Why one is not happy?

There are all sorts of answers to this question. One of the them would be that one cannot actualize his/her will(s). For example if i want to have deep-fry osyter cake while living in Britain which offers the most terrible cuisine in the world, my will cannot be actualized and therefore I feel not happy. That is a trivial example but variations of it happen everyday, from failing to possess a commodity to being pestered by your boss. This kind of unhappiness will lose trace quickly. For the sake of argument, lets call this the unhappiness in the present.

I want to make a distinction between being not happy and being unhappy. I see the latter as a more pretentious and self-deceptive phenomenon, which deserves a seperate discussion. Going back to those who are not happy. Most of us bear a wound (at least one) in oursevles which causes pain. The pain however is unconscious, and is often triggered by some unexpected event. To be more precise, it's not an event which causes these pain: it's certain thought vaguely contructed in your memory which releases the dam of pain. This pain is not physical, but it's always the mental torture which gives us the most painful.

This pain, to which I called the unhappiness in the past, can only appeal to human being who has the capacity to reflect on things. He reflects on what he did and what he did not do in his life; he reflects on how people judge himself; he reflects on whether he has fulfilled his responsibilities. All these questions trouble him. Some of us are able to shed the burden immediately. But people who cannot leave his ego aside will inevitably suffer, regardless of one's gender.

To cut things short, I want to bring in the third kind of unhappiness, which is that in the future. This unhappiness crushes you to the bottom, ceases you from actions, freezing every moment in the world. As I said, one is unhappy because one's will is not actualized. The most unhappy man is the one who does not see this as a problem. That says, he who is unhappy knows very well that his will will not be acutualized. I am a fan of a singer and tonight i am going to his concert. That supposes to be a very exciting night. But long before the concert begins, i feel a certain kind of unhappiness which puts off all my desire to listen to the beloved singer. I will still go to the concert, that is for certain. But I know very well that I will not be satisfied right at the moment when i step in the concert hall. Because of that I cannot fully engaged with the concert anymore. While i am following the crowd, humming the wonderful lyrics written, my other-me step aside with my happiness in his hands. My happiness is not stolen, but placed in somewhere else. I know very well but all the same.

The unhappiness in the future is a wonderful privilege for men who can 'think ahead'. What a beautiful phrase used in the circle of utilitarianism! It's nothing bad to think ahead for one's career or the assignment to be done in a month time. But it's dangerous to think ahead of interiority. Things get a little complicated here. Just imagine, can one think ahead without creating a vague picture of the future in his mind? The picture includes the imaginary reactions of your colleagues, result of your effort put, etc - things that are carefully calculated and pretty concretely imaged in the picture of the future. The picture of the future cannot accurately depict the future. When the future comes, what makes your not happy is not that picture at all. The picture is imagined when t (time) = 0. And in fact the picture has no time, as if the picture will actualize in the same way in any moment. But that of course if wrong. When you 'arrive' at the future, there will be a different time. And what crushes you will be another 'picture'. To be more precise, it's a picture without an image. It's not representations (picture) which shoplifts your happiness; it's something else, something not at all representable in a picture. And when you arrive at the present, the happiness you will recieve will be the happiness of the present. But the problem is: we cannot do away with time. If we can there will be no unhappiness in the past and the future.

It is time which makes one not happy. But it is also time which defines what is a being. How can we live fully in the present, yet not forgetting our vulnerability to our past and future? How can we fully immerse in what we are doing now and not distracted, given that so many people are doing different things and seemingly better things? How can we be happy if we know very well that we will be not happy? Shall we pull ourselves into the wonderful world of entertainment, get away from a critical life, and follow what the world tell us to do?

