Would you think that happiness in itself can fade away with time ? No , the happiness that people mistake for happiness , pleasure for instance . So we know there's something called the Hedonic treadmill or Hedonic adaptation , but it basically means that everything fades , everything wears out .
There's always that , that trade off , right ? And you know , to your point , happiness , the kind of true happiness that I think we're talking about is uh it , it , it's pleasurable but it doesn't equate to pleasure . You know , it's um sometimes full of anticipation , but it doesn't equal anticipation .
I recently , I'm a member of Toastmasters here in Turin in Italy . And um I did a recent speech on , you know , dopamine hits , you know , and the difference between pleasure and happiness and how societies created this system where we start to associate pleasure with happiness , but scientifically happiness , serotonin pleasure , dopamine which one outweighs the other . So the more dopamine , the less serotonin , it's , it's quite amazing .
So we know there's something called the Hedonic treadmill or Hedonic adaptation , but it basically means that everything fades , everything wears out . Even the most novel exciting experiences eventually get old , even the worst of conditions and circumstances we eventually adjust to and acclimate to um that kind of happiness , the kind of happiness that I would call not happiness but pleasure and or just positive emotion that we attribute to an experience , an event , a condition of circumstance , maybe a new purchase , maybe an achievement that will always fade without question . And that's part of the problem .
Yeah . So happiness can't be explained , can only be experienced and anything you explain isn't quite the experience . But I would say that it's mostly that experience of peaceful aliveness that is always within you but not just within you , that is you .
