SITE MISSION:Assisting you in exploring, developing, and implementingyour own philosophy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Philosophy of Happiness Website! My name is Martin Janello. I created a system of philosophy that focuses on securing and improving the existence of humans and humanity - and our individual ability to develop a practical philosophy about it. This Homepage outlines the foundational reflections of my work, and why it matters.

 

1. Our Happiness Dilemma.

 

Happiness has been a subject of intense philosophical consideration and struggle since recorded antiquity, and in people's minds and lives for much longer. But has all this thinking and doing had sufficient impact? The states of many individuals, societies, and the world suggest we could still use help. And yet, the idea of forming and living a philosophy of happiness has become widely given up on, discredited, and ridiculed. Why? Our happiness faces a three-part dilemma: Rejection, preemption, and underdevelopment.

 

Rejection of happiness as a serious subject of inquiry and effort, and views of it as a negative motivation, reflect growing despair and nihilism. Fashionable as this attitude might be, it won't save us and is leading us astray. Without happiness as driving force, without its pursuit, nothing matters, and nothing worthwhile can be accomplished. To improve our lives, our surroundings, and the world, we must take positive charge.

 

But happiness also has a bad name from treatments it has suffered lately. Charlatans, grifters, and ideologues have unrelentingly abused it. To a point where many of us do not deem happiness a legitimate topic for philosophical or personal exploration anymore, and ban it into the realm of snake oil salesmanship or at best vapid or trivial self-help drivel. Blaming and shunning the victim of this abuse adds to the damage and pain caused by its abuses. Not only for philosophy of happiness as subject of academic study. But also by disabling its critical role in the survival and thriving of humans and humanity.

 

Acknowledgment of this importance used to be commonplace in popular and professional philosophy, in spite of all obstacles. Their struggles against those who would suppress, control, or manipulate happiness are as old as its promise. Religious and worldly politics and impositions have long stood in the way of a clear view and path to betterment. But modern developments and attitudes threaten to further curtail them. It seems time to reconnect to philosophical traditions of happiness with renewed ambition.

 

However, upon closer inspection, such a reconnection is not as easy and productive as we might have thought. Great effort is indisputable. Countless theories of happiness publicized and practiced over the span of human existence prove how much humanity yearns for happiness. But how much happier has following any of them, even those conceived in good faith and ringing true, made us? And how much do their authors or proponents know, or bother, about what makes us happy? All kinds of authorities have been so busy trying to sell us on their ideas, recipes, and plans for happiness - and we have been so preoccupied finding answers from them - that asking us about our notions of happiness may strike them, and us, as an odd proposition.

 

We have been conditioned or conditioned ourselves to believe against overwhelming evidence that others know more about our happiness than we possibly can. And instead of blaming their concepts for not working out, we have been flogging ourselves for not following the right ones or not following them enough. Or we blame circumstances for not allowing concepts to be adequately implemented. We keep ignoring the risks and failures of taking someone else's word for what makes us happy and how to attain or keep it - and how much our happiness should matter.

 

Even if we do not subscribe to any of the creeds of happiness presented to us, their systematic coverage and insistence that we need their guidance may discourage us from forming or pursuing alternatives of our own. They may leave us deeming ourselves incapable of putting up anything close to their breadth and depth of consideration, or incapable of competing with their influences over our circumstances.

 

This patronization and corresponding deference have caused and are continuing to cause great damage and misery to humans, humanity, and our environment beyond.

 

2. A Call for Change.

 

It is high time to change this desolation. It is time we empower ourselves to think, feel, and determine more for ourselves what our attitudes, principles, and practices for a good life, what our philosophy of happiness is and should be. Due to our conditioning, such self-confidence may seem preposterous and even heretical to many. But if we dare to look at the nature of happiness and how it moves us, we grasp that naturally we not only can, but are entitled and obligated to come into our own.

 

True progress toward happiness can only be made if we realize what makes us happy - and then realize what makes us happy. The reasons for this are simple: We differ from one another in who we are and in our circumstances. What we need and want and how we intend and are able to get it may therefore differ as well. And these parameters may change as our needs and wishes are open or satisfied and as they, our other characteristics, our circumstances, and with them our experiences, develop. Our internal and external conditions lead to distinct chains of factual results and experiences of happiness and unhappiness for each of us. They create individual requirements, settings, paths, implements, and views on objectives and how they may be attained or maintained. Happiness is thus bound to have changing and diverse meanings and means for each of us. And every experience affecting our happiness joins the accumulation, amalgamation, and state of other emotions.

 

All this makes happiness a deeply personal phenomenon. Only we can feel what makes us happy at or for any given time, including how it makes us happy and how happy it makes us. Only we can perceive and understand this in sufficiently competent detail to determine where we are and where if anywhere we need to go with our happiness. This means that we have the right, but also the duty to ourselves, to define and walk our own path through life, to take control of our happiness by having it guide us. We may benefit from suggestions provided by others, but the decision whether and how to apply them must be up to our considered judgment if we are to keep control of ourselves - and if we are to remain free to be ourselves.

