Happiness is a Warm Gun

The Alpha and Omega of Human Purpose

By: Christian Tineo

A Senior Essay submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree, Bachelor of Arts in the Integral Curriculum of Liberal Arts.

______David Smith, Advisor

Saint Mary’s College of California April 16, 2012

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“To conclude, therefore, let no man out of a weak conceit of sobriety, or an ill-

applied moderation, think or maintain, that a man can search too far or be

too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the book of God’s works;

divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or

proficience in both.”

Ø Bacon: Advancement of Learning

“Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.”

Ø Leo Tolstoy

“Happiness belongs to the self-sufficient.”

Ø Aristotle

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Introduction

Who wouldn’t want to be intelligently stimulated with a billionaire’s wealth staring at you from the debit cards in your wallet while the most enticing girl/guy in your dreams touches your strong, lean body as a precursor to the ecstatic, orgasmic night that awaits you in bed? That sounds exhilarating and attractive, however, beyond these mundane urges of the human mind, reality displays dissatisfaction, disillusion, and exhaustion. We see this life crumble away easily as people begin to strive blindly toward these goals, which while attractive and enchanting do not guarantee our hunger for fulfillment, completion, or the most desired happiness!

Wait! Why not? When we picture satisfaction, this image stands to explain itself. I would be lying if I said I would not accept the lottery money if I won it, or not accept the “love” of a gorgeous woman if she offered herself to me, nevertheless, these would be merely short-term pleasure. Humans have developed as animals with a high sense of reason, which call into question such worldly desires. Humans have progressed in the search for their benefit, survival, and power over the riches of the world. Along the path, many people rich and poor have suffered the agony of loneliness, confusion and a search for the truth behind that which may bring to fruition our long term goals of a life which we may call happy. Many people have taken on the arduous task of attempting to search for happiness by equating it with the “good”, “truth”, or the “divine”.

I, myself, will take this journey by examining what happiness is, why it alludes us, and, moreover, how it can be found! The answer is not easily found. Tineo 3

However, the solution comes about by a process that analyzes the fundamental principles of reason, faith, and instinct. While many other factors may also contribute to the fulfillment of happiness, its true realization comes about through divine providence that shows its face through enlightenment in the human’s consciousness. This in turn breaks down obstacles opening up new paths and mending old ones leading the maturing soul into blissful fortitude. Divine providence manifests its power in various forms illustrated primarily in history.

This is not simply another opinionated strictly religious work. Rather, it is a call to the awareness that reason and instincts only get us so far. It manifests itself in ways that reason or instinct cannot explain. This leads to speculation on what can explain its actualization and becomes the primary objective of this exposition. My humblest intention is to express the need to see this process of living, which requires the need to admit faith as an essential property of life. We blind ourselves from seeing the innate happiness, which is at the doorstep by the grace of God.

Origins

Firstly, we must investigate the origins of the concept, happiness, so that we can pinpoint its emergence into society and seek the true path reach it. Later, divine providence will answer the latter. The nascent beginnings of happiness come about through our human nature. Every human being lives his or her life teleologically inclined on this notion of happiness. We constantly question our reason for living, and many seek different things onto which they choose as a hobby, career, or lifestyle to center their lives with objectives. The objectives can range from sensual Tineo 4 pleasures to future dispositions but they all seek in some shape or form satisfaction.

For example Aristotle remarks in the Ethics,

“for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and faring well with being happy but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. For the former think it is some plain and obvious thing, like pleasure, wealth, or honour; they differ, however, from one another-and often even the same man identifies it with different things, with health when he is ill, with wealth when he is poor; but, conscious of their ignorance, they admire those who proclaim some great thing that is above their comprehension. Now some thought that apart from these many goods there is another which is good itself and causes the goodness of these as well. To examine all the opinions that have been held would no doubt be somewhat fruitless: it is enough to examine those that are most prevalent or that seem to have some reason in their favor.” Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Ch.4: 17-30

