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Happiness or Truth...
Saturday, August 7th, 2004 12:36 amWell. That thought came to me this morning, and I thought it would make a good poll question. My initial thinking was that I would of course choose the Be-Happy answer. I mean, what's the point of knowing the truth about something, if it made me permanently unhappy? Isn't happiness, even when based on untruths, better than not being happy?
But then I was thinking... I'm a vegetarian. I made the choice long ago to not enjoy eating food just because it tastes good, if the truth is that there is suffering involved in producing that food. I made the choice not to ignore a truth, even though one might think that doing so made me less happy, for not being able to eat good-tasting things which I had previously eaten without any concern.
But... once I had discovered the truth about meat and factory-farmed animals, etc (naturally, what I consider a truth, you might not; I don't really know THE TRUTH about anything), I didn't really have an option of going back to my previous state of not-knowing. So I didn't really CHOOSE to know the truth and be unhappy.
And another thing about that, is that changing my diet didn't make me UNHAPPY, nor would have continuing to eat animal products have made me HAPPY (even if there was no suffering involved in producing them). It's just food, for goodness sake, and vegetarian food tastes as good to me as non-vegetarian food used to.
But what if it were something important... what if I was happy because I didn't know about something that was going on, something which was causing other people to suffer... and what if, by knowing the truth of the suffering, it might make me in some way change my actions in order to try to alleviate some of the suffering? I think in that case, even if it meant me not being able to be happy, I would choose to know the truth. After all, that's why I listen to the news, etc. To be informed. It's surely not because listening to the news is a happifying thing to do.
So, I suppose my answer then is "It depends". And if everyone else's thought-process is similar to mine, and would also choose "It depends" or "Don't know", well maybe it's not such a great poll after all. Because there just aren't any clear-cut answers. Or questions.
But then again, if knowing the truth about things meant I would really never ever ever be happy, would I really ever choose that? Or is it that it's just a stupid theoretical question which isn't useful to have an answer to, because we can't ever really know that we could only _either_ know the truth _or_ be happy. Because in real life there is always the possibility, at least, of both knowing the truth and being happy (one would think).
And another thing - why should being happy depend on outside things.... shouldn't it be internal? Why should knowing the truth about external things affect one's internal happiness? Yet, I don't seem to have any purely internal happiness, at least at this stage of my life. But is that because of my reaction to my interpretation of external things, or not?
But then I was thinking... I'm a vegetarian. I made the choice long ago to not enjoy eating food just because it tastes good, if the truth is that there is suffering involved in producing that food. I made the choice not to ignore a truth, even though one might think that doing so made me less happy, for not being able to eat good-tasting things which I had previously eaten without any concern.
But... once I had discovered the truth about meat and factory-farmed animals, etc (naturally, what I consider a truth, you might not; I don't really know THE TRUTH about anything), I didn't really have an option of going back to my previous state of not-knowing. So I didn't really CHOOSE to know the truth and be unhappy.
And another thing about that, is that changing my diet didn't make me UNHAPPY, nor would have continuing to eat animal products have made me HAPPY (even if there was no suffering involved in producing them). It's just food, for goodness sake, and vegetarian food tastes as good to me as non-vegetarian food used to.
But what if it were something important... what if I was happy because I didn't know about something that was going on, something which was causing other people to suffer... and what if, by knowing the truth of the suffering, it might make me in some way change my actions in order to try to alleviate some of the suffering? I think in that case, even if it meant me not being able to be happy, I would choose to know the truth. After all, that's why I listen to the news, etc. To be informed. It's surely not because listening to the news is a happifying thing to do.
So, I suppose my answer then is "It depends". And if everyone else's thought-process is similar to mine, and would also choose "It depends" or "Don't know", well maybe it's not such a great poll after all. Because there just aren't any clear-cut answers. Or questions.
But then again, if knowing the truth about things meant I would really never ever ever be happy, would I really ever choose that? Or is it that it's just a stupid theoretical question which isn't useful to have an answer to, because we can't ever really know that we could only _either_ know the truth _or_ be happy. Because in real life there is always the possibility, at least, of both knowing the truth and being happy (one would think).
And another thing - why should being happy depend on outside things.... shouldn't it be internal? Why should knowing the truth about external things affect one's internal happiness? Yet, I don't seem to have any purely internal happiness, at least at this stage of my life. But is that because of my reaction to my interpretation of external things, or not?
