ACCORDING TO A VERY DEAR OLD FRIEND, THE WORLD IS GOING DOWN THE CHUTE... DAILY WE CAN SEE THE LIKES OF AMERICA AND ISRAEL DOING THEIR BEST TO MAKE US MISERABLY UNCERTAIN ABOUT THE VALUE OF BEING GOOD... WHILE THEY INDULGE IN TERRIBLE POLITICS.

MEANWHILE, MOST OF US ARE REASONABLY COMFORTABLE DESPITE THESE TURMOILS... [WE HAVE ENOUGH CASH TO GAMBLE AND DRINK AT THE PUB] BUT WE ARE PUSHED TO BE NEGATIVE AND FIGHT SOMETHING WE DON'T WANT TO KNOW — [RATHER THAN BE CONTRIBUTING SOMETHING] — BY THE LIKES OF GRUMPY CHARACTERS SUCH AS PAULINE HANSON AND ANGUS TAYLOR BECAUSE LABOR IS TRYING TO MAKE A MORE EQUITABLE BUDGET... THEN THE GREENS WILL COMPLAIN THAT LABOR ISN'T GOING FAR ENOUGH...

NO ONE IS HAPPY IN POLITICS...

MOST OF US HAVE NOT STUDIED THE DETAILS OF HOW GOVERNMENT COLLECT AND SPEND PUBLIC CASH... WE LEAVE IT TO THE "EXPERTS" WHICH ARE MEDIATICALLY DIVIDED ALONG "THE CLEVER RICH AND THE LAZY POOR"... THIS OF COURSE IS UNTRUE. THE RICH USE VARIOUS LOOPHOLES IN THE TAXATION — LOOPHOLES LEFT IN THE LEGISLATION BY RICH POLLIES, IN ORDER FOR THE RICH TO GET RICHER... SO LABOR IS TRYING TO MAKE THE MERRY-GO-ROUND GO FOR MORE PEOPLE, WITHOUT DESTROYING THE MACHINE...

MEANWHILE WE BECOME UNHAPPY BECAUSE THE "COST OF LIVING" IS GOING UP, AS WE BLAME THE DECENT GOVERNMENT THAT IS FIGHTING AN IMBECILIC WORLDWIDE POLITICAL NIGHTMARE, DRIVEN BY A COUPLE OF MAD PEOPLE: TRUMP AND NETANYAHU....

INSPITE ALL THIS, WE NEED TO DEVELOP A "MEMORY OF BEING HAPPY" WITHOUT BEING STUPID.

OUR PERSONAL HAPPINESS, DECOUPLED FROM THE HYPOCRITICAL MEDIA [ESPECIALLY THE MURDOCH MEDIA] MIGHT NOT SAVE THE WORLD, BUT WOULD CONTRIBUTE TO A BETTER PROGRESSION OF SOCIETY THAN BEING PHILOSPHICALLY CONSTIPATED BY THE NEGATIVITY OF MOST RIGHT-WING COMMENTATORS AND OPERATORS. 

HERE IS A REPEAT OF HOW I THINK WE CAN UNLOCK MIND BLOCKS AND AVOID BEING DEPRESSED, AS WE MAY BE BLAMING OTHERS FOR NOT BEING HAPPY...

WE CAN IMPROVE OURSELVES, WE CANNOT CHANGE DONALD TRUMP...

HE IS ONLY A SAD PASSING CLOWNING THIEF WHO HAS BEEN DUCKING DEMOCRACY IN THE TOILET WITH THE SKILL OF AN EMPEROR ON STEROID... SO:

My own study of happiness — which was published on this site about 12 years ago and written nearly 32 year ago [my 1994 book] ]was designed for people like me: creative, inventive, on the look-out... It is based on the stylistic development of natural mechanics of active/reactive levers of aggressiveness and submissiveness. People who are creative (me!) are often on the cusp of depression, despair and distress. Creativity is highly demanding especially when avoiding the old pathways, the old styles and the laziness. This is why I invented "positive anger" then — turning "anger" into a positive creative force.

