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Saturday, November 25, 2017

Zero Sum Game ?

Humans have a tendency to conserve energy.

If there is a shorter road, an easier way, a simpler method our mind is 
programmed to embrace it.

Unless you are a Kipchoge. 😊


And so, it remains a mystery as to why humans spend the bulk of their energy in complicating their life.

Is the total happiness in the world, a fixed number?

Is happiness, then, a zero-sum game? That, if someone is happy, it has to be at the misery of someone else?

Looking at certain people I would be compelled to come to that conclusion.

Are you happy is not just a simple question anymore, it is rocking the very foundation of human society.

It used to be a simple question and is still a simple question when posed to a child. 

Though the threshold of the age of the child is dropping continuously which is a major concern.

"Of course, I am – fit as a proverbial fiddle" – this answer is certainly fake. A happy person does not explode with happiness. Cheery demeanour, back slapping merry and outward manifestations are usually a fake screen to hide the real disappointment brewing inside.

"I don’t know, probably I am, no major concerns" – this is in all prospects a human being as close to happiness as we know it.

"It can be better" – this is just a micron-thin coating begging to be scratched. Scratch it and you will encounter Armageddon.  Wisest thing is to absorb this and slink away.

Instances of happiness are multitude. Each happiness is attached to some material thing or other.

The absence of happiness with a person of such disposition is still manageable as this can be compensated by more, albeit meaningless, possessions.

Beware, however, the person who is perennially unhappy, whose countenance is a scowl or a knitted brow, whose eyes dart around locating emotional chinks in the armour, and who has a false big laugh, whose eyes never smile, the one that is constantly scheming, who spends all the time evaluating if others are happy or miserable, whose happiness is derived by the equation 

         X- (sum of others happiness), 

the starting X itself too meagre to satisfy one individual of normal composition; for, this person has an inherent non capacity to feel happy or to nurture positive thoughts.

And like a black hole sucking everything that passes by, this person is almost a dementor from Azkaban, sucking out happiness from those around.

There are happy people and unhappy people. The world is full of them. Then there are people who are incapable of being happy. Like the school bully, who derives pleasure by kicking the sand castle built by other kids, or the proverbial monkey that climbed a tree and destroyed the nest of the birds because the birds could have a place to stay dry in the rains while the monkey did not.

Or like the tale of the magic fish emanating from Russia where the peasant, on being offered whatever the peasant wanted by a benevolent Angel in the form of a magic fish, with one caveat that the neighbour gets double, pleaded that his one eye be gouged out.

J.Krishnamurti said that Truth is a pathless land, the same is true for happiness too. It is natural too, as, can there be happiness without truth?

Darkness is dispelled with light. Thus it will be simpler to eliminate causes to bring in a greater level of happiness. What is a life lived if it was not lived happily?

Things to eliminate – as a simple ABC to happiness

Anger

Bitching

Comparison

The best things I learnt in my life I learnt from reading.

So, to quote Atticus Finch “Whatever the provocation Scout, I forbid you to fight”


Ignore the provocateur and move on, for the happiness of the provocateur hinges on you losing your composure and your happiness, stemming from the belief that happiness is a zero-sum game.

It is not.



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