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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Oct 20, 2014 0:03:24 GMT 5.5
For the common people, happiness is the state of having the material requirement for life and being at least in a fairly good relationship with society. Yes, you should also be reasonably healthy.
Though this state is not so easily attained as said, it is a pretty plain one.
To most geniuses, happiness is quite something else. Though material conditions affect them, they are not so much concerned about these as their common counterparts are. Though praise and recognition make them happy like any other person, they are not so much interested in praise and recognition. Their love for their trade is genuine--they do what they do because they enjoy doing it. This love is not addulterated by anything extraneous, such as money and recognition. If you were the richest man in the world, you cannot buy them away from what they love. If you were the master of the world, you cannot successfully order them not to be engaged in what they find themselves doing quite involuntarily.
Geniuses are quite a species. The arbitrary conventions of the world are not so much of a norm for them, the laws of the world not so much binding. Thus, while fully engrossed in their deepest purpose in life, these people are not so much concerned about the formalities we the mortals of a lower order are so busy following for our safety, that is, happiness. Archimedes can run naked on a busy street; Einstein would forget his way back home; Thomas Nash would not recogize his friend. These things would simply break the world of a common man, because a common man's happiness depends so much on their concern about the material conditions--where they live, what they wear and eat, who they are friends with, who has said what about them...
Geniuses are geniuses because they are different. They are not acting the way we see them--they are who/what they are and we see them doing what they do. True to their own selves.
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