It seems quite clear to me that humans are not designed for “happiness”. There are many aspects of how our mind functions that seem to suggest that the priority in our “design” was focused on something other than happiness, certainly other than happiness per day lived.

Sometimes there’s a clear, long-term use for our suffering. When you put your hand on something hot, it’s good for you to feel pain. But sometimes, we’re just left to wonder: why do we suffer? We have mental illnesses, as well as less severe, but equally real, psychological problems that affect just about everyone.

Perhaps it is as silly to wonder why we suffer as to wonder why there’s disease, as to why we need to eat, sleep and love. It’s just how life is. Suffering seems to be an inherent part of life. It does not always need to make sense.

PS:  Even though there’s something perhaps sombre in the content of this post, I’m in a rather excellent mood!

-Dussault

I’ve often heard people, with their nose held up high and the inside of their nostrils clearly visible, describe hip-hop with disgust and ignorance. Sometimes it is even blamed for violence and sexism, even though these claims seem to be never accompanied by any evidence (age of sexual encounter has mostly been stable while crime has been on the decrease; hip hop, on the other hand, has been on the rise). Sometimes it’s just said to be bad music (if these snobs deem it to be worthy of being called “music”).

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Once again, how Muslim women dress has been made into something worthy of public concern. This time, it was Sarkozy:

The problem with the burqa is not a religious problem. It’s a problem of liberty and of the dignity of women. It is not a religious sign, it is a sign of subservience, it is a sign of lowering.

I want to say solemnly, the burka is not welcome in France. We can not accept in our country women trapped behind a fence, cut off from social life, deprived of any identity. This is not the idea that we have of the dignity of women.

(click here for full transcript and video in French)

Beautifully said, I must say, but it is all meaningless.

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With the Second World War, we witnessed the end of a cruel and oppressive regime, of the Asian equivalent to the Nazis. They had lost all the territories they had conquered — China, Korea, French Indo-China,  Thailand, Burma, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia etc –, they were isolated back on the Japanese archipelago, without a hope of winning the war; Japan was on its knees.

The United States had finished and tested nuclear weapons, leaving them with a new tool to consider. Rather than accept the costs of a land invasion on Japan, which had refused to surrender, it was decided that nuclear weapons should be used, so as to force them into an unconditional surrender.

Was it necessary to use nuclear weapons on them? No, it was not, but few things in life are necessary; rather than focus on necessity, we should look at what was for the best.

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