My thoughts on Ayn Rand's theory of Happiness

This idea that happiness is obtained by pursuing reason, purpose and self esteem, and that people are either happy or unhappy to the extent that they follow these principles - I don't think that's how happiness works.

I think that more fundamentally, our happiness is a result of our emotional experiences in childhood, which then in turn create our core motivation, sense of self and a belief of what is or isn't possible to us.

Our actions later in life will reflect this core emotional composition, rather than the principles we choose to follow.

I think that certain principles can definitely help you work toward your happiness, but that for the most part, achieving happiness has more to do with accessing our core emotions directly rather than taking this or that action.

The motivation to follow healthy actions follows from a healthy emotional core composition (for lack of a better term).

So take something very basic as an example... How about going on a diet? Lots of us fail to follow a healthy diet because something within us is driving us to self sabotage. We crave too much food or the wrong kind of food because it soothes an anxiety that we do not understand and cannot get rid of.

An Objectivist would look at it and say that a person is failing to use their free will to live healthily. Basically telling them "It's your goddamn fault dude for choosing to follow your whims".

Well here is what I think: This idea lacks compassion for our state of mind and it doesn't solve the problem. Instead, it compounds it by adding shame and guilt.

Yes, it is true that we are fortunate to be able to use our will to change our subconscious. But you gotta have respect for your subconscious, how it works, how slow or fast it can change and HOW you go about changing it, if at all. Don't assume that just because you KNOW something is good or right, that you can immediately convince your subconscious of it, too.

That view simply lacks respect for the nature of your mind.

If a program has a bug, it's not enough to know that the bug needs to be fixed - you need specialized knowledge in order to fix it, and our subconscious is the same.

I know some brilliant people who would be stuck hiding their talent from the world until the day they die, because at their core, they are stopped by massive fear. The fear can be so big that they may not even be aware of feeling it, because it is always there, like their skin.

So to go back to the point I was making: Ethics and moral principles as a guide to happiness are great, but I don't think we have full control over our happiness by following a set of principles.

If someone has a core belief that they are not lovable, then productivity, reason, and all that stuff is not gonna make them happy. It might actually make things worse for them.

Also, here is another thing to consider: Human beings were capable of happiness long before we were civilized enough to discover logic, and back when we still made some pretty "dumb" observations (by today's standards). I mean, how would Ayn Rand describe the state of mind of those primitive human beings? I think it would be ridiculous to say that they could not be happy because their capacity to reason was limited. Take a caveman, give him a good family, abundance of food, a good shelter and peaceful coexistence and they will be happy. Maybe even happiER than a modern day intellectual who has x5 more reason, but lacks those social conditions. So then how do you explain that? Well, she will likely say that in order to have abundance of food and a good shelter, he would need to use reason. And that is a good point, however if the caveman who has less reason than a modern man can feel happier, that still brings up an interesting point regarding what factor plays a bigger role in happiness - our social surroundings or our degree of logic.

As you may sense I am actually a big fan of logic. It is not my intention to bash it, only to consider the truth of our fundamental nature as human beings.