The experience of life, living, has three main components:
- pleasure
- joy
- happiness.
Happiness is a goal, joy is a consequence and pleasure is an effect. You have to achieve happiness, joy is determined by collaborating factors and you may obtain pleasure.
The natural state in life is the opposite of the experience:
- If you don’t have happiness, you are depressed
- if you don’t have joy, you are sad
- if you don’t have pleasure, you are hurt.
The process of life is to transcend from one side to the other.
So, by default you are hurt, sad and depressed. As a child you are initially hurt, but joyful and happy. When hurting is less and pleasure begins, sadness arises, but you’re still happy. Later when you master joy and easily get pleasure, depression kicks in.
Life is generally good when the right amounts of strength is found in each and every component. That means than not one single component is enough by itself. If you achieve happiness and cling on to it you will loose joy, because you become selfish and in doing so you loose your joy and become sad. You can be happy and sad at the same time. If you determine joy and cling on to it you become superficial and stray very far from any goal of happiness. Therefore strive for the right amounts and don’t cling on anything: life is an experience in progress.
You can handle depression if you can determine joy and have pleasure. You cannot handle well depression and sadness together. Loneliness for the depressed is the suicide note. You can handle pain if you are happy, it’s the trick of heroes, but it’s nearly impossible to be in pain and joyful, that is the trade of monks. Monks are not happy for either their goal is unattainable or they strive not to have goals. Sadness and pain together leave very little room for life, it is what happens when people give up.