Here is is again:

Preliminary exploration of happiness

Happiness is a dynamic complex emotion which derives from our acknowledgement of successful activities and reactivities. It is generated as we experience some accidental encounters, random events, sought-after results and cultural participation—all of which involve basic animal contentment. Although success at work and monetary gains can help generate happiness, it is usually the perceived quality of our attitude in our relationships, including the one with our self, which capitalise our successes into greater long-lasting happiness.

For the human species, life has developed way beyond mere survival. We have generated many social identities, as groups and sub-groups, using many concepts and tools in which we believe, including languages, religions, cultural traditions, technologies, sciences, money, arts and many more. These are stylistic interpretations of life. 
    It is through style rather than survival that we have modified natural reactivity into activity. Human stylistic interpretations are adaptive extensions of our complex memory in reaction to the environment. We make a stylistic choice when faced with several solutions presenting equal satisfactory result.  
    This is why stylistic interpretations do differ between groups of people and also why they can conflict within one single group. In short our ability to make an active stylistic choice is the most important part of human evolution. Yet choices can be influenced by many reactive factors, some relevant some not. This why we have to learn how to make the best active choices, and recognise the value of some reactive choices in certain situations.
        Like our other stylistic interpretations, happiness is a strong stylistic enhanced emotion, towards sublimation, of animal contentment, which in itself is the resultant of successful survival. This is why, as humans, there are many ways in which we can discover, feel or express happiness. 
         Not-surprisingly, many points of views about happiness have been expressed in contradictory, obscure and comparative manners... For example in some religious beliefs, while it is not a sin to be happy, pain and suffering are better rewarded, in a glorified after-life, than contentment. This has led to strange behaviours such as self-flagellation, auto-mutilation and martyrdom. Contrary to natural reactive balances of pain and pleasure, these beliefs encourage suffering, and distance us from care in our natural environment. 

    Here are a few points of view which have defined happiness:
    Content is happiness.
    Children and fools have merry lives
    It is comparison that makes men happy or miserable
    Sadness and gladness succeed each other
    Ignorance is bliss
    Happiness is in the mind
    Happiness comes not until sorrow is gone
    Money does not buy happiness
    Happy go lucky
    Happy like a pig in shit

We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
                            THOMAS JEFFERSON

    Not in Utopia—subterranean fields,— 
    Or some secreted island, Heavens knows where!
    But in the very world, which is the world
    Of all of us, —the place where in the end
    We find our happiness, or not at all!
                            WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but in the happiness of the common man.
                            WILLIAM LORD BEVERIDGE

Oh! How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes. 
                            WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 

Happiness is a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.
                            JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

As naive and crude as the last quote appears, Jean-Jacques Rousseau expresses an interesting view of happiness. Applied to a modern society, happiness is reached on three interactive fronts: first when we are wealthy—a good bank account, second when we are aware of the importance of others, in Rousseau’s case—his cook, and third when we are in good health, in his words—a good digestion...

Healthy, wealthy and relating wisely
Indeed health and wealth provide two sound platforms for happiness, but acting life through reciprocated caring relationships — including the relationship with our self, appreciating the fact that we exist as we are—is the multiplying factor of happiness. We value our relationships with our self, our family, friends and partners more than anything else. We get hurt when these relationships falter for whatever reason. 
        Made of flesh born of its environment, we react to it. For example, love and compassion can be magnified by physical contact such as touch, cuddles and embraces. The reciprocity of sexual experience greatly surpasses personal gratification, yet personal gratification is not unnatural. Ultimately our mind is the place where acceptance happens. A great part of creativity is acceptance, including acceptance of diversity, existing as well as un-expressed yet. A ‘soul partnership’ generates with minimum effort because the stylistic interpretations of respective partners are at similar level of understanding—in some cases, even with cultural differences—in genetically constructed compatible framework. The combination includes intelligence (our ability to capture stylistic interpretations of life) as well as smell, voice and appearances. In a word, we click. Any further relationship developments still need to be creatively managed.
    In the management of health, wealth and relationships, we are influenced by our genetic trends, our perceptions, our sense of discovery, the uncertainty of events such as accidents, other people's behaviour, our expectations, our habits, ultimately, our creative decisions—all part of, or relating to, our stylistic interpretations.
    In our childhood we learn basic stylistic interpretations in a mostly empirical dictatorial manner. Should we be depressed, now is the time to refocus or modify these interpretation through new tooling processes which include deliberate curiosity and tricks, which have made some of us more successful than others.

