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Can you know happiness without knowing sadness?
- Thread starter A4B4
- Start date
My first answer was no, you couldn't be happy without experiencing sadness. Then I remembered a quote from the TV show MASH, Colonel Flagg told BJ and Hawkeye that if it wasn't for war, they wouldn't know what peace was. So I changed my mind to yes. 
I do think you learn to appreciate happiness, and learn to take it less for granted if you experience sadness, however.
I do think you learn to appreciate happiness, and learn to take it less for granted if you experience sadness, however.
Comicaze247
See the previous line
I believe that the world runs on balance. Everything was meant to be balanced. Something goes one way, it goes back the other. Push-pull. Yin-Yang. Etc.
If someone did not know sadness, then they would not feel the difference. Granted, they may experience happiness before they experience sadness, but then they wouldn't know what it was. If you experience sadness first, it will inevitably bounce back to happiness. Once that happens, you will know both.
Happiness and sadness are not necessarily opposites. Just two halves of the same whole. Much like love and hate. The opposite of happiness is stoic. The opposite of sadness is stoic.
That's just what I think, though.
If someone did not know sadness, then they would not feel the difference. Granted, they may experience happiness before they experience sadness, but then they wouldn't know what it was. If you experience sadness first, it will inevitably bounce back to happiness. Once that happens, you will know both.
Happiness and sadness are not necessarily opposites. Just two halves of the same whole. Much like love and hate. The opposite of happiness is stoic. The opposite of sadness is stoic.
That's just what I think, though.
I somewhat agree with that, a person is happy but without ever having sadness, doesn't know that he/she is happy.
sandandfoam
Veteran Member
Would you say that the reverse is equally true?
If a person is sad without ever having had happiness do they not know that they are sad?
Comicaze247
See the previous line
Yes, I'd say so. I had clinical depression when I was younger (it has progressed to more), and I thought that feeling was normal. Once I got better, I looked back and thought "wow, I was miserable . . ."
Comicaze247
See the previous line
You don't need to know what an emotion is to feel it. Hence why "I don't know what I'm feeling" is a common phrase. Knowing and feeling are two separate things.
rageoftyrael
Veritas
Yeah, when i was a kid, i used to have this horrible feeling in my chest, constantly. It wasn't till i got older and it had gone away that i realized what it was. I was depressed(well i assumed that was what it was, cause i never went to a dr. and was told that) and used to have panic attacks. If you have ever had a panic attack, the feeling in my chest was essentially like the beginning of a panic attack, but spread out for like a year or two. My parents were splitting up, so i figure that is what it was.
As for the question, I think you could know happiness without knowing sadness. It simply takes sadness to APPRECIATE the happiness. If you are happy all the time, you'll take it for granted, and it will stagnate. Simply put, you must know disappointment and sadness to truly ENJOY the happiness. Like, i have to go to work to enjoy my time off. If i had time off all the time, it gets boring. Hope that explains my opinion.
As for the question, I think you could know happiness without knowing sadness. It simply takes sadness to APPRECIATE the happiness. If you are happy all the time, you'll take it for granted, and it will stagnate. Simply put, you must know disappointment and sadness to truly ENJOY the happiness. Like, i have to go to work to enjoy my time off. If i had time off all the time, it gets boring. Hope that explains my opinion.
Comicaze247
See the previous line
There's "other"
BucephalusBB
ABACABB
Even happy comes in variable formats and sizes. If one is "neutral" all the time but knows some periods of being happy, you can recognize that moment without ever been sad.
An outcome can be however, that one becomes unhappy in the moments he cannot recognize. I don't think this needs to be though.
An outcome can be however, that one becomes unhappy in the moments he cannot recognize. I don't think this needs to be though.
Phasmid
Mr Invisible
You'd recognise it as a feeling. You can give it any label you wish, but it does not mean you need to know the opposite to understand it.
If I showed you a picture of a white square, would you need to know what a black square looked like in order to see the white square?
Comicaze247
See the previous line
Colors are categories. It doesn't matter if you know the color wheel or not. They are set.
Emotions are flowing. They ebb and flow just like the tide.
Apples and oranges.
Sure.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
You might not appreciate it as much if you do not have any contrast, but there's no reason that you cannot experience happiness without experiencing sadness. In fact, it seems like kind of a false dichotomy - is lack of happiness sadness?
Yes, I think so, since we experience different states of being, like anger or neutralness. Differentiation is based upon differences, not necessarily "opposites". If one were always happy, and never anything else, I do not think "happiness" could then exist, since that is just the way you are and there's nothing else that you could be.
Happiness and sadness are arbitrary and relative things. One is happy in the realization of 'happiness'. Similarly, one is happy without knowing happiness only in the realization of 'happiness without knowing happiness'. I imagine that one cannot know 'happiness without sadness' without having realized happiness without sadness. I would also propose that if one has identified 'happiness without sadness', the realization that sadness is identified is not far along.