However, as I have stated before, many incorrectly believe that happiness lays in some compilation of these pleasures and in doing so are never satisfied. I deem these pleasures emerge from simple human desires, which allocate themselves with instinct (which we will later analyze). These pleasures are but pseudo-happiness that later prove counterproductive if taken alone without guidance. Among these are carnal desires, wealth, and honor. Therefore, their further analysis would seem appropriate to the acceptance of this notion. Carnal desires fail to reach happiness since the finality of its pleasure is bound to a fixed time in the present. Its ends lack continuity since humans seek an equal or greater carnal pleasure following the present pleasure's dissipation. It is a simple form derived from instinct whose action compares that of all other animals on earth. While some of these urges should naturally be followed, the reliance of them as happiness would clash as reason moderates those desires that conflict with society. If they lead to happiness, the Tineo 5 moderation of them would deny happiness to the individual and identify reason as that which defies happiness. Since the conclusion is absurd, reason being an inherent quality of humanity, this cannot lead to happiness.

On the other hand, wealth is the artificially produced idea of humans whose power lies in the collection of material or potentially material objects that become deemed desirable to other humans in the scope of good living or aesthetic tastes. However, these fail to account for happiness as well! Humans are never satisfied with a constant quantity of wealth (on the view of a potential growth) and, therefore, in the same manner as carnal desires, fail to have continuity! A big problem with humans is greed that desires more and more of everything. Beyond the necessities of life are luxuries or goods outside the realm of necessity. So once survival is assured in the human mind, luxury enters as a goal. This need be bigger, better, faster, and stronger is an ambition, which alone never leads to happiness.

Honor proves to follow the same inconsistencies. Its force, even weaker, lies in the opinion of others who view him. Being a power dependent on others makes it easy to discard as a means to happiness since happiness is necessarily maintained in the individual. While it should be spread to others for its completion, it must always remain in control of the seeker.

This does not mean that these are unimportant in life or preferably avoidable, but they become detrimental if pursued as leading to happiness. Some are possibly embedded with airs of reason; however, it fails to account toward any form of completion. They are puzzle pieces of life as all others but smaller ones that amount to a small portion of the big picture of life. Nevertheless, if built upon in Tineo 6 themselves along with the major gaps they leave, continuity may be found in the major factors that constitute the ultimate, final end: happiness.

Ends of Humanity

However, returning to the central issue, all actions designate themselves to some good as we have said before. These notions like many others align themselves with Aristotle who we used as a starting point for this discussion. Now, happiness is the self-sufficient good that creates completeness and continuity in human life. It is that which makes the sense pleasures secondary and further from necessity.

Ignorantly most humans believe that certain things in life if obtained will yield a happier state and fail to realize that when this particular is reached it creates but temporary pleasantness in the present, while the happiness that I refer to manifests itself as universal and permanent. Happiness is not a state or condition but a continual flow, much like a fountain that with enough water will sustain itself indefinitely. Humans are all distinctly different because of their aesthetical nature coupled with their reason. This fact in no way changes the universality of this happiness. It only means that their particulars are distinctly different in the aspects of their secondary pleasures as opposed to the primary. Again, the sum of these is not the universal but a particular. If they were the sum, what would differentiate us from other animals but our creation of exchange value and civilization? These are not what make us human or what define our completeness! Something is missing!

Many things are missing and we begin with reason.

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Reason

Reason is our ability to give order in the form of logic to our actions, and surroundings toward a better foreseeable end. Reason is the first and foremost power that differentiates us from being instinctual animals that remain attached to pleasure and pain, an equivalent respectively to good and bad. It is this faculty by which we moderate ourselves from savageness and seek answers to knowledge we have yet to find. While other living things live to live, we live progress. Every generation brings about it solutions to various problems of the past, from the political life to preservation to morality. Of course with more solutions come more problems are they seem never-ending. However, human curiosity stands as a natural propensity to know and if taken away would never allow for happiness to be even peeked at.

