Happiness for its own sake

Originally posted by @black-beetle
A moment white, then melts forever😵

http://www.robertburns.org.uk/Assets/Poems_Songs/tamoshanter.htm

Expanding a bit:

"But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white--then melts for ever"

Originally posted by @wolfgang59
I think you are right.
It is an emotion of the moment.
Happiness is something we have fleetingly through the day if we are lucky or through our lives.
As soon as we start thinking about it, it is gone.

I think happiness, in my experience, is a much more robust and persistent emotion than this.

Originally posted by @ghost-of-a-duke
There is a case to be made for 'ignorance' being the true path to happiness, if 'wisdom' brings one to the realisation that life is temporal and finite. Better surely to be unaware of this truth and live one's life in blissful ignorance. (Like my cat).

Happiness that depends on ignorance carries risk. I remember my childhood sadness, then rage, upon learning that Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse weren't real 'people' I could visit and play with someday.

But who is to say that the dis-illusioned toon-believer is not better off than the lifetime toon-agnostic, on the whole.