the harder the better

People who are naturally good at what they do are not as inspiring as people who don't have the same natural ability but they work hard, persevere, and practice, and by doing so they achieve success. Or even if they don't achieve success, they are more inspiring. 

knife behind back

Shaun Tan has a new book coming out soon - Hometown. Actually, the hardcover version is already out, as of 4 days ago. Shaun Tan really elevates the picture book to a fine art. 

Shaun Tan is a technically great artist, but I don't think you need to be technically great to be a great artist. Consider Yoshitomo Nara. His art is quite simplistic on the face of it, but it conveys depths of authentic strangeness, and also, his art sells for millions. 

the power of apathy

With depression and anxiety, the more you react to them, the more imposing they become. You have to learn to say, yes, I feel this way, but it's OK, and also, over time, I will feel better. There's no way you can feel better immediately, but you can work on thinking in a healthier way, and in time, your feelings will follow. 

What happens is that we get distressed about how we feel, and we dwell on it and our fear and aversion of how we feel, and the way that we feel trapped with it, makes something out of it. For example, say you get pins and needles and a feeling of numbness in your hand when you get anxious. That's actually something I have experienced. So, I notice that my hand feels numb, and I'm like, oh no, here comes a panic attack. That anxiety and the fact that I'm hyper focused on the symptom makes the symptom worse, or seem worse at least, and then other symptoms pop up, which causes more anxiety which causes more symptoms which causes more anxiety, and it just spirals. 

One of the main things that helped me get my panic attacks under control was learning not to react. Panic attacks rely on your fear. They're so horrible that, at the first sign of one, you freak out and your system is flooded with adrenalin, which fuels the panic attack, but as you begin to get your anxiety under control, you learn that you don't need to fear panic attacks. So, when you feel one coming on you say, ok, I'm going to slow down my breathing (which is another powerful way of treating anxiety) and I'm just going to push through it. The first couple of times may still be difficult, but if you keep practicing this you will overcome panic attacks. Basically, when you feel a panic attack coming on but it's not a big deal anymore, it's not a panic attack. 

AI use and abuse

People were pretty critical and mocking of the segment on CNN where the presenter interviewed an actual AI actor/ person, through a screen. It's easy to make a joke of it or say it's 'cringe' but there's a more serious critique to be made about AI replacing people and replacing thinking. Just with education, I can't think of any good use for AI. Every use of it seems to be about cutting corners and avoiding the challenge of thinking and learning. 

At the same time, I'm pretty impressed with what AI can do. It's really useful for some research tasks and also, it's really good for clarifying legal, financial, tax, business issues. I think the best approach to take is to use it for tasks that you could do yourself but that would be laborious and time-consuming but never use it to think for you. Don't ask it to analyze, summarize or reword. 

genius working holiday

I've only read one of D H Lawrence's books. He was absolutely a genius. The book of his that I read is Kangaroo, which is regarded as an Australian classic even though Lawrence wasn't Australian. That tells you how good it is. It's such a masterful evocation of Australia, and more specifically, Australia in the 1920s. I read it for a course on Australian modernism. 

It's all the more impressive considering how he wrote it. He wrote it in Australia. He completed the first draft in 6 weeks while staying in Thirroul, on the south coast of NSW, and then revised it over a few months. A lot of the reflections on the Australian landscape in the book are fueled by Lawrence's experience of the landscape in Thirroul and the more political elements of human interaction come from conversations and interactions Lawrence had with people in Sydney. 

being mean

You can change the meaning of your thoughts and experiences by recontextualizing them. 

telling the truth

Is there a kind of writing that is more suitable than others for expressing the truth? Wordsworth probably would have said poetry meets that standard. In his 'Preface to Lyrical Ballads', he wrote:

The Man of science seeks truth as a remote and unknown benefactor; he cherishes and loves it in his solitude: the Poet, singing a song in which all human beings join with him, rejoices in the presence of truth as our visible friend and hourly companion. Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all Science.

I wonder if anyone still thinks like that. I think a more modern view would be that the novel is the best way to express the truth, or maybe creative non-fiction. 

their own language

Out of all the different theoretical approaches we learnt about in first year English, the one that interested me most was post-colonial theory. Later on, I had other interests....Harold Bloom and the psychoanalytic approach, Bakhtin and his ideas about discourse, structuralism, post-structuralism and semiotics. 