To self-care or not to self-care...
Relatively wealthy, we care by eating the right food and by being active such as training at the gym (Walking is better, though)... We also enjoy great relationships. We are making the right decisions while being alert to dangers and valuing what we have and create. We are on top of the world. 
    Some of us are not happy because we go through life like driving through fog. We have no clear understanding of what we have or who we are. We rely on habits to survive. We are lucky if we do not get hurt. We should realise that our stylistic interpretations of life are too weak to provide us with anything greater than basic contentment, but usually cultivate disenchantment.
    Some of us are somewhat happy while being ignorant. We don’t want to know. Knowledge can be painful if it is not well managed. Thus happiness is hemmed in by reality or destroyed by traumatic events. We need to know more by becoming creatively curious.
    Some of us have not cared much, considering the risks we take. We have not cared much about any one, except on our own terms—for ownership, for status or for sexual gratification. Power is gained by physical strength, deceit or tactical authority rather than by care.
Love, trust and respect generate from caring reciprocity in relationship. In order to be caring, we do not have to abandon risk taking, nor do we have to wilt from the difficulties of competition, but we adapt and modify our attitudes to enjoy improved relationships. We need to be aware that stylistic interpretations of life inevitably contain illusions—self-delusions or socially engineered illusions—which make us react rather than act. 
    Creatively, we do not have to perform at warp speed at all time to generate permanent happiness. Happiness happens and is maintained incrementally. There are times for maximum thrust in creation, yet there are times for rest, peace, reflection and recreation in order to avoid burn out and losing track of the multi-faceted reality.

A short-cut manual
Experiencing happiness from a distressed or depressed position needs some effort. Here are 36 simple study points that can help us refocus our motivation to achieve and maintain happiness:

Where are we at now?                    
        1.    have we made the decision to seek happiness?
        2.    assess our present and past position
        3.    know self-assets including talents
        4.    formulate or re-create goals, revalue dreams

Tuning the engine
        5.    manage bio-mechanical influences on mental states 
        6.    maintain and improve health
        7.    eliminate depression, avoid distress     
        8.    minimise fear, guilt and grief     
        9.    be in tune with sexuality, personal and in partnership

Consolidating bases
        10.    secure financial and psychological fall-back position
        11.    evaluate risks, recognise dangers, avoid accidents

Awareness
        12.    make the decision to be conscious of reality
        13.    avoid drugs of addiction which modify consciousness 
        14.    be curious, seek discovery 
        15.    cultivate memory and foster imagination.
        16.    be creatively active 

Self-management
        17.    avoid turning motivation into negative stress
        18.    enhance analysis and synthesis skills for problems solving
        19.    be adaptable to change 
        20.    increase success rate
        21.    value success, own and that of others
        22.    know when to control and when to let go
        23.    be strongly focused without being destructively obsessive

Relationships, partnerships or marriages
        24.    be alert to manipulations of others and of our own
        25.    be aware of responsibilities, impact of decisions and choices
        26.    be aware of individuality
        27.    care for others, value compassion and justice
        28.    eradicate violence without eliminating aggressiveness
        29.    be receptive without submission
        30.    improve relationships with women and men
        31.    maximise reciprocal bonding between self and partner

A life in the universe
        32.    be demonstratively assertive through personal attitude
        34.    discover and appreciate natural events and patterns
        35.    develop stylistic creativity without prejudicial beliefs 
        36.    enjoy life

Gus Leonisky

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

         RABID ATHEIST.

         WELCOME TO THIS INSANE WORLD….