Not suffering, not melancholy: Review of On Happiness: New Ideas for the Twenty-First Century, edited by C Nelson, D Pike and G Ledvinka

What is happiness? The word conjures sunshine, pleasure, expansiveness and possibility – and we all claim some knowledge and experience of happiness. Nonetheless, happiness, perhaps more than any other experience, is defined and delineated in the negative. Happiness is not suffering, not anguish, not absence or lack, not loneliness, not depression, not melancholy. That we do not in fact have grasp of a pure state, such as happiness, in isolation from its contraries illuminates something important about how our selves and our realities are structured. We are able to recognise it not only because it is already a part of our experiential repertoire but also because we are already familiar with its converse. This insight has direct implications for our experiences in general and for the experience of happiness in particular.