Thursday, August 16, 2012

Happiness



As I was responding too many of the interesting threads on the blog, the one question that really stuck out at me was the question about happiness. When I referred to “Brave New World” when reading the other two books, many questions dawned on me but the biggest one was if a true utopia could exist. With the obstacles including technology and religion blocking the way for everyone to be truly happy, it’s hard to think of a way to make things perfect. Before when reading books about utopias, the one thing that stuck out to me was that it truly was not a utopia because no matter what, everyone can’t be truly happy. What completely changed my thoughts on a utopia existing was the pill soma.

With the introduction to soma, nothing seemed to be a consequence to being always happy. Although soma does shorten your life span, happiness is an emotion that many people don’t often get to enjoy. Life is short only because of the negatives that comes with life but if all you have to do is take a pill to be happy, that completely changes how life can be lived. Many say life goes too fast but there are two different ways that can be true. Not enjoying life can make days seem long but looking back will make it seem short because of what you didn’t do. For those the complete opposite side, days can seem to fast by having a lot of fun but when remembering those memorable times, a lot of the bad memories still hover over. I believe that always being happy will make life as long as you want even if that time is halved.

My questions are can the pill soma be made in a world today and if so can that impossible utopia be made true? If you take that pill are you truly happy taking it and if that’s true would you care? That’s the big thing people look over when saying a society like “Brave New World” is terrible. The reason it seems terrible to us is because it’s different from are society even if it is similar in many ways. Another question is do you think the society in “Brave New World” is terrible because it’s different from ours or because it’s too similar to the way things are now. If you’re truly happy, why care what others think?

1 comment:

  1. I agree with the point you're making, but just by the virtue that we are human shouldn't we care what others think? No matter how hard I try, I still care somewhat of what people think of me. And being human you have to, or should, feel empathetic towards others. And how can they really suppress their feelings? We were made to love and feel pain. I don't think you can just turn those feelings off.

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