The unit we did about Marxism was interesting. It wasn't what I expected. By saying that everything is political it eschewed any discussion of political ideology - in other words, any discussion of Marxism. The idea was that all of our interactions involve power dynamics. 

What interested me about post-colonial theory was the idea that power is at the margins not at the center, and then it was also fascinating learning about creole languages and how they represent the subversion of power. To write serious literature, the colonized have to write in the language of the colonizer, but informally, a creole language develops which is a fusion of the two languages. Then, at some point, people begin to write literature in the creole language, which is empowering because they are writing in their own language rather than someone else's. 

progress goals

My time in detox coincided with a realization about my need to change. Not just change in ways that related directly to my addictions but changing the way I went about my life - changing from withdrawal, rumination, and catering to/cultivating my anxiety, to engagement, activity and cultivation of my life. 

One of the first things I did was to start making a list of goals. These were a different type of goals to any I had made before. They were extremely achievable, but they represented the choice of engagement and activity over withdrawal and rumination. They were a way of moving in the direction that I wanted to go. 

apprecisation

Recently I bought a copy of Samuel Beckett's three novels, in one volume - Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable. He originally wrote them in French and later translated them into English, and they were hugely influential over later literature, both French and English. 

I kind of just wanted to have a copy of the novels because of their standing as literature. It's a separate thing from my appreciation for the text itself. 

aesthetics

For me the plot isn't as important as the quality of the writing, the atmosphere developed, the ideas conveyed. Take The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, for example. Those opening pages are so impressive, but what actually happens? They have a picnic on the grass and then they go inside and look at paintings, but it's so much more meaningful than just the action. 

science fiction

There's a mistake that is often made where people think that, because someone has expertise in one area, their views about other issues should carry more weight. This often happens with writers. When someone is a successful novelist, they will often start commenting on different cultural and social issues, and they're taken very seriously. 

A similar thing happens with technology. The views of people who have been in upper-level management of tech companies or who were involved in the development of cutting-edge technologies, about anything related to those technologies, are taken very seriously, when actually, about those particular issues, they aren't any more knowledgeable than anyone else. There was that case where someone who worked closely with AI thought that it had developed consciousness, and people took his view seriously because of his real expertise in AI. 

Then, recently, there have been experts predicting that AI will kill off humanity within a few years unless regulations are put in place to curtail its development. I'm not saying that there aren't issues there. I'm saying that, just because someone has worked closely with AI, doesn't mean they know what's going to happen in the future. This has always happened around technology. There's always a fear of what could happen, but is putting the brakes on development because the technology could be misused, the solution? I don't think so. 

More importantly, the idea that there is something malevolent at the heart of technology that we need to nip in the bud before it gets too powerful and there's not stopping it...that narrative is not new at all. At least since the 19th century there has been that fear of the unknown potential of science and technology and there have been stories and views about the threat they represent, and with progress, those fears proved unfounded. Fear is never going to tell you the truth. 

between a rock and an art place

I don't like art that is purely abstract all that much. I prefer works where there is a tension between realism and abstraction. 

through a glass darkly

Often, I think about the past with a sense of regret - like, why didn't I do this instead of that? Things would have gone much better if I had done 'this'. Such thoughts are pointless. 

This morning I thought of something different. I thought that, if it was possible to make any change at all to the past, I would be kinder, more understanding, more considerate. I can think of a number of situations that came up where that would have made a real difference. 

In some ways I'm just talking about maturity, so, in a way, being like that wasn't open to me at that time because I wasn't mature yet. 

kri8iv writing

It's a mystery to me why I can't write a story. I once told a friend that it's because I have to write what is true. I can't just make something up. Doing that is not just hard, it's not possible for me. I can write something experimental or poetic though. So, I could write in the style of Samuel Beckett or Virginia Woolf, but not Henry James or George Eliot. 

breakthrough

I'm not constrained in all the ways I used to be. It used to be like, something adverse happens and I go straight into being trapped in a combination of vicious cycles. Now that pattern has lost its edge and I'm aware - still kind of fleetingly to be honest - of other possibilities. 

thawing out

The stories she told to 'cheer me up' had no meaning or warmth to them....lots of action. Everything seems like that when you're depressed. 

