Here Comes the Sun

We began our new Philosophy topic, Happiness, yesterday by listening to three versions of this song:

The Beatles

Richie Havens

Nina Simone

Many thanks to Marietta McCarty for this fun way to introduce the topic!

Next, we used Marietta's ideas from Little Big Minds to frame our discussion.

I began by having the children define Happiness by drawing a picture (no words) in their Philosophy journals. Here are some notes from our chat:

What is happiness?

it's an emotion that makes you feel good inside

I drew a birthday party

for me, there's a specific thing I do that makes me feel happy inside: swimming in the lake with my dad in the summer when it's hot

it makes me feel warm inside

What are the ingredients of a happy life?

love

excitement

freedom

being able to have fun, and not have a million things to do and not have time to have fun... fun & freedom

you also need to take care of your body

kindness, joy, peacefulness

What is the difference between pleasure and happiness?

I have another ingredient for having a good life. Sometimes you have to do chores because you don't want your sink to get piled with dirty dishes. You don't have this big weight on your body every time you go into the kitchen.

Pleasure is doing something that you like. Happiness is also doing something that you like. I don't know...

When you eat really delicious chocolate, it doesn't make me happy but it's pleasurable.

Pleasure comes when you do things. But you don't really have to be doing anything to feel happy. It's more passive.

Do you think that everyone in the world can be happy?

They can but they usually aren't. Some people don't accept it.

Some people don't give it, and they don't let the people around them have happiness. But there's enough room for everybody to have happiness.

It's possible, if we have a better government. You could be starving, and then you wouldn't be happy, but if you had a good government then they would give you charity funds which would give you food.

Sometimes I think there's different kinds of happiness. The feeling of having food and knowing you can just have food. And then, even if you don't have food, you can still in a way be happy since there's public parks. You could probably play with other children.

That feeling is called security. Is security a kind of happiness?

Yes, in its own way.

Do you need security in order to feel happiness?

There are people who are secure who are not happy. There are people who are not secure who make the best of their situation. It seems like it has a lot to do with your mindset, whether or not you allow yourself to feel happy or not. Some people have the possibility but things get in the way.

Can you make yourself be happy? What shifts a bad day for you?

If I read a really good book or find a new way to get to the top of the tree.

If I have a really bad day, if it's sunny and windy and warm, I just go outside.

The most recent horrible days I've had are because I'm bored. The thing that turns that around for me is a really long and big project that's really complicated but I can do it without getting frustrated. I can keep having ideas. I have something to do that I love.

Usually it's when I'm really bored and then I get really angry, so I go outside. I read a book. Get a picnic blanket and I just lay down on the picnic blanket and read the book.

Do people think that there's a thing to buy that will make them happy?

When I buy something like a new pair of shoes, I get my heart set on it being amazing and so wonderful. And then when it isn't amazing or so wonderful, then I'm really disappointed. And I hate that. So I've been working on trying to get my heart not set on things. But now I have my heart set on not having my heart set on things.

[ Then I introduced the idea of Stoicism. ]

Some philosophers in the past had the idea, and I want to see what you guys think about it, that the key to happiness just taking everything as it comes very calmly. You wouldn't have to experience deep sadness or disappointment, but you also then wouldn't be able to get really excited and joyful when the good things happened. You are the mountain, and your feelings are the weather. It just comes and goes. It doesn't matter. So don't get caught up in it.

If you just had that steady calm, would that be happiness?

I think that a perfect life would have some lows but that would allow us to have highs too. If you don't clean your house and do chores, then you'll just be always upset. So you have to do some uncomfortable things to have the high things. Once you clean your house, you're proud of yourself and then you can do other things because now you can actually get to your closet. In order to have happiness or excitement, you also have to do the bad things.

I don't believe that. With the highs, come the lows. I personally like to be able to be really excited. I think it's worth it to be disappointed to have those, "yes, I'm so excited!" moments. Just because you might not like the "uh" moments, is it really worth it to give up the fun ones too?

But you can't really sustain a level of excitement. Those high highs don't last very long.

Is something that comes and goes so quickly really real?

You could have a fly that was born yesterday and dies tomorrow, that comes and goes really quickly but it's still real.

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!