Happiness is very coy, evading our sights if not sought after. It escapes from our being waiting to be found again; we must dive in and, after a glimpse, chase it! It may flutter quickly along the rocky path of life but its transcendent beauty will illuminate your surrounding permeating the shroud of doubt and self-loathing. Now, it is this curiosity that has formed the branches of science we know today and even enticed many toward expanding on theoretical knowledge beyond these practical through the metaphysics. This incessant search for truth and knowledge is best illustrated in philosophy.

Philosophy’s Work

Philosophy studies logical problems behind existence, reason, and excellence among others. The curiosity they act on in their love of truth and knowledge is Tineo 8 astounding and it these ancient Greek philosophers who I believe make the first step toward happiness correctly. Taking a view back to ancient Greece, the philosophers,

Plato and Aristotle sought after something much greater than what their mere pleasures could ever afford them. The mysteries surrounding virtues, the soul, and the notions such as λόγος fascinated them with questions and they felt the need to endeavor on the path toward finding them. This endeavor led to many notions which denote to happiness and found themselves on a different ground from those in the political spectrum who simply sought more power. Reason’s power beyond its ability to recognize and abstract from its ambience is its ability dichotomize and separate facts or conditions into their causes and components toward the understanding their primary essence. However, reason has its limits as well and, unlike Aristotle, I believe its trajectory strays away from happiness without other elements. Philosophers seek truth as happiness; I seek complete continuity as happiness.

Limitations of Reason

As the course of mankind has evolved, humans have progressed through generations using their reason to secure the world’s resources and developing their logic to create more civilized societies. Probability, possibility and causation are key factors that ascertain the depth of human understanding which appears to be seemingly limitless. Yet, this course of action though greatly improving our race also in purity can lead to our own destruction. Many people and events have helped shape the world with reason. For example, war is a particular human concept that has been utilized. War becomes the mother of invention in the pursuit to find Tineo 9 happiness and stabilize ourselves as a whole. Unfortunately, it also brings with it death and despair and as a human invention proves to be counterproductive as a whole in society leading to a general paranoia in politics. Not only as individuals, but now societies seek strength to avoid being conquered. This strikes conflict among neighboring countries and only in common difficulty may they join to overcome a common problem such as a larger imposing country. This becomes cyclical and happiness is easily forgotten. Further, if we allow reason to engulf the minds of humans completely we will fall prey to disastrous results. Unfortunately, though reason is our magnificent means of creating the world we have today, it is our limiter as well as our liberator. And it is this that Giambattista Vico seems to explicate in his work “The New Science”. He endeavors to explore the nascent human race and uncover how it comes up out of its individualistic existence to explore the wonders of a social life since whether by accident, convenience, or natural tendency we are as individuals interacting under societies. He aims to create this new science called History by extracting reasoned ideas which will point to the true nature of human kind and how its evolution unfolds as present meets future. Vico holds that,

“Uniform ideas originating among entire peoples unknown to each other must have a common ground of truth.” (Giambattista Vico, New Science, Introduction: XXV)

And it is this ground of truth which we are trying to dig out of the gilded literature of humanity. Vico is a philosopher seeking to illuminate the errors of our past to find the causes of present human condition and so avoid the possible bad consequences in the future. Now the continual processes of human action create the long path of history. History is that which defines the progress of man from his instinctual Tineo 10 beginnings to the present. It is the manifestation of the human spirit which becomes the subject of our interest in our current inquiry. While nature holds sovereignty over all living things, it fails to allow us to discover ourselves since its general laws over the world vaguely establish the domains of physics and subjects living within it but fails to account for the spirit of man which defines its essence. Therefore, history saves what nature cannot explicate.

History’s Power

As a finite being, man turns to the idea of infinitude as an appealing ideal for finding happiness. In order to do so, humans constructed time. Time fills the void between the two as the complete order of the finite. While time illustrates the finite, it connects the stagnant and never ending state. As time added on to itself, history was born! History becomes that decisive autobiography of man. It illustrates the complexities of man from our greatest successes to our foolish failures. It is her and nowhere else where we can find the essence of man in his reality. Therefore, history's continuity illustrated the infinite as far as the finite being could depict. It is here where humanity could be identified, studied, and happiness seen as the true final end! This is so because happiness is embedded as the complete awareness of man to himself. History is the study of the past and so a reversal is done in our analysis. Rather than seeking the infinite by finite means (which is obviously impossible), we make a u-turn to look at all our actions and seek out the good, the bad, and the mysterious.

