A research portfolio exploring happiness as tranquility in the modern day
What is it to be happy? Impossible to conclusively answer, this question has plagued philosophers for centuries. We may hold shared intuitions about the character of happiness; that it is intrinsically good, that it is a positive state, that it depends on one’s subjective preferences and objective state of being.
Yet conceptions of “happiness” differ greatly with both context and perspective.
Is it a propensity of pleasure over pain (the hedonist argument)?
Is it the maximisation of utility in one’s life (the utilitarian argument)?
Is it simply a state of satisfaction with your general being (the life satisfaction argument)?
Each theory makes a widely applicable account of happiness in its own right. Still, each is contestable. One may settle on the comfortable middle ground that happiness at least consists of certain important and intrinsically good things. Having a lot of pleasure, confidence in the trajectory of your life, or a sense of socioeconomic security, for example, are intuitively a part of what it is to be a happy person.
So what states of being fall under that umbrella we label “happiness”?
Ask a random person walking down the street of a city today and the responses you are likely to get can be generalized to a few major ideas. Having everything you want in life: a state of high economic and vocational security. Being excited or joyful: in a state of general exalted pleasure. Being completely involved in meaningful work: a state of creative or intellectual flow.
But in the modern rat race something softer is often forgotten amidst these good things: a state of tranquility. This state is likely most known to you as the Buddhist sukkha, the happiness that comes from freedom of desire.
However, tranquility is often mischaracterised as monkhood or overly intensive detachment from day-to-day pleasures.
In reality the scope of tranquility, also characterised as attunement or ataraxia, is perhaps best summed up in a single question: do you feel at home in the world?
In reality the scope of tranquility, also characterised as attunement or ataraxia, is perhaps best summed up in a single question: do you feel at home in the world?
Οἰκεῖος
[oikeios] noun
alt. oikeion
In the house, of the house, a state of belonging and involvement in others/the world
To think of something as oikeion is to consider it almost an extension of yourself. How comfortable are you in the world that surrounds you? This facet of happiness takes into account the stability, surety and pleasantry of your position in the world. To be confident that you are doing as you please, that you live within a society that is welcoming and non-threatening, that you are doing well, in as much control as you desire, safe and largely free of major worries: this is what tranquility makes an account of.
Research Question
Tranquility, here alternatively referred to as attunement, forms an important dimension of happiness yet seems to occupy an unstable position of priority in modern individuals and societies. How may the concept of conditions conducive or unconducive to tranquility manifest in a modern world, and account for the happiness of its population?
A summarial map of where this investigation has been and where its headed
Developments on the question; writing and notes produced as part of my research
A mini-library of reviews of academic literature and non-academic media that contributed ideas to this investigation
About Me
About Me
As a student of the arts and philosophy, this research portfolio has been inspired by the countless authors, artists, professors and students who I’ve either had the pleasure of studying or having great conversations with. Happiness intrigued me from the moment I was first introduced to the philosophy of wellbeing and continues to be, frankly, a really weird construct that I am constantly surprised and occasionally perplexed by. I hope my work conveys some of this interest to you, since I think tranquility is something worth thinking about for everyone who finds themselves walking through existence in this day and age, be it ambling, stumbling or plain crawling.