The Hedonic Treadmill III

Yet more thoughts on the HedTread, as I’ve decided I’m going to start calling it…

Even if it exists, would it really matter so much? My own fear of it comes from the idea that I mignt never completely shake off my melancholic affliction, that any periods of happiness will inevitably be short-lived and that I’ll invariably slide backwards into greyness. This is assuming that the HedTread refers to every human having an emotional baseline, with meaningful deviation thereof being impossible, and furthermore that my baseline is significantly below ‘contented’, but perhaps this is a flawed assumption. If everybody has a default emotional state, perhaps it is simple contentment, neutrality, 0 on the y axis of the graph in my mind. It seems possible that I’ve spent most of my life on some kind of reverse HedTread - perhaps attempting to run down an ascending escalator of emotions.

If neutrality is indeed the norm, maybe striving to be happier without ever making much progress would not be such a bad thing. As (I think) Dostoyevsky was getting at, working towards a goal seems more fundamental to the human condition than actually achieving it. Chasing true happiness, no matter how unattainable, might give purpose to one’s life, and can there be anything more important in life than purpose? Happiness seems very much akin to enlightenment in this way - maybe there is a compelling argument to be made that they are in fact synonymous - and I’m sure many who are chasing nirvana understand that the journey is far more important than their impossible goal.