As you recover, you find that you can really fill empty spaces. There are whole worlds that depression keeps you from and you have no interest in, but you begin to realize that there is meaning and value there. 

gogicality

One of the problematic things about school is that it's all about getting good at studying, and being successful at studying doesn't necessarily translate into success at work, which school is supposedly preparing you for. 

honoring context

The first few times I encountered 'The Message' Bible translation by Eugene Peterson, I liked it and wanted to read more. Later on, I went off it because it introduces modern elements that don't fit. To drive home the meaning, he tears the text away from its original context. 

I like the New Living Translation. It does what 'The Message' is trying to do but maintains the connection to the original context. So, it's quite different from say, the NIV, but in a good way. 

I think the NET Bible also does this very well because it uses words that are distinctively modern to describe things, without changing the essential meaning. So, it gives the text a new kick and immediacy - it speaks your language, while still being the Bible that speaks. 

surprising differences between Australia and America

1. * Our main right-wing party is called the 'liberal party', but, in the US, liberal means left wing
2. * In Australia, the color for labor (left wing) is red and the color for the liberals (right wing) is blue. In the US, the color for Republicans (right wing) is red, and the color for the democrats is blue.

heavy is the mantel

English was my worst subject in high school, but I had a friend who did 3 unit English, and I remember him studying Such is Life by Joseph Furphy and Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. Only years later, having read Such is Life and knowing something about Catch 22, did I realize what a huge ask our English teachers were making in selecting those texts. I've known PhD students that found Such is Life challenging and I've had smart adult friends who didn't get Catch 22 at all. 

what writing is about

My disordered thinking is replete with closure...it's all about ending and decline and defeat, but writing is all about possibility and potential. You can write about anything, and as soon as you do, you're creating meaning, even if you write about something negative.  

rights and wrongs

This morning I read Philippians chapter 2. Verse 3 and 4 read:

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

That's an attitude that is rare even among Christians. We hold onto our views tightly, and if someone thinks differently, we argue with them. We have to be convinced to change our view, if we do at all. But imagine having the attitude that others know better than you. Imagine if that, rather than telling people when you think they're wrong, was your default reaction. 

It might sound a bit illogical or even foolish, but it's the attitude that Christ had. He was in the right, and we're not, but he took on all the wrong so that, through his sacrifice, we could be made right. 

palimpsest

I deleted my old blog, caeusura, in 2019 and then at the start of 2020 I began this blog. I thought it was gone forever but when I checked the wayback machine, the whole thing was there. 

I've been working my way through the posts and adapting some of them to this blog. My overwhelming impression as I read through the old posts I wrote between 2014 and 2019 is one of 'cringe'. For that reason, a lot of the posts, I don't bother adapting them or using any of them. Sometimes I'll use and adapt a whole post, and sometimes I'll take a few lines or an idea and build a new post from that. 

It's very weird to think that this blog is now older than my old blog. 

I'm glad that I was able to retrieve my old blog because it means nothing - at least nothing that I want to keep - has been lost. 

in the mirror

Creating art of some kind is validating because it's an expression of individual humanity, an expression of character. We can't see ourselves. Just as, physically we can't see ourselves unless we look in a mirror, mentally and spiritually, it's the same. But when you create something, whether in writing, music, paint, pixels or whatever, it's like looking in a mirror because you see the expression of yourself. 

blog timeline

The first time I heard the word 'blog' was this century. It was in 2004 at UNSW in a thesis seminar. We went around the room and each person talked about their thesis, and one person said that they were doing their thesis on 'weblogs', which, they told us, is sometimes abbreviated to 'blogs'. 

Then a couple of years (I can't remember exactly) after that, I started my own blog. My blog has been through three iterations, this one being the latest. So, the timeline looks a bit like this:

2006 - 2013 version 1

2014 - 2019 'caeusura'

2020 - present, 'voracioutee' 

the folly of procedures

Something I've noticed, especially working with Units of Competency when I was a business trainer, is that, when you try to document work tasks and roles in words, in a thorough and systematic way, simple things become complicated. 