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Further Shortcomings of Reason:

Reason is what has paved our way to progress from our barbaric past. Vico explains a past of no language, society, or moral capacity. We were little better than beasts who relied solely on instinct and what we learned through trial and error. Yet after signs and sounds, we developed a system of letters that grouped together formed words and in doing so a language was born. Our reasoning is our capacity for rational thought, inference, and dissection of thoughts. However, Vico reveals a clear difference between this and common sense. Vico says,

“Common sense is judgment without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race.” Giambattista Vico, New Science, Introduction: XXV

So, common sense is the apriori source of the reflection which later on establishes the basis for moral laws. So, we take this reasoning to explain causation, probability, etc in order to grab hold of truth and order ourselves to nature, or just for the accumulation of knowledge which humans naturally seek. So, we have explained the use of reason and how it pulls us away from being savage animals. But can everything be explained with reason? Reason may explain why some events occur, how nature operates, and why some things are good and bad. But it does not explain how the beginning occurred, why the good is what we should aim at, or what lies for us beyond death. Humans have tried to rely on reason to explain every phenomenon but fail to see its limitations. Just as it is our savior from barbarism, it is also our tool toward a greater barbarism. For Vico warns us,

“In countless passages scattered throughout this work and dealing

with countless matters, we have observed the marvelous Tineo 12

correspondence between the first and the returned barbarian times.”

(Giambattista Vico, New Science, pg. 397)

Reasoning alone would create trouble if left alone to own devices. While we are now civil because of our use of reason, its abuse could lead to a second return to barbarism if abused. In attempting to explain the unexplainable, reason could easily switch gears and by belittling morality could press vice as reasonable above virtue.

The possibilities may be endless if not for virtues limitations right? Pushing morality aside humans could see a greater possibility. By throwing virtue aside, humanity would no doubt through a key component to ever finding happiness.

Instinct:

Now while reason subjugates instinct and maintains the natural urges from disrupting others, instinct cannot be ignored. Without instinct, happiness cannot be attained. It is the fundamental beginning of happiness’s continuity. While I have used this term again and again, its meaning is simply the gradual process in time of the finite qualities of humanity who yield a passage toward an indefinite or infinite future unaffected by dissipation or conditions that may lead to their suppression on its path toward happiness. While the process begins with instinct, I found it more appropriate to analyze reason since its faculty primarily gives shape to most actions that defines our humanity. However, instinct is important as well since it holds the properties that make us a living being, and promulgates our very existence. The greatest strength of instinct establishing continuity's starting point is curiosity.

Curiosity is the natural inclination to want to know, learn, and understand ideas or concepts we have yet to. As humans have progressed from their instinctual Tineo 13 beginnings, curiosity has been the motivating force behind the evolution of man into civilization. While man always seeks a good, history shows us that curiosity has morphed man from this simple pursuit to the search for the ideal. So we can correctly state that all of man's actions aim at the ideal! For the ideal is what creates the conditions necessary for happiness to emerge. Each passing generation acts goal-oriented toward stability and peace. Our instincts serve the purpose of directing our action toward the best suitable situation. While alone it serves to dictate our urges, its spark allows us to manifest our grandest desires and satisfy their hungers. Therefore, sexual, social, and intellectual anxieties should never be ignored. Curiosity's indulgence under ideal conditions leads the individual toward completeness. A human deprived of these joys is conflicted against his own instinct.

Reason amplifies its power while directing its ends toward the ideal diverting the excesses and deficiencies. It is for this reason that all humans long for excellence.

Reason at its Best

Excellence is a key element that pushes humanity toward a moral and intellectual moderation of the soul. It is separated into the moral and intellectual.

