Chuang-Tzu: Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Tim Ferriss: The opposite of happiness is boredom.

Eliezer Yudkowsky: When people complain about the empty meaningless void, it is because they have at least one problem that they aren't thinking about solving — perhaps because they never identified it.

Alex Krupp: Given perfect freedom people have a tendency to do just enough to make themselves minimally happy, even if greater happiness is ultimately attainable.

me: There is no 'minimally happy'. Different things either make you happy or they don't. However, happiness from a source can last a long or short duration, ebb faster or slower.

Paul Graham: Unproductive pleasures pall eventually.

Credit: HN thread on existential angst.

comments

  
Kartik Agaram, 2010-04-06: David Brooks: "The daily activities most associated with happiness are sex, socializing after work and having dinner with others. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting." -- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30brooks.html (Thanks Lu! http://www.google.com/buzz/akkartik/9WBqwWHrSLS/Perspectives-on-happiness)   
  
Evan R. Murphy, 2011-04-26: I've been commuting via bicycle for the last several months and it's one of my favorite parts of the day. Though I guess it still doesn't beat sex and socializing. :)   
  
Kartik Agaram, 2011-04-26: :) When I graduated I promised myself I would never commute to work. Now that's modified to "I will never drive a car to work." Commuting == Driving.
  
Kartik Agaram, 2012-01-11: Gurmeet Manku pointed me at the roots of the word 'happiness': from hap (n.) "chance, fortune"
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=happy So traditionally happiness was something that happened to you, rather than something you pursued. It's only post-Industrial Revolution that we've conflated pleasure with tranquility.   
  
Gurmeet Manku, 2012-01-11: Hi Kartik! I wrote a short blurb on the book here: http://gurmeet.net/book-reviews/history-of-happiness-by-darrin-mcmohan/   
Evan R. Murphy, 2012-01-11: Very interesting, I'm happy that you shared this :-)
  
Kartik Agaram, 2012-11-16: Another opinion: happiness as upward mobility. http://plus.google.com/110440139189906861022/posts/D3vTjnjBmr7   
Kartik Agaram, 2014-05-09: Milan Kundera: happiness is the desire for repetition. (Thanks Kristis Makris.)

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