Documenting of a job becomes a job in itself, and the task of documenting is not always relevant or helpful. Take a simple task like making a cup of coffee. Writing a procedure that explains how to do that task is quite a difficult thing, because you have to assume that the reader doesn't know anything about making coffee. So, you have to tell them how much water to put in the kettle, and that the water will get very hot so be careful not to spill it on yourself, and there will be extra steps depending on how much, if any, sugar the person wants in their coffee, and then there's the question of milk and getting the milk out of the fridge and opening the milk, and putting the milk back in the fridge afterwards, and the whole procedure has to be repeated as many times as there are people you're making coffee for, etc

And does having that written procedure help at all with doing the task well? 

education system

In school, teachers always make assessments of students based on certain criteria and how those criteria apply to all the students they've known. So, it's easy for them to misjudge students' motives and character. 

stuff of novels

I read a book by James Fenimore Cooper at uni, and I thought it was so boring and slow moving, but now I look back on it and see it as very earthy and deep - a fine work of literature, and I want to read more of him. 

There have been a few classic novels that I felt that way about, which isn't surprising. Life and the world were more slow moving in the past. It's surprising that I don't feel like that more often with old novels, but I don't. Reading Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, David Copperfield, etc...although they were written in the nineteenth century, they don't feel slow moving. 

Sometimes more modern novels seem very slow moving. Actually, they are very slow moving. I find that's the case with some of Thomas Mann's works. I started reading Joseph and his Brothers, and I just couldn't do it. It just refused to start. It begins with a kind of meditation the subject of which I can't remember. I just remember that nothing of substance happened and I kept reading - 10 pages, 20 pages - and still nothing definite. So, I gave up. 

It makes me think that maybe some literature from the past is lost to us. No one can read certain books because our minds don't work the way they did in the past. 

goals don't work the way you think

The story of how you resolved to do something and then worked towards it and persevered and eventually achieved it is always a story that you tell afterwards. Always a distortion. 

worldview

Sometimes other people think they understand your situation and your motivations better than you do. They're quite direct about it. They'll tell you what's 'really' going on with you, contrary to what you think. It's weird. They have it all figured out and they tell you your story in great detail, and if you disagree, they'll argue with you and insist they're right. 

a great speech

One of my favorite scenes in literature is in Dostoevsky's The Demons. There was a man who pretty much everyone respected, and this radical group was trying to court him and get him on their side, because he would be a powerful asset. So, after a period of time and getting to know each other, he agreed that he would come and speak at one of their meetings. 

They were stoked. It was a real coup. So, he arrives at the meeting and gets up to speak, and there are hundreds of people intently listening and ready to hang on every word. It's a crowd of true believers. 

He begins by talking about how he has really closely observed the group and thought deeply about his observations - really reflecting on the meaning and essence of the group. Then he tells them what he came up with - what he sees as the meaning and essence of the group. He says, it's really about (and everyone is expecting him to say something deep, but he says....) stupidity. 

It's one of the funniest and most memorable lines I've read. 

generations

We can learn about historical events and periods, but we will never know what it was like to actually live through them, unless we actually did live through it. 

One of my favorite quotes is from William Wordsworth's 'Preface to Lyrical Ballads':

For a multitude of causes, unknown to former times, are now acting with a combined force to blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and, unfitting it for all voluntary exertion, to reduce it to a state of almost savage torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national events which are daily taking place, and the increasing accumulation of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces a craving for extraordinary incident, which the rapid communication of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have conformed themselves.[1]

It's so interesting because, looking back at the period of time he's talking about, from the 21st century, his time seems so slow and primitive. In our age, through the internet and computer technology, we can and do communicate with anywhere on earth virtually instantaneously. Wordsworth's was the era of the telegraph, the newspaper, and the train. 

It's like when you were in primary/ elementary school and you made the jump from 2nd grade to third, so you were no longer an infant, and things got a lot more serious. As an adult you look back on that and remember what it was like but still, compared with other life changes, it's very minor. 