First, morality is a human concept of fairness, strength, and equality expressed in the individual as a means for societal peace and civility. But its emergence is no accident! Humans in their shared common sense and ideality sought better ways to progress. I speak of human nature’s tendency to seek ideality! Therefore, moral excellence is the best usage of this faculty and its moderation from its excess or deficiency is marked by the underlying principle of temperance. Intellectual excellence is similarly situated but adheres to the domain of practical wisdom or Tineo 14 prudence. Prudence creates the conditions for humans to reach virtues that would be otherwise unreachable. And so the synthesis of the moral and intellectual creates the state of moderation leading to finite greatness and reason in its prime. If these are not distributed properly in humanity, we are doomed to never find happiness.

Why? These virtues define the human nature’s civility as one, which would cooperate with society toward the common good of all beyond his own.

But, do we lose our individual happiness if we succumb to society’s? This question is hard to answer as here I have not accounted to anything but reason.

Purely off reason, I am obliged to agree since if we give up part ourselves, we deny our freedom to happiness. However, I don’t believe that happiness is solely based on reason! It has gotten us far and explored the depths of its logic but attacking this domain alone is equivalent to trying to open a door with a different key. It should not be abandoned but furnished by another. At present we may feel unsatisfied, but rather than living in the past or dwelling in the present, we must embrace and illuminate our future to see that we need faith in divine providence to successfully capture our fugitive, happiness.

Divine Providence

While the philosopher proves to exemplify the finalities of excellence and curiosity, happiness does not occur as consequence. We have explored the finite realm of instinct as the necessary starting point followed by the moderation of reason toward ideality. However, happiness as the final and ultimate end of humanity rests on the unification of finiteness and infinity. We discover history as the bridge between them. But while the finiteness contains the whole reasoned Tineo 15 basis of curiosity, we have yet to explore the realm whose rule establishes the intricacies of nature: divine providence.

“For men consist of these two parts, one which is noble, and should therefore command, and the other of which is base and should serve. But because of the corruption of human nature, the generic character of men cannot without help of philosophy (which can aid but few) bring it about that every individual's mind should command and not serve his body. Therefore divine providence ordered human institutions with this eternal order: that, in commonwealths, those who use their minds should command and those who use their bodies should obey.” (Vico, New Science, Idea of the Work, pg. 13)

Here, Vico gives a clear account of divine providence as that which leads people to take as tasks those jobs suiting their personalities. It is clear that initially humans tend to be corrupted by the very instincts that they are born with which seek their own personal good. But philosophy comes through with the ability to project reason to those noble of the mind. And those of the body who lack this quality simply follow until they themselves are able to break out of their wild tendencies. It is unclear whether those of the body are capable of changing to correct their imbalance; however, divine providence allows them to follow the noble so they may themselves learn from the virtuous, and possibly reach continence on those qualities which they cannot turn to habit.

Free Will

Divine Providence is the prime mover of nature from the beginning of history and time to the present. And its primary objective is the realization of human happiness. However, divine providence as the creative power of God gives birth to nature and consequently man whose path to happiness is paved by nature via Tineo 16 providence. But, man still retains his freedom! Leo Tolstoy accounts for this notion as well stating,

“Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time, can relate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years or centuries, and only the Deity, independent of everything, can by His sole will determine the direction of humanity’s movement; but man acts in time and himself takes part in what occurs.” (Tolstoy, War and Peace, 2nd Epilogue, ch. VI, pg 684)

Man still retains his free will as a maker of his own, but divine providence directs the individual to happiness in its power to guide. History illustrates the actions of man toward the realization of this process, but certain elements of philosophy prove dangerous as others create false account of history of man. Authors like Hobbes,

Spinoza, and Bacon conceitedly account on the humanization of man with extreme suppositions about man's human nature. Further, these have led to conclusions that mislead people from the truth of humanity in its social and ontological realities. Leo

