The white path.
If my happiness means other’s unhappiness, I refuse to be happy.
If I am happy while there is unhappiness, I feel ashamed by my happiness.
I cannot be happy until there is unhappiness in the world.
… until there is STILL unhappiness in the world.
A humbling error of grammar. Thank you Techne.
Unless there is unhappiness, how can you know if you are happy?
When you’re happy, you aren’t concerned about whether or not you are happy and so there is no need for comparison.
(he, he – gosh, haven’t you ever been happy ; )?
While there is unhappiness, how can you ever be happy without being sure that you can avoid unhappiness ? Your question implies the dualism of happiness-unhappiness. But real happiness must be beyond that, otherwise it is just a passing pleasurable state, poisoned by the thought of it’s limited nature.
Thus, one cannot ever be fully happy, until there exists the slightest chance of unhappiness. To avoid this constant fear, we shut ourselves into our egos, like into walls what keep anything what might cause unhappiness, outside.
and that ‘shut-in-ness’ as is sure a barrier to happiness as whatever it shuts out.
I know that one.
I feel that through my own happiness and transference of that happiness on others I can make the world a happier place, by being unhappy I feel I transfer that unhappiness to the world.