When headlines reveal that the way to be happy is to think happy thoughts, half of us go \u201cwell duh, that\u2019s obvious,\u201d while the other half goes \u201cthat\u2019s the dumbest thing I ever heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s both duh, and dumb \u2013 it is a \u201cno-brainer.\u201d 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\u2019t 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”).<\/p>\n
There is some neuroscience behind thinking happy thoughts, but there is something more than the matter<\/em> of brain to who we are. There is something more than the matter<\/em> of the body too, more even the matter<\/em> 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n pay attention to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When headlines reveal that the way to be happy is to think happy thoughts, half of us go \u201cwell duh, that\u2019s obvious,\u201d while the other half goes \u201cthat\u2019s the dumbest thing I ever heard.\u201d Well, it\u2019s both duh, and dumb \u2013 it is a \u201cno-brainer.\u201d For one thing, all theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-tony-brussat","post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-qualia-coach"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9QShd-65","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5450,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377\/revisions\/5450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetqualia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}