---

[1] Wordsworth, William, Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800, Bartleby.com, section 8

inside out

Inside it's warm and comfortable. It's a haven. But appearances are deceptive, for inside is stagnant and dead, but outside is vibrant and alive. 

doors

I used to think that self-help and popular psychology books had some kind of special secret, but I eventually realized that that's not exactly true. They can be helpful, but I think it's usually more in the way of drawing out what you already know. 

lego poetry

There are lots of things that I can write about.....a session I had with a psychiatrist, Dostoevsky vs Tolstoy, a video I watched applying Susan Sontag's distinction between camp and chic to modern social media trends, but the beautiful thing is that I can create something new. I can write something that has never been written before, something not modular and pre-packaged. 

changing channels

For a while I was thinking that I would cycle through Medium, my blog, substack, patreon, and linkedIn. So, I'd write a post on Medium then after that on my blog, then substack, etc. But that just doesn't work for me. For me, it's very hard to switch and the kind of writing I want to do on each platform is so different. 

So, the way it has worked out is that, I write on Medium for a few months, then my blog for a few months, and so on. When I'm immersed in each project, I have no....what's the word? 'Interest' doesn't quite fit. 'Momentum' maybe....in the others. 

I've only made it to the second step - this blog. It's going to be a while before I get to substack, Patreon and LinkedIn, because I'm in no hurry. I'm content to write my blog for the indefinite future. But when I get to each of them, I will write something good. 

mirage

There's always a difference between the idea of doing things and the reality. At school, when I first got an assignment or essay, it seemed like I had so long to work on it and I pictured myself doing all this good work, but then it wouldn't eventuate. I would end up doing it at the last minute.

landing

Years ago, when I was first at uni, I had a friend who was studying philosophy and really loving it. To him it was all about ideas and philosophical questions and reasoning. That never interested me. I'm more interested in language and texts. 

That's why, years later, when I did become interested in philosophy, I was more interested in the history of philosophy and the primary texts than in some kind of philosophical debate. More recently still, I've found that the two different approaches are pretty much indistinguishable. To learn about philosophy is to explore the development of ideas through history and to engage with texts that reflect that development. 

strike while the iron's hot

In 1979, Jean Michel Basquiat, who at that time was pretty unknown in the art world, spotted Andy Warhol having lunch with Henry Geldzahler. He went up and introduced himself and offered to sell them some postcards he had painted. Geldzahler dismissed Basquiat, saying he was too young or something like that, but Warhol bought one of the postcards. 

Later, in 1982, after Basquiat had become a famous artist, they were more formally introduced and they had lunch together. After the lunch, Basquiat went home and painted a portrait of the two of them and delivered it to Warhol within a couple of hours after the lunch, with the paint still wet. Warhol confessed to Bruno Bischofberger, who was at the lunch with the two artists, that he was jealous because Basquiat worked so fast. 

surrender

When I first started reading Daniel Deronda by George Eliot, I didn't make it to the end. What I didn't like is that a really intriguing character is introduced at the start, but then they go away, and they stay away for hundreds of pages, while you're reading about some pretty unpleasant characters. I kept reading in the hope that the good part of the story would start, and I was just ploughing through this first part to get to the good part, and it really wasn't worth it, so I ended up giving up. 

Then I watched the BBC miniseries of Daniel Deronda and I loved it, so I returned to the book and this time I read through the whole thing. I suppose I just needed to see that it was a good story - that it really had something to offer. Reading it that second time, I was content to just let the book lead me and enjoy the journey. 

if alcohol is a depressant, why does it feel good?

'Depression' is probably the wrong word for depression. I always wondered why, if alcohol and Valium are both depressants, why does taking them make me feel better? Both of those assertions are true. Valium and alcohol are in fact depressants, and they do make you feel better, at least for a while, and I think that actually makes sense when you understand what is actually happening when you take those substances and what is happening with depression. 

Depression, at least for me, is about violently destructive thoughts and feelings. It's like being attacked by something. So, when a chemical slows that fight down, as a depressant does, it makes it a lot easier. It gives you some room to breathe and rest. So, we're talking about two different types of depression. 

update on Valium taper

I remember not that long ago pushing to reduce to .25 of a 2 mg tablet per day. It seemed impossible, but I did it one night, which showed me it was possible, and from there I just kept doing it more and more until it was the norm. So, most weeks for the last couple of months, my weekly dose has been 1.75 x 2 mg, which is .25 (1 quarter) each day/ night. 

