I've always wonder what it means to be happy. According to John Locke, it's "the absence of uneasiness". When you don't have any mental disturbances, you are happy. I don't know if I agree with this definition. The Stoic view of happiness is to be in "a state of "apatheia" which basically means apathy. Later people wanted to make this translation be "tranquility" because...well...it sounds nicer. Apathy to me has always meant not feeling anything at all. When I'm happy, (well, my idea of being happy) I feel all sorts of things. Sometimes I'm tranquil, like when I'm reading a good book on the couch and my cat is on my stomach purring in his sleep. Sometimes I'm excited, like just two days ago when I got the new James Bond Video Game for the wii and went on a technologically bloody killing spree. However, according to John Locke, humans don't have any innate ideas, which means we really don't have any idea what we are feeling unless we are taught. So how do I know what I feel, how do I know who I am? Have I been so conditioned by society and my experiences in it that I have been molded into some common human being that does typical things and has typical feelings? I just don't know. I guess I'll have to be taught that.
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