Tolstoy wrote the novel, War and Peace, with the finality to express the true form of history. The novel portrayed characters in Russia as Emperor Napoleon sought to push his army toward invading Russia. The contrast of the political, military, and social life created different conditions for the characters who sought peace and happiness in a time of war and despair. History was explored as a means to enlighten the people to the truth of the world where history’s creation was made by the people of Russia (especially the less important people) rather than the leaders such as Napoleon. Happiness occurred to many characters. Most whose perceptions were most unbalanced such as Andrew Bolkonski, a soldier of Russia whose military duties were used to escape his unsatisfying marriage, found happiness in near death Tineo 17 experiences and his gradual death because of his loneliness. While others such as

Pierre Bezukhov, whose loneliness occurred as a consequence of his ignorance of high-class society, found happiness in the simplicity of hunger, poverty, and true love. And I believe that Tolstoy would agree that in order for happiness to be actualized, man must be given the freedom to amply his very being physically and mentally through experience but also manage to fully understand himself and his creator. This understanding is found in the actions of divine providence. The basis for human society has always surrounded itself toward this understanding in religion.

Religion

The idea of God originated in humanity at its birth. Being attenuated correctly or not, religion generates a power of idealistic maintenance upon which we define humanity and attempt to live inclined to principles that it provides. The root of religion stems from an innate fear of a superior creator. While knowledge of such a creator is non-existent in the course of reason, man’s awareness of such a being in the multiple cultures on Earth undoubtedly proves the need for the mystery to be looked into. Religion fills the emptiness left by reason and becomes the intermediary between the individual and society itself. There is no doubt that each man individual seeks his own personal benefit whether it is materialistic or transcendent. However, religion humbles man toward the supreme other whose presence changes man’s view where all men stand at an equal level to himself in comparison. Religion allows humanity to be human and thus atheism becomes a Tineo 18 monstrous denial of not only God but also the essence of humanity. Therefore, the first relationship of man is with God who moderates the rage of his selfish desires and establishes social order where man and man may cooperate with one another with the finality of mutual progress or common good. Happiness cannot be founded on the ideals of a single man. Nor is it founded on the ideals of a single state, or country but on the agreement of such an ideal within our species itself. However, this perfection is far from realized and appears impossible for the human mind to comprehend with evidence and structural reasoning. The foundation for divine providence is not found in reason but in faith.

Faith

In short, faith is the belief in impossibility. It is not ignorant to the claims made by reason but solely gives power to beliefs whose process lies outside the comprehension of our minds. For this reason, faith is a trust in the mysteries that lie beyond the spectrum of feasible knowledge. While divine providence has been seen in history showing a pattern of goodness provided by nature in the individual, it lacks any structure on the existence of a superior being or all explanations of natural order. This knowledge lies in the divine and must necessarily be left to faith.

Nevertheless, people associate the faith as a copout of explanation or laziness to explore. This assertion, however, is ludicrous because of the arduous work that lies under the realm of faith. Faith maneuvers the actions of man toward a realization of happiness with revelations that supply a fuel of belief in the individual. . These revelations appear throughout history stemming from experiences that leave an imprint on the mind from life-threating experiences to major failures due to a deficit Tineo 19 of moral backing. When man realizes the process of God and/or his lack of humanity, divine providence has done its job and faith fills the gap in the individual’s heart. Unfortunately, humanity rationalizes this religion into forms which reflect its concepts in a finite manner as opposed to its reality. Politics has attempted to adopt it directly into a social order, theocracy, which leads to a tyranny using the idea of God as a tool for enslavement. Even the philosopher such as Plato with the forms simply proves to explain a reflection of the infinite with a finite principle. Therefore, man must look back upon himself before moving forward to the infinite. This process of self-reflection rather than mere outer reflection is the analysis of history, as I have explained before; only know divine providence is associated with it as well. This course of action reveals the flaws of the human past and allows history to avoid repeating itself by tracing the patterns of past failures. In this way, reasonable disasters are averted and faith can give peace and hope to our great species. Therefore, we can conclude that faith in God is the necessary component to the continuity of humanity since its belief clears the air of our origins and opens the path to our own humanity through religion. When religion exudes the properties of a divine revelation and/or self-reflection of humanity in itself, happiness can find comfort in its connection with God. As the relationship between creator and created, God and man, respectively, can find the final end of happiness as that which completes the journey from individualism to society, instinct to faith, finite to infinite and most importantly man to God.

