When headlines reveal that the way to be happy is to think happy thoughts, half of us go “well duh, that’s obvious,” while the other half goes “that’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
Well, it’s both duh, and dumb – it is a “no-brainer.” For one thing, all the routes to happiness disappear once we are happy. That is, we can practice some method, but once we are happy we don’t need it any more. In fact, from the perspective of one who is happy, the method itself has become counter-productive. Any artist understands this: technique and theory are important tools, but they often disappear when the creative impulse takes over (generally in a moment of happiness – a moment “in the zone”).
There is some neuroscience behind thinking happy thoughts, but there is something more than the matter of brain to who we are. There is something more than the matter of the body too, more even the matter of the environment with which we evolved and in which we live. There is something more than mere matter to the universe. There is qualia.
pay attention to it.