life and that the government tries to trick the people by listening to the parlor and the seashells. This is just to distract people from actual emotions. People are always in a hurry. They have 200 foot billboards for people driving because they are driving so fast that they need more time to see the advertisement. Now I am going to show you who are happy and not happy in the book and how our society today is also unhappy.
If one doesn’t know that they’re sad, they’re always happy. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is set in a future where books are banned and conformity is pressured. Firemen burn books, and information is censored. Without an ability to question, one cannot question their own happiness. With censorship, anything that can cause you to is removed, and this effect is increased. With reliance on technology, one is so immersed that it becomes almost impossible to question anything, let alone think for oneself, and they can be made to think that they are happy, when in reality, they aren’t. Because the government in Fahrenheit 451 removed the ability to question, censors books and ideas, and creates a reliance on technology, the people in Fahrenheit 451 have deceived themselves into believing they are happy and content.
In The Twilight Zone’s “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” and Aldous Huxley's “Brave New World” it is apparent that happiness comes from stability and the ability to get what one wants with little effort, however, the price for this happiness is a loss of individuality and strong emotions, making ignorance truly bliss.
"Are you happy?" "What is true happiness to you?" Bet you didn't know how to answer these questions. That being that these are questions not many of us actually put thought into. While reading the book "Fahrenheit 451," your mind will ponder the thought of happiness. The author Ray Bradbury really focuses the book on this idea of happiness he's created. The societies happiness is portrayed in an idea of living with a sitcom family, and dreams of adding on various walls sized televisions. People in this society do not have their own thoughts or do not express emotion. True happiness comes from acceptance of the situation and living life so you matter, make a difference and change the world somehow.
Happiness is the positive emotion and contentment one feels naturally. Many Psychology studies have been concluded to display what pure happiness is. In the article, “In Pursuit of Unhappiness” by Darrin M. McMahon, he indicates that happiness cannot be forced. In the article, McMahon mentions a philosopher, John Stuart Mill, who acknowledges as well, that happiness can not be forced. He says that if one focuses on something other than their own happiness, happiness will come to them naturally. By what Mill says, people should be encouraged that happiness will come to them and can not force happiness to them. Another example is Jeffrey Kluger’s article, “The Happiness of Pursuit”, he talks about how people focus on never being happy. He says,
Happiness and contentment are important to both societies, but they are addressed in different ways. Both groups emphasize the importance of happiness, but the people in Fahrenheit 451 are mindless. Clarisse says, “I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly… If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur? That's a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Brown blurs are cows. My uncle drove slowly on a highway once. He drove forty miles an hour and they jailed him for two days” (Bradbury 6). The people in Fahrenheit 451 go through life so quickly and only focus on speed. Since they focus so much on speed, people become empty and discontent because they never pay attention to their surroundings or take time to truly
Saying someone is happy isn’t the same as being happy. In Fahrenheit 451, the citizens in society believe in the idea of being happy, being content, and not thinking about what’s going on around them. The mere thought of always staying busy and consuming their lives with television is what they live by. In Brave New World, citizens also presume the idea of happiness and the concept of conditioning to know their true value in life. Happiness comes in the form of a pill, where society takes it to get rid of unwanted thoughts, to be free and careless. The governments in Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World both control their citizens as a way to manipulate their behaviors and actions. With happiness, also comes the notion of love. Both societies
Question 10 asks, “‘We have everything we need to be happy. but we aren’t happy. Something’s missing.’ How might Bradbury be defining happiness in Fahrenheit 451? Does he present a new idea of happiness or preserve on older idea?” Well to answer the first question quickly they need love. They have each other, they have everything, but they need each other’s love. Happiness is not money or quantity of technological devices. Happiness is having an enormous amount of positive in your life and having someone to love and having someone love you.
Happiness: an idea so abstract and intangible that it requires one usually a lifetime to discover. Many quantify happiness to their monetary wealth, their materialistic empire, or time spent in relationships. However, others qualify happiness as a humble campaign to escape the squalor and dilapidation of oppressive societies, to educate oneself on the anatomy of the human soul, and to locate oneself in a world where being happy dissolves from a number to spiritual existence. Correspondingly, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Krakauer’s Into the Wild illuminate the struggles of contentment through protagonists which venture against norms in their dystopian or dissatisfying societies to find the virtuous refuge of happiness. Manifestly, societal
Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451 has a main point in showing others about happiness, why we need it, and what it's like to not have it. Happiness comes from within, are you being with people who care for you, people that want the best for you? Are you doing things you love or things you enjoy, Things want to do over and over again? Is your life positive or is it negative. In Fahrenheit 451, it grabs your attention on these topics and helps you question if are you living your life to the fullest, are you happy? Imagine living in a world of chaos, unhappiness, murder, not being able to think about what's going on with your emotions or just life in general. This is the type of world Guy Montag lived in. Montag is the main character
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” (Dalai Lama). This quote directly defines how happiness is created within the two texts because it implies that happiness is self-made. When comparing the two, it is clear that both Bradbury and Rabin believe that people would be happier if they insisted upon more affable conversations. This is made evident in Fahrenheit 451 when Clarisse points out that Montag has a strange way of conversing because he does not think before he speaks (Bradbury 7). Similarly, Rabin discusses that happiness is derived from deep and meaningful conversations that enable lasting, intimate relationships. Likewise, Clarisse and Montag's relationship defines Montag's happiness and helps him realize that the life
Happiness is not a credible part of Fahrenheit 451's story. Guy, the protagonist, many times doubts of his true happiness. He criticizes his society for being consumed by routine. This society seems to be happy with their life styles, but Guy soon realizes people do not really know each other nor do anything out of their lives. In our society, many claim to enjoy their lives with materials things and that is totally fine. The problem is that people are stuck in routine and do nothing that is productive for humanity or for themselves. As in the book, people in our society build their lives according to what society says us to do, but give minimum importance to their happiness.
Happiness is important for fully enjoying freedom. The French artists of Café Guerbois thought that they were unhappy. They were poor, struggling, and most importantly not in the Salon. Likewise, while attending Brown University, Caroline Sachs, felt that she was unhappy and dissatisfied compared to her other classmates. She was learning what she loved, yet she still wasn’t happy. If she was going to compare herself, if she was going to compete she had to be successful. At its very essence the idea of being happy and fulfilled is in direct competition with not having a purpose and that our freedom is a burden. To take full advantage of the freedom we have and to not be burdened we must seek and achieve
Happiness according scientific studies happiness comes from dopamine taking chemicals around the brain, which is a transmitter in the brain that controls the nervous system. These chemicals in the brain make us happy and sad. Happiness means different things to different people, so say Happiness comes from peace and other happiness comes from your expectations from being fulfilled. Happiness is like being sad or angry, it?s an emotion. Some people can get happiness from the simplest things such as reading your favorite book; other people are more complicated they see happiness as some thing that doesn?t really happen to them, but that?s not true because very person is different some people are happy all the time or at least most of the time, while some people say that there not happy are really just happy for a short period of time, weather it means just laughing at a joke, your happy for that couple of seconds.
Happiness is a feeling that cannot be broken if strong enough, no matter how much sadness or hate is around you. Happiness can come from the smallest thing, for instance, music makes me happy and can easily change my mood, or when I am doing something I love my mood is easily changed. For others it could be whenever you do something well, or right and get recognition for it. It is the easiest feeling to be spread and given out but often neglected and forgotten about which is something we should all be more aware