Five Shades of Happiness

Every creature on this planet seeks pleasurable experiences and avoids pain of any sort. But we humans, with our highly developed brain, have the ability to experience various kinds of pleasure and pain. In this article, we try to explore the range of pleasurable experiences that are possible with our mind.

Out of all the emotions, sensations, feelings, moods, and states of mind that a human can experience, probably the most discussed topic is pleasure and pain. Pleasure and pain are considered by some as a pair of opposites. The pleasure principle or Lustprinzip in German proposed by Sigmund Freud is well-known in the world of psychology and even to many laymen. In simple terms, we can say that every individual seeks pleasure and tries to avoid pain to fulfill various needs. But even before Freud, thinkers in the past from the east and the west have delved on this topic. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus spoke about pleasure, although of a different kind. Epicurus is well-known for Epicureanism which is greatly misunderstood as a philosophy of self-indulgence, usually associated with gluttony. Epicurus himself had rather simple meals and enjoyed the pleasure of philosophy more than the physical pleasures. Epicurus meant pleasure as a state of tranquillity free from physical disturbances or pain (aponia) and mental disturbances or fear (ataraxia) rather than as sheer sensual pleasure. The philosophical system of Yoga, also spoke about pleasure and pain. It is considered that freedom from all kinds of pain and misery is only possible by realizing our true nature.

Guided by Pleasure and Pain
Let us understand a little more about the importance of pleasure and pain. Pleasure is any sensation or feeling that is comfortable, agreeable or pleasant. Pain, on the other hand, is an experience that is uncomfortable, disagreeable or unpleasant. For all the living beings, pleasure and pain serve a very important purpose. Pleasurable experiences are usually life-sustaining, whereas painful experiences are life-threatening. For example, hunger or starvation is painful whereas the act of eating is pleasurable. This enables animals or other beings to seek food when they are hungry. Thus, all living beings inherently avoid pain and seek pleasure which enables them to survive and procreate. Some examples of pleasure are eating, relaxing, resting, bonding with others, and sex. Common examples of pain are hunger, thirst, injury, disease, threat, and overexertion. Thus, pain and pleasure help all living beings in the process of self-preservation. This instinctive guidance through pleasure and pain is considered as the hallmark of life since it enables survival and applies to every single organism which has life, from the smallest microorganisms to the biggest mammals.

Pleasure and Pain in Humans
Other than humans, all living beings in their natural habitats are almost always right when they follow their instinctive urge to seek pleasure and avoid pain since they follow the laws of nature without much thinking. That is how the basic instincts of living beings have enabled them to survive on this planet until now. But in the case of human beings, things get a little more complicated. Humans have a highly developed intellect which enables us to think, analyze and even modify our “usual” behavior based on a situation. Thus, the behavior of humans in response to pleasure and pain is not as easily predictable as with animals. We may override an instinctive urge by our will power. We can get used to new kinds of pleasures through the conditioning of our mind. Our intellect has the ability to intervene in the way we respond to our instincts, thus giving rise to innumerable changes in our innate behavior of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. That is why understanding the role of pleasure and pain in humans is indeed complicated.

Five Shades of Pleasure
With our highly developed brain, humans have the ability to experience various kinds of pleasure and pain. For example, indulging in intellectual pleasure, like reading a philosophical book, is something that only humans can do. On the other hand, painful emotions can hurt us even more than physical pain. Thus, we have a vast spectrum of emotions, sensations, moods, and feelings which range between the two extremes of pain and pleasure. So let us look at a few “shades of pleasure” as I like to call them. The definition of these terms may be different than those you have read or understood from other sources. Here, I am just defining these shades of pleasure according to my personal opinion in order to continue our analysis of pleasure. We start from the most short-lived experience of pleasure and go towards more long-lasting forms of pleasure.

i) Pleasure
The first shade of pleasure is pleasure itself. This is what we call the little pleasures of life. This is easiest to achieve and usually short-lived. It could be having a cup of coffee, listening to your favorite music, going out for shopping or a thousand other ways of having a little moment of pleasure.

ii) Joy
Different people have defined joy in different ways. Here I mean joy as an extended period of pleasure similar to the French expression joie de vivre or the joy of life (although this expression too has various interpretations). A good example is when we are on vacation. During a vacation, we enjoy different kinds of pleasure and thus have a joyful time. In this context, joy lasts longer than pleasure and is usually made up of different forms of pleasure.

