# WRITIGNG: ON HAPPINESS, I

Happiness is the experiences of pleasure and purpose over time. It is pleasant, because we love fun. It is purposeful, because we crave for achievement. It is the feelings we experience, not the measurements others impose. It is an authentic documentary recorded over time, not a contrived snapshot taken at one point.

As every life has a span, pursuing happiness means how to allocate limited time between purpose and pleasure, and live with the consequences of those choices, here and now.

In technical terms,
$Life = \max_{a_t} \int_{birth}^{death}\int_{X(a_t)} h(a_t, x) dt d x,$

where $h$ is the happiness function in the two dimensional space of purpose and pleasure, $a_t$ is the actions we take at time t, $x$ is the environment.

[Vancouver, Nov., 2013]

## 6 thoughts on “WRITIGNG: ON HAPPINESS, I”

1. Samantha says:

I graduated from college by writing my Master Thesis about happiness ;) I found lots of literature on the subject, too, dating back years and years. It sure keeps us humans intrigued!

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• Samantha says:

It is, actually. But it’s outdated already :p ‘S been five years already D:

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• Samantha says:

Not scared. I graduated with honours so so I’m confident it’s good. It felt a bit weird sending you the link, but only because it’s secretly the first thing I did that made me proud of myself. But I just found my thesis in the online library of my college, so it’s available to everyone:

May I ask what got you so interested? Like I said: it’s outdated. There’s probably tons of new info on the subject being published right now.

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• Thank you for the link!
I am reading a book: happiness by design, and get very interested in the topic.

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