This-essay is a7901012.htm which is available at the web-site www.essayz.com. See more notes at the bottom. Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay By-Months By-Years By-Words Webs of Like-&-Un-Like ESSAYS <==> Like-&-UN-Like This-One ========================================================== %EXPLAINING HAPPY SMILES 790101 In an unfriendly universe full of suffering and evil a happy smile must be explained. A person who smiles without good reason must have lost contact with reality. If a good reason for the smile can not be given, we may have good reason not to trust the person. If a good reason for the smile can be given, we at least can feel secure in knowing that the status quo continues, that the normal state of the unfriendly universe continues, and that evil is still dominant. So long as smiles must be justified we know that the universe is essentially unfriendly. We may feel more secure knowing it continues as we have known it, than to discover that it may be quite different than we have chosen to know it. Some people assume that the universe is essentially a friendly place, and find it to be so. Despite the problems which they experience they persist in finding meaning and fulfillment in loving relationships with others who share problems and joys. They seem unable to recognize all the evidence that the universe is fundamentally unfriendly, and they refuse to explain why they smile and have joy. Their behavior is irritating to people who know that the universe is essentially an unfriendly place. Such friendly smiling people may in fact be an irritation and challenge to the serious people who are busy fighting the unfriendly basic forces of an essentially evil universe. Joyful people must be agents of the devil in disguise---especially when they refuse to give rational reasons for being joyful. Some joyful people have elaborate rationalizations for their joy. They develop sophisticated theological systems which intellectually justify their joyful approach to life. Such rationalizations appeal to some very serious people who believe that the universe is fundamentally unfriendly---for at least they affirm the need to explain joy and happiness. To explain happiness and joy is to say that they need to be explained, and so to affirm that the universe is essentially an unfriendly place. The more sophisticated the explanation is, the more sure you can be of how deeply the universe is not to be trusted. In a strange way to demand an explanation for a smile, for happiness, for joy---can be to undermine them; and to offer such an explanation can be an act which undermines them. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in www.essayz.com Search for Integrity and Honesty (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================
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