"Do not hail anyone as happy, until his end" is a loose translation of an ancient Greek saying. The point being that it is deemed wrong to judge how good a life one has until that life has been completed.
Do you agree with this saying? In adolescence it is perhaps a universal phenomenon, or at least one very common, to see people deem some of their peers as luckier in life. But ultimately this is an epidermic, skin-deep impression; surely there existed people who lived a hell while on the surface seeming to be joyous.
Also there may have been indeed people who were very happy, and presented positive qualities in all examined fields, but then their life in its continuation deteriorated.
This is a thread about trying to make sense of pain, and happiness, not as random, or random in the great equation of life, phenomena, but possibly as something of a balance. Of course it is merely a belief that there may be such a balance. The theory of reincarnation even allows for attributing horrible whole lives to a larger sum in which they are again in balance with the previous and following lives. Personally i would love to believe in such an interpretation, since it would mean my past of sorrow was something needed for my present of happiness, and that no other harms are in store for myself.
On the other hand it does have in it, this theorization, perhaps the seed of decadent ethics, since it can be seen as a decadent will to accept (or rather redefine, and therefore not exactly accept it on true grounds) past (or even present) pain, with the belief that it will lead to something better. It reminds me of the horrible christian belief that "those who are last here, shall be first (in the next world)".
I definitely do not think this christian saying is true, for it seems to be shared mostly by people who are in pain, but have done nothing to better themselves, and instead have collapsed into a state of misery, a misery often breeding hostility towards others.
So, TL: DR:
Do you think that, in any way, in any form or state governed by hidden or known laws, does pain and happiness here, in the present, in the past, in the future, have some meaning which would render it a positive aspect on the whole of one's existence?
Or are you of the view that pain and happiness, whether alternating states or chronic conditions, have no greater meaning than that fleeting emotion imprinted on the people who feel them?
Do you agree with this saying? In adolescence it is perhaps a universal phenomenon, or at least one very common, to see people deem some of their peers as luckier in life. But ultimately this is an epidermic, skin-deep impression; surely there existed people who lived a hell while on the surface seeming to be joyous.
Also there may have been indeed people who were very happy, and presented positive qualities in all examined fields, but then their life in its continuation deteriorated.
This is a thread about trying to make sense of pain, and happiness, not as random, or random in the great equation of life, phenomena, but possibly as something of a balance. Of course it is merely a belief that there may be such a balance. The theory of reincarnation even allows for attributing horrible whole lives to a larger sum in which they are again in balance with the previous and following lives. Personally i would love to believe in such an interpretation, since it would mean my past of sorrow was something needed for my present of happiness, and that no other harms are in store for myself.
On the other hand it does have in it, this theorization, perhaps the seed of decadent ethics, since it can be seen as a decadent will to accept (or rather redefine, and therefore not exactly accept it on true grounds) past (or even present) pain, with the belief that it will lead to something better. It reminds me of the horrible christian belief that "those who are last here, shall be first (in the next world)".
I definitely do not think this christian saying is true, for it seems to be shared mostly by people who are in pain, but have done nothing to better themselves, and instead have collapsed into a state of misery, a misery often breeding hostility towards others.
So, TL: DR:
Do you think that, in any way, in any form or state governed by hidden or known laws, does pain and happiness here, in the present, in the past, in the future, have some meaning which would render it a positive aspect on the whole of one's existence?
Or are you of the view that pain and happiness, whether alternating states or chronic conditions, have no greater meaning than that fleeting emotion imprinted on the people who feel them?
