i think people very visibly and very obviously want things other than happiness and that fixating on happiness is a philosophical mistake, but admittedly it depends a lot on the precise referent of “happiness”
i think a thing people def want is to *not be chronically unhappy*
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i think another very common pattern that e.g. romeo stevens has talked about is people using unhappiness as a stick to get themselves to do things, e.g. “i’m not allowed to be happy until i finish all my work,” and that it would be better for such patterns to not be there
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i think this for reasons that don’t ground out in happiness per se. when people allow themselves to be happy more human flourishing happens. but happiness as such is not the point, imo
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honestly i can’t tell if we actually disagree or where we do because each word only poorly describes the underlying thing, and when I only have like 70% confidence in every word error compounds quickly
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you might have a better idea of where we disagree than I do, and if so I’d appreciate if you could clarify it, but I also get if that just sounds like a lot of work
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the reference to CT helped clarify your position, i think i get what you mean now and i am very confused about core states myself but i’ll repeat that i think “happiness” is a confusing word to refer to core states and i would personally use a different one
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any suggestions? I don’t mean happiness as most people mean it, but it’s easy to communicate and tbh I separately think if they chase “happiness” and study it seriously for years they’ll arrive at core states type stuff pretty quickly
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you could try the core states words - i don’t remember most of them but “oneness,” maybe “peace,” they mostly feel more woo tho
for me “contentment” gets a lot closer than “happiness” but it might feel too weak
actually “peace” is not bad but would produce other confusions
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the real lesson is that words should be illegal
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I’ve tried oneness and it goes even worse
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yeah i can imagine welp 😅