From there, you can only really go to zero because it's not practical to break the tablets into smaller portions than a quarter. But as has often been the case in my journey with Valium, there's a psychological barrier here. The thought of taking no Valium at all at night before I sleep is daunting - never mind that I'm only taking half a mg most nights now anyway, which would have seemed impossible not that long ago, and the effects of half a mg are negligible. 

Something that helps is that, once I got down to around 2 x 2 mg a week, my sleep dramatically improved, and sleep has been one of the major issues with me for a long time. So, after I take my other meds in the evening, I usually feel pretty sleepy, but I've been taking a quarter of a tablet of Valium anyway. It probably has no effect, actually. Even if I take a whole 2 mg tablet, which I haven't done in a while but I did at times earlier this year and before that, I don't feel much, if any, difference. 

I was going to continue on .25 a night for a while longer and maybe have a go at reducing to 0 some nights in late October or November, but last night I just felt ready and didn't take the quarter tablet, and I slept as normal for me. So, with the beginning of September, I crossed that line. Now it's the new norm. The end. 

strength

Soundgarden's song Burden in my Hand begins, 'Follow me into the desert, as thirsty as you are.' 

It's about an act of will. It's the sort of thing where, at the time, you feel weak and needy - not strong at all - but you go ahead anyway and do something and then you realize your strength. You don't realize it because you saw or see yourself as strong - you realize it because you are being strong.

That's the irony: you're strongest when you don't feel strong, or as the apostle Paul put it: "...when I am weak, then I am strong..." (2 Corinthians 12:10)

strange warning

I bought a replacement cup for my Nutri bullet, and it had a sticker on the bottom which read, 'Caution: only remove once blades have stopped spinning', which means that the people who make the replacement cups have no idea how a Nutri bullet works. After you've blended up your smoothie, you remove the cup from the base, with the blade mechanism still attached to the cup, then you unscrew the blade mechanism, so it's impossible for the blades to still be spinning when you detach the blade mechanism from the cup. 

pov

History is written by the victors, as they say, but we tend not to see that. We read history as if it was an objective account, when it probably never is.

I've been thinking about this issue lately because I've been learning about the Third Reich and everyone involved, including Hitler, of course, Goebbels, Himmler, and others, and I was struck by the thought that, as much as I think the accounts I'm reading and watching are accurate and true, we're not getting the Nazi point of view. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy for the Nazi point of view, but as I was watching all of these videos about the Nuremberg Rallies and the war and Hitler's and Goebbel's speeches and so on, all presented as the evil enterprise that it was, and thinking about how this could happen, I realized that, to the people involved, it wasn't evil. They were proud and passionate. They thought they were doing something good. 

I did a search using AI and there are actually a lot of books about this issue, both specifically about the Nazis and also the psychology of fascism generally. I think the psychology of cults is also very relevant. So, I've added to my list of books I want to get and read. 

nocturn

I've always liked working at night, or reading or writing or whatever. There's a greater sense of freedom at night. 

I remember thinking, when I was younger, that my day-time life was like a merry go round that I was stuck on, and had no say about. 

ephebe

I enjoyed the film 'while we're young'. It expressed something really deep and profound about human nature. One of my favorite lines is when Ben Stiller says about Adam Driver, after he has completely seen through his duplicitousness - 'it's as if he saw someone being earnest and sincere when he was young and he's been trying to copy it ever since'. I probably don't have that quote exactly right. It's such a funny and perceptive description. It's such a deep observation but it's said in the heat of the moment. 

spectra

When I wrote that joy is the opposite of depression, I wasn't suggesting that we can only ever experience one or the other. I believe in both, and we can, and I do, experience both at the same time. Maybe it's a dialectic. 

Of course, over time, joy kills depression. 

joy and depression

Joy is the opposite of depression. Depression is a pain or sadness that persists unreasonably. Everyone experiences pain or sadness at times but hopefully you feel better after a while as you change and grow. Emotions are cyclical. Sometimes we're happy and feel good and other times it's the opposite, usually because of something that happens either way. But depression is when nothing helps and you're stuck in a hole through everything, good and bad. 

Joy is the opposite of that - a sense of well-being that persists beyond all reason, through good and bad.