Or at least I think they’ve got it wrong. And I throw this idea out there without much to back it up aside from my own biased perspective, but there is a chance that such a perspective might of increased value and should be listened to.
A friend recently asked me what I thought about ‘happiness’ and I replied:
To be happy all the time is not unlike eating all the time, I think.
Hunger is a need state: we experience the unpleasantness of hunger when we are beginning to run a deficit of some sort. We (usually) eat to satiate and reduce the unpleasantness of hunger, but the feeling of fullness is not euphoric. Nor is the feeling of fullness the opposite of hunger; it doesn’t lie on a continuum with hunger, but instead correlates to a lack of hunger, I think. To that end, we are always in varying states of hunger between a minimal- an urgent- state.
I prefer to think of sadness in the same manner. We exist and live our lives on a continuum of sadness, with moments of joy and happiness that often correlate with reduced sadness, but are not necessarily the opposite of sadness itself. This is why we can laugh at funerals or enjoy a good joke in the deepest of depressions, I think.
Happiness, in this manner, is not what people think it is.
We consume food to feel less hungry. Likewise, we seek to consume moments of joy or happiness to feel less sad. But food is not satiety and neither is happiness. If not enough (or the right kind of) calories are consumed, the hunger grows louder. If not enough (or the right kind of) moments of joy/happiness are experienced, the sadness is ever-more present. From this perspective happiness is mere feelings-food.
It is ever so clear to me that people do drugs and consume alcohol to fill a need, but that need isn’t to feel happy, but to stop feeling sad. They need to do something to stop the sadness that grows to be so overwhelming, so consuming, and filled with such angst that they are willing to do anything to make it stop. “Certainly, they know better,” the un-empathic will often reply, but make no mistake, they go back for another drink or hit not to feel good, but to stop feeling bad, and they do it because they need to. They are compelled to make the sadness go away.
From this view, sadness is so-obviously a need-state and it needs a constant feelings-feeding. Of course, this is contrary to how sadness and happiness is studied in the world of psychology. Instead, each is considered a polarity on the same continuum. But should we be surprised? It is not as if the field of psychology is a bastion of scientific rigor. Psychology has a replication crisis for a reason: it is poorly-conceived and is resting on some really shitty foundations.
And why do I think that my perspective is a more-accurate representation of sadness/happiness than the conventional view? I am a depressive realist (and yes, I say this with a playful wink, citing the same type of shit-science that I am assailing).
Consider for a moment the possibility that a depressive has a more accurate appraisal of the world. Consider the idea that depression is an evolutionary adaptation to develop analytical thinking mechanisms and to assist in solving complex mental problems. If that were to be the case, then we have the wrong people studying psychology altogether, do we not? Wouldn’t the wrong people be charged with determining who has a healthier worldview/outlook? The very execution of their science is paradoxical.
If you take a moment to stop and think about it, I might make more sense than you think.