 

3. Prospects of Happiness.

 

Of course, we have much in common with other humans generally and with some in more particular aspects. We therefore share, and can share, much in our quest to secure and improve our existence and the existence of what we hold dear. One of these commonalities is that we each are unique persons who wish to unfold our potentials and be loved and respected in our identities. These commonalities, even where we differ, create multitudes of opportunities for us to join, complement, and advance one another. Constructive connections and combinations develop as helpful or essential elements of individual pursuits. The rational and emotional communal bonds they build organically can be expected to be stronger than any impositions. As a result, associations of individuals and humanity in general stand to greatly benefit from the liberation of individuals to find, define, and pursue their happiness.

 

And when we look closely, happiness reveals itself as the supreme organizational principle not only for individual humans, groups of humans, and humanity, but for all of nature. This insight, and the insight that humans can ultimately only succeed as part of nature's concerns, open essential pathways toward human prosperity and survival on an individual and collective level. Like all universal principles once they are understood, the general principle of happiness is elegantly simple and offers clear guidance on wellbeing.

 

4. Responsibilities and Dangers of Seeking and Giving Assistance.

 

Yet, to be effective, this guidance must relate to our particular characteristics, experiences, and circumstances. My work assists readers in this vital undertaking without presuming or suggesting what makes them happy. I am careful about this with good reason.

 

Even with the best intentions, others can only guess what makes us happy. They are relegated to drawing parallels or distinctions to their own parameters of happiness, either by assumption or observation. This undertaking is further hampered if they do not have a clear understanding of their happiness. And if they do, chances are they will be too intricately involved in pursuing their happiness to have much focus or time left to figure out ours. These obstacles of knowledge and attempts to make sense of our happiness - by making sense of theirs - cause limited understanding and all too often misunderstandings.

 

Further, others might not care about, or might oppose, our happiness. They might only give it attention if they think it can assist them in their pursuit of what they deem makes them happy. They intentionally or unwittingly might attempt to convince us that furthering their pursuits will also propel ours. They might try to hide their agenda by telling us that their exclusive or foremost concern is our happiness and that we are advancing them as a mere means to our objectives. Those of us who do not have a firm grasp of their happiness might be vulnerable to such influences or even seek them. They stand to miss out on realizing, in both meanings of the word, their own conceptions of happiness.

 

These potentials and likelihoods require great circumspection and self-control in giving and taking guidance on matters of happiness. All I can, or anybody could, legitimately contribute to the happiness concepts of others is offer assistance in their process of self-realization. The violation and abdication of individual self-realization, both from the giving and receiving sides, constitute the original sin of humankind. The continual failure to acknowledge and value individuality and to trust and promote its unfolding prevents the potentials of individual and collective human happiness from taking flight. It literally keeps us from coming into our own. And the resulting contrivances make us disregard and mistreat ourselves, others, and our non-human surroundings.

 

5. The Mission and Purpose of my Work.

 

The mission of my work is to support individuals in exploring, developing, and implementing their own concepts of happiness. In furtherance of this mission, I take readers on journeys of inquiry through common themes and aspects of human existence so they might confirm or recognize the state and conditions of their happiness and derive actionable insights.

 

My motivation for this undertaking originated in a need to find answers for myself. In this process, I noticed that the subject of happiness involves dimensions and affairs far beyond my immediate concerns that intensely reflect on these concerns. I would like to share these insights so readers can determine their validity and how they might apply to them in maintaining or improving their existence.

 

I also would like to help humanity diminish and master its challenges, many of which originate from unreflected, shortsighted, forced, or misguided attitudes and pursuits. Only people who are curbed or deluded in their happiness, or ignorant of it, resort to strategies inflicting unnecessary disturbances and suffering. Happy people and those who understand happiness abhor strife, abuse, and destruction. They practice goodwill, love, healing, forgiveness, mutual support, and cooperation wherever they can. I wish I and everybody were surrounded by more such people. But the reality of the world is widespread torment of many kinds caused by unhappiness and perplexity about how to address it. I want to help mend this deficiency for my and everybody's sake, for future generations, and for the preservation and advancement of the precious nature of which we partake. This is the purpose of my books, presentations, articles, social media activities, and this website.

 

My work is directed to the vast majority of humans, but not everybody. It exclusively focuses on individuals in full possession of commonly available faculties that enable them to form well-considered objectives and pursuits. It does not address people who are temporarily or permanently impaired in such faculties as a matter of developmental or pathological shortcomings or for other reasons. Addressing these is beyond the purview of my work and left entirely to otherwise trained professionals.

 

6. Unfolding This Website.

 

If this is your first approach to this website, I have some suggestions on how to best ease into it. The Directory section features a brief site page orientation. And the Publicity section suggests a course of gradual acquaintance with the subject matters touched upon by this Homepage. Available media for this undertaking include a wealth of written, audio, and video materials. The Resources section provides a listing and description of these.

 

7. Sharing and Participation.

 

I hope you find my work helpful. It is independently generated and published at great personal expense of time and effort, and without profit motive. Its success depends in large part on referrals from readers like you. So if you think this endeavor of empowering people deserves consideration, I'd appreciate your telling others. And please support my work by engaging with it on social media. See more about my platform activities in the Social section of this site.

 

Thank you and best wishes,

 

Martin Janello

 

 

Philosophy of Happiness Homepage

 

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