entry #1: what is happiness?

I do not believe that 'happiness' is defined or characterized by having no misery present in one's life, although misery is critical in conceptualizing the notion of 'happiness' by juxtaposition. Perhaps it is a little morbid, but in my own personal experiences I have found more misery in having no challenges, no difficulties to overcome. There is a certain comfort I find in pining and wasting away for someone, rather than suffering through some big, dumb, static happiness. I suppose that this relates to Kierkegaard's conception of human beings as a "process," in that I search for ways to change myself. Pure, unadulterated happiness cannot be sustained because people lend themselves to their own problems and consequences. However, I will not succumb to bitterness and cynicism completely; happiness to me is like a kind of satisfaction that is possible, even though it is scattered and ephemeral by nature. It is a temporary diversion from our anxieties, a form of ecstatic relief. Yet its fleeting nature is significant because only then is it as intense and in that it shows its contrast to other, more indifferent human emotions.