What is not happiness? Unhappy joy and happy sadness

Throughout the history of mankind, many people have reflected on the concept of happiness. Have you ever tried it? During my research, I have come to realize that thinking about happiness (in the philosophical sense of the word) is difficult work, because you don't know exactly what to look for.

Thus, it is permissible for any thinker to wonder... What should I focus on and what concepts should I keep in mind to study happiness? Well, to start a reflection on any concept, you have to ask yourself about everything that is not that concept. And even more so if we are dealing with the elusive concept of happiness.

I did so and I hoped that, as in a winnowing process, in which the straw is separated from the grain by throwing the mixture into the air, the breeze would drag the thatch (i.e. everything that is not happiness) and what interests us, the grain (happiness), would fall into the basket (my mind) finally being exposed to be processed (analyzed).

• Related article: "On happiness: what is it that we all seek?"

What is not happiness?

The first mistake is to assume that the social imaginary of "happiness" is correct..

When we think of "happiness", very colorful and bright images come to mind, of people doing activities in which apparently they have a good time, in which those people are free: photos of smiles, rainbows, clown noses and crying emoticons of laughter. I invite you to take the test, stop reading and write the word "happiness" in the Google Images search engine. What does this search teach us? Exactly what I have described, and as if that were not enough, they propose concepts that could (or should) be related, like friend, day, birthday, love, family, wedding, Coke, and a long etc.

And isn't that happiness? Partly yes, but that also means partly no. That is why we should not let the media or "what everyone says" do to us. believe that we can only be happy on sunny days, on our birthday, or when we drink Coke.

Since we can remember, humans use concepts to understand the world, and happiness is nothing more than another concept. Has no one realized that each society modulates the concepts to its liking and convenience ?.

I write all this to make you see that behind the smiles there are tears, that after each day the night comes, and that, hidden under the showcase of "perfect happiness", there are many interests that our society is not interested in to admit. Although it is now that I realize, the opposite of happiness is unhappiness, and nothing else.

I therefore propose that we doubt about everything we think we know about "happiness" If we have not reflected on it before, since that leads us to a confusion that, apart from mixing concepts, leads us to live a life in search of something that we do not even know what it is.

This is how I unraveled the concept of happiness a bit, in one of my retreats to the mountains, talking to my uncle on the subject when I realized (well, I realized) all this and the idea that I have called: unhappy joy and sadness happy. I present this idea because I feel that it must be made clear once and for all that being sad does not mean being unhappy. They are parallel concepts that it does not make sense to compare because they simply are not part of the same plane: the first is an emotion, and the second a feeling.

• Related article: "Differences between emotions and feelings"

Sadness and unhappiness: a fundamental distinction

Too often, and more so in psychology, these concepts of emotion and feeling are confused, which with examples we could understand as things different: when I go for a walk in the mountains with my dog ​​and we see a snake, an intense mental state occurs in us that spontaneously arises in the limbic system (in charge of emotions) that makes us react with surprise and fear; two basic (universal, which both animals and humans have) instinctive and adaptive emotions that in practice have made our species survive to this day.

When we finish the walk and I leave Simba (my dog) alone at home, he he will feel sad (another emotion basic) but never unhappy, since unhappiness is a feeling that differs from emotions in what it is reached through conscious evaluation, that is, submitting that emotion to a thought. And that is something that at the moment only humans do, thanks (or unfortunately) to the development of the prefrontal cortex, we use the reasoning that through symbols and meanings They lead our minds to create more complex concepts that animals cannot understand, because until now they have not needed them.

Therefore, joy is universal but happiness is subjective. We all feel the same but not all of us think the same about what we feel. Is it understood now?

In short, a person can be very happy but be unhappy. That false "good" that we say to ourselves would be a good example. And at the same time, a person who, due to any unpleasant external event, may feel sad at a certain moment, will trust that his interior happiness remains in the face of adversity.