Happiness – an Illusion?
“CNN wishes its many viewers a “Happy Christmas.
Billions of greeting cards are bought each year. The senders fondly express an impossibility: “We wish you a happy New Year” (or birthday, or anniversary). Significant in these greetings is the word “wish”. Happiness will always remain on the wish list; a dream, if not impossible, then certainly so fleeting as to be insignificant. No one can actually grant the wish.
Consider the parallel of defining the Loch Ness Monster. There are fuzzy pictures and dubious sightings. These indicate that something may exist, but there is strong doubt as to whether it exists merely in beery imagination or in actuality.
When folk describe happiness, it is invariably connected with an emotional state. It is the feeling that arises from:
- not being haunted by the past,
- not being worried about financial or bodily security in the present,
- not being fearful about the future.
But emotions are as fickle and changeable as politicians on campaign. They arise from some unknown inner recess of the psyche and disappear as quickly as a paycheck. Happiness is therefore as shy and elusive as the Loch Ness Monster.
One sure way of achieving an emotional high on a permanent basis would be by purchasing a time-share in the local cemetery. People who are permanently euphoric are generally found in asylums. Yet when reading or talking about happiness, a distinction between “happiness” and “true happiness” soon creeps into the discussion. This illustrates the problem very nicely: how do we distinguish between the two?
And what shall we say about people who live with vicious memories of past atrocities, stare death in the face daily, and have no security because they are refugees, yet still appear to be supremely happy?
The answer is that happiness, the number one quest of the human race, is a chasing after the wind. Billions of dollars are spent annually pursuing what is largely an illusion. Advertisements picture people made happy by the products on display. Like the great migration of gnus across the African plain, people follow the notion that happiness can be had if only they were slimmer, more tanned, drove a fancier car, smoked a different brand, or had more money in the bank. Quacks promising health and wealth flourish no less than their snake-oil forefathers in the Wild West.
How strange then that most people equate the word “happy” with “Blessed”, the word used to introduce each Beatitude.
The reality remains that happiness is as inaccessible as Mars and just as barren.
Next up: If happiness is little more than a passing emotional weather pattern, then the Beatitudes are either cruel mockery or they are speaking about something entirely different. Jesus calls the poor in spirit, the mourning, the persecuted, and the meek “Blessed.” Whatever He meant, it plainly had nothing to do with the modern pursuit of happiness. The next question therefore becomes unavoidable: what did the word actually mean?
Full disclosure: I use AI as IA (Intelligent Assistant). And no, I am not dyslexic. All the words and ideas are mine alone. I prompt it to smooth the flow, check the logic and check for redundancy. I also use AI for infographics.
The Beatitudes Derivation: each statement begins with “Blessed are…”, derived from the Latin word for blessed, beatus. “Favoured by God; enjoying divine grace.
Next up: Blessed! A Word Recaptured! I examine the profound biblical origins of the word “blessed,” The modern use of ‘bless’ has been hyper-inflated, like money in hyper inflation, stripping the word of its original value.
Series :
1 https://progressingpeople.wordpress.com/2026/05/21/the-beatitudes-becoming-the-hologram/ Becoming the Hologram
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