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Love

Another factor must be accounted for in this process of happiness, which is difficult to pinpoint being a very complex idea to conceive. It is a factor of happiness that grows out of history which has not been given due credit. It holds the intermediary steps to happiness as humanity reaches full devotion to his own species. This is love! Love is a feeling of caring devotion and attention toward an object whose existence proves of vital importance to the individual at times over his own. Its power of purpose is second only to happiness. The beginnings of this process begin with the created having an obvious care for his creator as his thanks is boundless. The love for God is thus imitated toward others in different fashions since we as humans are all equal. Love is the successful progeny of instinct, reason, and faith. Its instinctual past shows the signs of care and attraction, reason moderates the urges of love to certain objects and orders the care in an ideal manner, and faith gives hope and trust that God has created such things to the realization of his and everyone’s happiness. It is seen in the formation of families who care for their bloodline. It can be seen in friendships created on basis of interest and trust. There is also romantic love that the individual seeks to spend its individual life with in continual pleasure and reproduction. The modes of love are many but they all create associations with others in special ways that assert identity to their existence and whose protection and progression prove to be as vital as his own. It is here where we see man create social connections, which contradict its very lonesomeness. If not for love’s containment within happiness, it would be the final end of man. But love is what it is, a reflection of God’s love for us seen in divine Tineo 21 providence. Whether knowing or not, love saves humanity from itself and allows man to strive for happiness with more confidence than ever. Family breeds morality, friendship trust, and romantic love breeding devotion. However, unlike the processes of instinct, reason, and faith, love is built upon through experience and interaction. It appears within each of these and matures with each passing stage of life. Fortunately, love finds its way to everyone through divine providence and makes the human expand his desire from that of himself to that of his community, of his loved ones and finally that of God. Hence we see in the Bible,

Love is patient, love is kind, Love does not insist on its own way. Love bears all things, believes all things, Hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. - I Corinthians 13:4-8 Conclusion

Hope is essential point of this illustration of happiness’s return to the human individual. Hopefully everyone can relate to the many paths that have been exhaustively presented as the course toward this path eludes us because of our stubborn nature. While the audience may not all be religiously inclined, it would serve well to analyze himself carefully as a being whose existence is a mystery.

Reasonably, we are not an essential component to the world as water, sunlight, and vegetation. We actually rely on nature in many ways. And in many ways we hurt the

Earth through negligence and greed. Forgiveness, mercy, and hope establish a better future. If we impose our ideals on others, we forget what it is to be human. Everyone at some time or another fails to complete all that he sets out to accomplish. But it is within these confounds of these experiences that we may learn to truly appreciate Tineo 22 the things we care for and those which we have forgotten to care for. Our purpose on Earth is to realize our own happiness as a self-sustaining flow where we allow ideality and common good to become the true objectives of our life. We may find a good life in the pleasures offered to us by the world, but nothing has more power than the action we can take to the peace and benefit of society where humanity unites as a whole so each successive generation may find something better from the previous. “I know nobody can do me no harm, because happiness is a warm gun” moderated to protect yourself and others in everlasting glory. Once we find our essence and synthesize it with our progressing mind, we can accomplish our first and final purpose: happiness.

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Works Citied

Ø Aristotle, and Jonathan Barnes. The Complete Works of Aristotle: the

Revised Oxford Translation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1984. Print.

Ø Vico, Giambattista, Thomas Goddard. Bergin, and Max Harold. Fisch.

The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ., 1968.

Print.

Ø Holy Bible: The New King James Version, Containing the Old and New

Testaments. Nashville: T. Nelson, 1982. Print.

Ø Tolstoy, Leo, Aylmer Maude, and Louise Maude. War and Peace: A

Novel. London, 1930. Print.

Ø Lennon, John, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison. The Beatles.

Capitol/Mobile Fidelity Sound, 1982. CD.