The many nuances of happiness
The 90’s pop artist Moby once sang, “Why does my heart feel so bad?”. This song has been played over 79 million times on Spotify, and it feels like it’s a daily question for us at this moment in time.
Well, if Aristotle were alive he might have answered Moby by saying we are lacking in “eudaimonia”. This is an ancient Greek concept that is often translated as happiness. But it’s actually a different word to happiness as we know it. It can also serve as a clue as to how we can help ourselves feel better whilst we’re stuck in place, and nearing our wit’s end.
A favourite concept of the Ancient Greeks and Stoic philosophers, Eudaimonia, is made up of two words: eu ['good, well'] and daimōn ['spirit']. The closest modern translations would be ‘good spirit’, 'well being', or 'human flourishing'.The philosophers argued for centuries about what the true meaning and attainment of Eudaimonia is - from Plato to Epicurus, Artistotle to Zeno. Each had a nuanced interpretation.
In ‘Definitions’, a dictionary of Greek philosophical terms attributed to Plato, Eudaimonia is described as “resources sufficient for a living creature”. This makes us breathe a sigh of relief - the 10th episode in a row of The Nanny on a weeknight IS okay then! The Stoic philosopher Zeno believed it was a "good flow of life". And Epicurus believed that it was freedom of fear, absence of bodily pain, pleasure in tranquillity, and the importance of friends, saying “Of all the means to insure happiness through the whole life, by far the most important is the acquisition of friends." Amen.
It’s no surprise then that we’re feeling a lack of Eudaimonia! In seriousness, we don’t have all of the resources we need right now (well The Nanny is good for now, but what happens when the series ends?), we don’t have a flow in our lives, and we’re missing our friends. We truly need more good spiritedness in our lives!
The thing to enjoy about Eudaimonia is it encompasses the light and shade of life in its DNA, unlike the uni-dimensional positivity of happiness. One modern scholar said it “focuses on meaning and self-realization and defines well-being in terms of the degree to which a person is fully functioning.” It allows a spectrum, from basic functioning through to flourishing. And unlike happiness, eudaimonia doesn’t kid itself that self-realisation is easy. In modern vernacular, "bittersweet" might be a good comparison. Acknowledging this type of ‘happiness’ can exist is quite freeing as a starting point.
The ancients also didn’t suggest Eudaimonia would necessarily be the same every day, with Epicurus saying, "You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships every day. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity." A lot of ancient philosophy explored this duality through eudaimonia and its cousin eustress (or “good stress”), which is defined as stress that is beneficial and necessary for the experiencer. This is what we know as resilience today. So hey! The good news is that whilst living through this shitshow, we’ve grown in ways we didn’t even know!
I guess what we’re getting at is it feels hard to be happy right now. And pressuring ourselves to “be grateful!” isn’t helping. It’s worth reminding ourselves that friends, variety in life, and resources (like proper rest) are necessary, and that’s why our hearts feel so heavy. It can also be worthwhile to remind ourselves that we can we go σιγα σιγα “slowly slowly” towards eudaimonia, a type of happiness that embraces the challenging parts of our days along with the sweet ones.