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Osorio, Jeco Roy H. BSME 3-A

My Personal View of Man

GENERAL OBJECTIVE: To share the idea of happiness, that goodness starts when man is happy and contented.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE: To justify that contentment is the ultimate key to happiness.

THEORY:

Aristotles Thoughts on Happiness

y Happiness comes from virtuey Happiness cannot be sensationy Happiness is peculiar to man

Aristotle explains that the doctors art aims at health, and the shipbuilders craft aims at a safe voyage.

You could go further and say that the musicians art aims at pleasing melodies and the sculptors art aims at a fine

statue. But these kinds of ends have further ends or goods in view. But there must be some end that is ultimate.

This ultimate good will be one you desire for its own sake. Men agree that this good is happiness, he says.

This means that a right action is one that promotes happiness. A wrong action is one that is opposed to

the attainment of happiness.

Some people identify happiness with pleasure, Aristotle says.

Happiness must be something you can attain by your own activity. Nor can happiness be the activity of

growth or reproduction, since even plants can do that much. Nor can happiness be equated with sensation,

because even animals are capable of sensations.

Happiness must be an activity of that which is peculiar to man among natural beingsactivity in

accordance with reason. Human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue, and if there

are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most complete.

The good must be found in mans own function as a man. Aristotle turns to his metaphysics and his

position on matter and form, potentiality and actuality. The usual illustration is that of the acorn. Relative to the

tree the acorn is matter, an unrealized possibility that will eventuate in the actuality of form, the oak tree. Thus the

end or telos of the acorn is integral to its nature, and its good is to fulfill its formal function wellto become a

strong well-shaped tree.

For man, this activity will be virtuous, since there are intellectual virtues, like reasoning, and moral virtues,

like self-control and courage. Happiness consists of virtuous activity, not only for brief periods but over the course

of a life. This kind of happiness will be incomplete without some external goods. Aristotle says you are aided in the

pursuit of happiness by having good parents, friends, a modicum of material well-being, even good looks.

from The Everything Guide to Understanding Philosophy.

The Science of Happiness

More than 100,000 chemical reactions go on in your brain every second! The brain is also a radio

transmitter, which sends out measurable electrical wave signals. In fact the brain continues to send out these

signals for as long as 37 hours after death!

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Scientific research over the last several decades has led to the revolutionary discovery of opiate-like

chemicals in the body that associate with opiate specific receptors in the brain and spinal cord, including

Serotonin, a hormone manufactured by your brain.

Certain aminos cause you to have better feeling of well being. Serotonin is a chemical that helps maintain

a "happy feeling," and seems to help keep our moods under control by helping with sleep, calming anxiety, and

relieving depression. The brain also makes Dopamine, which makes people more talkative and excitable. Itaffects brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain.

All of these chemicals are natural chemicals that affect our bodily processes.

Besides being involved in the process of addiction, low Serotonin levels are believed to be the reason for

many cases of mild to moderate depression which can lead to symptoms like anxiety, apathy, and fear, feelings of

worthlessness, insomnia and fatigue. We are learning that depression is related to and a number of other health

issues. Almost all of these medicines target either serotonin or norepinephrine, brain chemicals which are

neurotransmitters.

Happiness is mostly genetic and is hereditary, that the strongest evidence comes from a study of identical

twins conducted by David Lykken, now a professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Some 60% of the

likelihood that twins separated at birth will describe themselves as happy is accounted for by common geneticfactors, not environmental differences in their lives. Clues to our behaviors can be found in the brain chemical

dopamine, which is the key to the body's reward system. Strangely, in chimpanzees, dopamine levels peak not

when they are going to get an award but when they realize the award is coming. That's very similar to our

response to money.

REACTION:

The ultimate key to happiness is contentment.

Nothing is comparable to happiness. A man is happy as long as he chooses to be happy, for he who has

glad thoughts becomes happy and does good actions.

Contentment is the root of all goodness, when you are happy you are enjoying the feeling of contentmentand the reason that you are doing good things is that you are happy. You neither see happiness nor touch it

because it is an imaginary condition that a living person can attribute over the dead.

On the other hand, discontentment becomes the vices that hinder man to know happiness. For he who is

happy doing bad actions is fooling himself, which is only a misconception of happiness. Make believe of happiness

would only encourage man to want for more of what makes him happy and instead of sharing the happiness he

has to others, he shares his pain, and takes away the things that make other people happy. The more he becomes

discontented, the more he can hardly be happy. Changing of ones virtue would help him realize that there are

more things that could make him happy by sharing and being contented of everything.

Attaining contentment can never be resolve by asking for more; rather, indulging oneself to what is

limited and present of that certain instance. Discontentment is arrogance, discontentment is greed,discontentment is ignorance of what you have, and discontentment is the absence of knowledge. People will only

be contented if they know how to be contented. Thus, educating one self is by knowing thyself.

When you have done good things, youve done it because you are happy. And you become happier

knowing that you shared your happiness to others by doing good actions.

However, science has reach to a study that can manipulate mans happiness by taking dosage of

medicines and chemicals that alters the human behavior. And it is done by taking neurotransmitters that gives a

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pseudo feeling of happiness and highness. But, this is not the right cure for illnesses that are caused by depression.

Overriding the brains natural production of serotonin might lead to dependence to it and addiction. Happiness is a

life time exercise of the soul, not a one stop shop. What molds your happiness is not the environment that youre

in, but its your approach to the environment. Happiness is not in the genes, it is of mans will, if he wants to be

happy or not.

To be happy is only by simple means; put away the things that make you frown, start smiling to everyone,treat problems as a game, that in the end, win or lose you are happy. You do not only gain friends rather you also

make other people happy because you are doing good things in many simple ways.

Thus, a man can never achieve the greatest happiness without experiencing extreme emotions as a result

of his heart is seeking for peace and contentment that only God can fulfill. And it is only then he achieves eternal

happiness.