iii) Happiness
This is where things get more complicated. Happiness doesn’t necessarily depend on pleasures, but pleasurable moments can add to our happiness. Happiness has more depth to it than joy in the way we have defined it. Happiness has different meanings for different people. In fact, during one’s own life there can be different meanings for happiness at different times. Happiness is usually a state that lasts longer than pleasure and joy although it is possible that we can switch from being happy to being unhappy within a short time. Happiness can be linked to things that we value in our life such as leading a meaningful life or life satisfaction. We will analyze in detail about happiness in the following sections.

iv) Contentment
Contentment is generally used in two contexts. One meaning of contentment is the feeling of satisfaction that we have after a pleasant experience. For example, we feel content after a delicious meal. The other meaning of contentment is more like a virtue that needs to be practiced with some effort. Contentment is the ability to remain happy even when things are not going well in our life. Here, I refer to the second meaning. This definition of contentment is referred in Yoga as Santosha. Chinese philosophers like Lao Tzu and Zhuang Zhou spoke about contentment. In fact, most of the well-known philosophers spoke about contentment in one way or the other. So obviously, contentment has got to be a very valuable asset in our life. Contentment requires constant practice and is not easy since there will be times in everyone’s life when the going gets tough. But we can always make an effort to remain content even in these situations. Contentment can help us to stay happier for longer periods of time in our life. Thus, I am placing it at a higher level than happiness since it is a more venerable trait.

v) Meditative Bliss
This is a state which is attained by monks or meditators through years of continuous practice reaching the pinnacle of meditative tranquillity. Different schools of philosophy refer to it by different names and the exact concept and techniques to attain that state differ in each school. Yoga refers to it as Samadhi. This state is probably the most long-lasting state of blissfulness and hence, it takes the highest position in our list.

This is just my way of classifying different shades of pleasure. There are of course other pleasurable states of mind that are not listed here. We can call these states as “shades of happiness” as well since happiness and pleasure are related to each other. As you can imagine, the most short-lived shade of happiness is the easiest to achieve. The more enduring shade of happiness requires more effort.

Understanding Happiness
During the formative years of our life, our experiences are limited to pleasure and pain. Babies usually cry when they experience some kind of pain and they smile when they are having a pleasant moment. As we grow older, our mind develops and this brings more variables in the equation of pleasure and pain. We are no more satisfied with simple pleasures or joyful moments, but we want something more. You can make a toddler happy by giving candy or a toy but it won’t make a teenager happy. With the development of mind, pleasure takes newer meanings in our life. Although in theory, all of us would always like to have pleasurable experiences and avoid pain of any kind, as we grow older we understand that life is a little more complicated than just enjoying pleasures. We realise that there are other things which matter in life. At the subconscious level, we are programmed that there are more conditions that need to be fulfilled to make us happy. For example, when we are in school, getting good grades could make us happy. So, getting good grades is the “condition” which has to be fulfilled to make us happy. And in order to achieve this result, we need to study hard for several weeks. So we learn to postpone our feeling of gratification. The conditions required to make us happy are different for different individuals and they keep changing in our life. One person may seek happiness in education, whereas another person may seek it in money. There is no simple formula that can lead every person to a state of happiness.

Evolution of Happiness in Our Life
It is interesting to note how the meaning of happiness evolves and keeps changing during our lifetime. For the first few years of our life, happiness and pleasure are pretty much the same. Babies do not become sad or upset thinking about the bigger problems of life. They cry when there is discomfort and laugh when they experience pleasure. Thus, the experience of infants is more of pleasure and pain rather than happiness and sadness. Teenagers usually confuse pleasure to be happiness. That is the reason why they usually get into trouble since they get too carried away in chasing the short-lived pleasures. It is also because of the hormonal changes happening in their body. Teenage is a particular age when we are especially vulnerable to the temptation of pleasures and thus assume that pleasure is happiness. As we grow older and enter the middle-age phase of our life, most of us are usually bored of little pleasures and are generally concerned with the bigger issues of life. Middle-aged people get too lost in the problems of life thinking about the past and the future which makes them forget to enjoy the little pleasures of life. By the time we reach the end of middle-age and enter old-age, most of us carry too much emotional baggage and painful memories from the past which take away the smile that was so natural in the early years of our life.

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