We cannot try to be happy. In this endeavour, trying is failing. What we can do is investigate why we are unhappy, to see how our dream of happiness depends on some person, situation or circumstance. Dependency is misery. True happiness comes from within. It already is.
Heaven is not won, unless dropping the seed-shell of my public face is winning. Tennyson emerged from one of his trances to say that the loss of personality is the only true life.
Scientists are touting the benefits of disembodiment as a way to relieve suffering. The process involves uploading a patient’s whole brain onto a computer and then running scans on it. Another colony of scientists holds the view that we are a simulation of reality, that we have no intrinsic realness. A harmonizing Elon Musk says the odds that we’re real are one in billions.
Reality’s most beguiling quality is its dream-likeness. Yes, there’s evidence of a past but where is it? And the future? A dream…within a dream. The Everly Brothers sang about this. Or maybe it was Wham!
First of all, we look for happiness outside of ourselves. It can be an arduous, disappointing ride before the folly of this approach reveals itself. Even then, some plug on, like ghost figures.
Men's Work 