If its all in the mind, mind demands few things to keep itself in peace, but that demand is our choice, so can we just limit our desires, just train them in some manner and be contended: Satisfaction is just one of the factors which contributes to the abstract concept happiness. So basically, if we go by above mentioned line, by training, we are cutting out happiness, and in the process, cutting out related stress and pain. Buddhism comes to mind, reducing suffering is the key there. If we keep on reducing sufferings, and in the end only “happy” or stress free events are all that remain, won’t it be boring? In the voice of a social activist, shouldn’t men and women have equal rights?

Whenever i try to think about the people who seem to  have touched the orgasmic-ether line, i see people with great material abundance on one side and then Zen-like people on the other. But i know i must be wrong, the happiest are abundant of tweaks in the mind, well there is only a certain-amount of pleasure one can sense, you cannot probably exceed that limit, can you? Not confusing between happiness and pleasures, but it depends on how you define it, if pleasure is recession, then happiness will be depression. One of the future-opt, perhaps, is a happiness meter. So how can we measure and even try to quantize something that is not well-defined? Happiness can only be described in languages, not in science. I had read a very good thing which i like to believe will break the ice on this topic- Even Life is not well defined, yes, but, biology has taken tremendous strides. So we don’t necessarily need crisp, point-of-start definition to build upon.

So neuroplasticity  is a process already happening. It certainly would get boring if and when we will reach the near full optimization. There are traits that we can measure in the people who fall near the average line of happiness, and we will try to inculcate that into everyone. Isn’t it already happening, difference is that there are no set measures right now, it seems everybody has his/her idea of that and everybody tries to follow the path that seems plausible. Our parents tell us- “look, this how you do it, you should work hard like john and you will get all the good things life”. Nonsense the sentence will be if we rip out good intentions out of them. But they may be totally sense for few, it may work for few, so point being that there are no fixed points which can get us “there”. Through the same, that is how we reach norms, average, or acceptable, and we operate in groups trying to define what will be get us “there”.

Its a weird make up that we cannot perceive happiness as well as we perceive pain or stress, we are very good in describing and measuring the levels of pain or stress that we undergo, isn’t it? We always seem to be able to say that “that” time was very bad, “i had gone through terrible shit”, or we are able to say, “i am going through terrible shit”, we don’t usually hear people say “This is the happiest time of my life” (except for the first romance i guess).

The measurements again are subject of possible assumptions, every field has them- science, politics, morality, every human endeavor so to speak, has got some assumptions, so no matter how well defined we may be, it is possible that we started at the wrong place or we fumbled. Really, to set up some levels, as a benchmark seems to be one of the ways of going about measuring happiness. Will come day, there will be happiness meters, imagine, you would walk into the office and won’t talk to your boss because the reading on his meter is low, will you be happy then?

Ok, so lets get this straight, what is average level of happiness? Brain image scan studies, are trying to get a hold on that, but we want something simple in the mean while. If you’re sure that is what you want (yeah, the damn average level of happiness), i think the answer is simple, inspite of what i have said and what vast uncertainty that lies around, just look around yourself. Just look at one person who you think is a good case of person who is above or near the perceived average line, dont think about what one has, what one hasn’t got, you will most probably get the answer. Well it isn’t that easy, we may face difficulty in chosing sample point, and then verifying the veracity of the sample point, etc etc. Hell, haven’t i just told you what parents always tell us!!! - i feel sad that i reached here.