Answer to Question #168156 in History for Christopher

Question

These weekly reflection assignments are for the purposes of reflecting on the readings (primary sources such as Plato, Ovid, Marie de France, Thomas Mann, or both films; secondary sources such as Nissinen, Foucault, and all of the "handouts" throughout the course). There is no specific content I am looking for other than careful reading and reflection--except for this one requirement: you MUST quote from one of the texts for each of the reflections at least once, giving the context of the quote and the importance of the quote for your reflection. 

Minimum word requirement: 400 words. 

Answer 1

Happiness is a vital factor in one’s life and essentially the essence of how to live a good life. Plato states that for one to be happy or a good person, they must act morally and participate in just activities. Regardless of the numerous interpretations and meanings accorded to the theories and concepts of happiness, in certainty they provide no quantifiable quantities. Deprived of any tangible quantity of happiness, any model remains only a model, speculation, which is difficult to authenticate. Nonetheless, life in the search for happiness is perforated with the worry of how to achieve a state of happiness. Thus, happiness cannot be well-defined, however, it can only be experienced or perceived in some instants or sequences of moments.

The quest for happiness is seepage from the present, from the state full of anxiety and uncertainty. Therefore, as in any other state of mind, this indefinable state of alleged happiness is only momentary.

The search for happiness infers that such a state exists, and one just has to tail and accomplish it. The idea of happiness is unclear and one can never undoubtedly know what happiness is and how to attain it. Notably, one may experience extra satisfaction in life, not by searching for happiness, nonetheless by pursuing some degree of meaning in life, without which life would be useless.

          In the final reflection, life is not about attaining lasting happiness. Since the world is not favorable to it. Life is a series of memories and moments. Some of these instants have to be tolerated and others, which are additional friendly, are interpreted or perceived as good. The good life is habitually defined not by involvements, but rather by the interpretations and recollections of those experiences in a particular contextual setting. As these memories are classically biased and fragmented, the good instants are remembered more often than the bad instants. Hence, a person can never attain lasting happiness in life. Nevertheless, the individual can be exposed to snatching meaningful instants in it. In the end, all these instants contextualized as bad or good, turn into hours and minutes and days and life itself. Therefore, for humanity to attain a level of happiness and the good life in general, the person must behave and act morally upright, and embrace the principle of social justice in various activities that one can participate in.