Old definition of Happiness
I used to define feeling happy as a state of exaltation – singing, dancing, jumping as an outlet for my happiness-energy – because it was all ‘too much’ to hold in, too much for such a tiny body. I felt like ‘bursting’, so I had to move my body – in dancing or jumping or running. I felt like standing on the top of my toes – ready to lift off to heaven :) As the opposite polarity of misery – where I felt very low, like wriggling on the ground, like a worm.Growing older I felt this energetic state was just tiresome and had no lasting meaning at all. I realized that the moments I now defined as me being happy are the moments I feel at peace with myself and quietly enjoying the moments of intimacy with myself. So I define happiness as ‘contentment’ nowadays: moments of being in peace and intimacy with myself, characterized by the absence of inner-movement.
Dictionary
Noun: happiness1. State of well-being characterized by emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy
2. Emotions experienced when in a state of well-being
Happy: late 14c., "lucky, favored by fortune, prosperous;" of events, "turning out well," from hap (n.) "chance, fortune" + -y(2). Sense of "very glad" first recorded late 14c. Ousted O.E. eadig (from ead "wealth, riches") and gesælig, which has become silly. Meaning "greatly pleased and content" is from 1520s. O.E. bliðe "happy" survives as blithe. From Greek to Irish, a great majority of the European words for "happy" at first meant "lucky." An exception is Welsh, where the word used first meant "wise."
Sounding
Hap-pyIn Dutch ‘hap’ means ‘a bite’ – so taking a bite from the pie (hap-pie).Like in having a bite in the birthday cake. Which implies there is an end to the fun, a beginning and an end to happiness, just like the birthday cake when eaten all of it - happiness is limited.
Hap: 1. one's luck or lot. 2. an occurrence, happening, or accident.
Happen: by coincidence
Happiness is something that ‘happens’ to you – which is not true: it is always you that creates the experience of ‘feeling happy’, but by defining it as something that happens to you, it is placed as an outer source with power over you.
Happiness – pine-ss: pine away=languish away (wegkwijnen)/pine after=long for/pine=regret. That’s funny – I’ve always experienced in my moments of extreme happiness at the core of it: sadness also – at the same time. Like happiness and sadness are one and the same. Also some fear and regret this happiness will be over any moment now.
Contentment – the Dutch word is: tevredenheid – which holds the word ‘vrede’=peace. It also holds the word ‘reden’=reason. So happy with or without a reason. Self-contented: the content of self; intimate with self.
New definition
Happiness is the experience of me being in peace/intimate with myself, characterized by the absence of inner-movement
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