Priya+Mansukhani+RP+Post+2

1.As of today my research question is simply: What is happiness? A broad question to give me an overview or general idea of the concept I will later zone in on through a particular angle.

Source:

2. Title: What is happiness 3. Author: Josh Clark 4. http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/what-is-happiness.htm 5. Accessed at home, online through Google, on Thursday May 22, 2014.

6: SOAPSTONE S- Josh Clark O- to get a clearer view of the emotion that confuses everyone A-anyone who wants to know more about happiness and what it is made of P- to define happiness and its components, somewhat scientifically S- Happiness, its complexity and its factors T- informative, scholarly

7. Happiness means different things to different people. Essentially, there are multiple views that it can create it's various definitions: hedonism, psychologists, scientists, religion and more. What he concludes is that maybe there is no real definition, maybe it is all up to the individual experiencing it and that is the beauty.

8. What defines happiness as an emotion, a belief and an experience, can only be known by the individual experiencing it. 9. I am persuaded in the sense that he tries to hit major views of happiness. By looking through different viewpoints, he shows the reader the ambiguity of happiness and it's various interpretations. There is no one single interpretation which substantiates his conclusion in that it can only be left up to the individual- how can something so complex and diverse have only one meaning. That's it, it cannot.

10. As the philosopher Albert Camus put it, "But //what is happiness // except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?" - Perhaps the distinction of what constitutes happiness should be left to the individual. After all, anxiety, a contradiction to happiness, might surface when you don't follow your own values -- whatever they may be. -

The distinction between the two comes down to whether happiness is a destination (the hedonic view) or a journey (the eudaimonic philosophy). Put another way, hedonism is the belief that happiness is derived externally, while eudaimonism expresses the idea that happiness comes from within.