You can see the unhappiness in the present originates in the realm of animalistic desire, i.e. the immediate want of things. The unhappiness in the past comes from the realm of memory. We are all trained to be a mnemonics; to forget to forget is like the most devilish thing in front of your colleagues. The third unhappiness, which i think is the most terrible, that in the future originates in the problem of interpretation. We have a thirst to interpret things, particularly things which cannot be known. In 19th century this would be called ennui, something very close to melancholy. One of my friend reminds me of this terrible state of mind, that i know very well that i will be not happy. This self-destructive mode of being is not a personality type. It's crsis of interpretation, of thinking 'too much'. Dostoevsky writes, 'to think too much is a disease.' The melancholic man would rather have that disease and die asap. But the point is: to think too much does not lead you to anywhere, not even a simple predicate.

Book on Man 1

I was thinking of writing a book about Manchester. It is a novel about how non-british people learn to adapt their lives in this youthful city. The idea comes from two of my flatmates who are not very happy with their life here. They both had rather bad experiences with the locals, with which I mostly shared. I thought it would be a story about foreign students in Brtain. And now I assert my thought...The market will be basically students in Manchester. There are more than 40000 students in Uni of Man, not to mention if adding up the others. And i think a large bunch of them are from other countries.

But my plot probably will not suit the undergraduates. For postgrad the market will becomes much smaller. How about all the postgraduate in Britain? Yes...yes, that's right. It's going to be a scholarly boy's story. Or girl's? Anyway, here are several scenes i should include:

1. A intellectual yet playful discussion on everyday life philosophy. It starts in the kichen where the flatmates are cooking. Then someone initiates a moan or something upsetting. Another reacts, and people join in. What will be the issue? Hmmmm let see. Solitude? (i must refer to the chinese philosopher Yun Hoi Guang and qoute his 人生的意義) How about first starts with something lighter - brisitsh culture? Yea...from british culture to solitude. Right, and the weather, the gloomy weather. How different people perceive weather. And the imprisoning-nature of rains. And don't forget food and diet. Make a good comparison between chinese and britons. How they have lunch, breafast, dinner differently. Also the comparison btw round table and square ones. How does the table affect the social relationship. Bring in the crucial concept 'grin xi' (關係) and make a few ironies...

2. A night scene where the protagonist doubts his existence, especially when he is frustrated by his work, having no one to talk to, and speaking different languages with the flatmates just live one room next to him. More, his home is at the middle of night. His connection with his home is totally cut off. Yes, his love ones - his mother, father, brother, good friends, and.... And he goes on to meditate on the english word 'missing'. Yea, English is new to him. He has completely different view on the term.

3. A walk in the city centre. Crowd - jostling, yelling, staring, performing, giggling, begging, blocking, mutting unrecognizable words - depict the happy side and the aggressive side at the same time. Contrast the passer-by and the old woman begging with her dog who will soon starves to death. And the beggers who sell magazine but no one replies. Check out the friendly smiles on people, see if they are disguising something or tending for something else. Note the ethnicities - which colour doing which kind of jobs; which colour walking in which kind of district. Yes...and cite the crime rate in Man - suprisingly, perhaps, Whites commits more crime than Blacks, or those committed by Blacks were not discovered or intentionally covered up by the papars.

4. Sketches in the buses. How people dispose their finished apples and newspaper, how drunken men have not cleaned their body for months and stink the whole deck, how women gone crazy and staring at people, as if cursing them. And the different 'classes' of buses. See how the buses divide rich and poor people. Then move on to the dirty streets, with millions of chewing gum
engraved on the pedestrians.

5. Rubbish everywhere - but suddently i realize the place i have been talking about is mainly for students. I cannot over generalize things. I better do more research on other district and make comparison. Right, there's a middle east and indian district nearby, is that relevant to dirtiness? Not really. Let see...

Don't know why I post

Going to spend another 3 years in Manchester, so I decide to open a blog for this city. God knows why, but I hope me as well as the reader will have a better grasp of UK through a less typical metropolitan city. I think this is an more interesting way - if not the only way - to understand a country.

Hope this will not be my last post.

And, I love you dear.