Whats Happy?

Blue Witch started something. She asked us what makes us angry. We all wrote our answers into her comments box. Some of the responses I thought would indeed make me angry, others merely irritated. Then she asked us what makes us happy.

Anger I can easily identify with its tight throat, seering heat and flashes. Its a very physical emotion. It feels primative - a thing we needed as part of our survival skills toolkit (blurgh educational lingo) when we were stoneage. Stubbing your toe, looking for something you can't find when you need to leave the house, loosing a long piece of writing because the computer crashes, frustrations at stupidity and other's lack of understanding, injustice both personally and at large, my own failures and stupidity. Easy things to identify with a set of physical responses.

Happiness on the other hand is sort of intangible. Is it supposed to be an overarching feeling that is with you all the time, only interrupted by other emotions from time to time, or is it something that touches you once in a while?

There are little things that make me happy frequently every day (first blossom of spring, growing things, good times, funny people, flirting, success, the sky etc etc) but I'm not sure my blank state of mind is happy. There was a time when I was a kid when I thought my blank state of mind and my natural face (unaltered by any emotion) had a mouth with upturned corners. I can't remember exactly when but a long time ago I realised that it wasn't like that anymore. But I don't feel unhappy. I'm not depressed (I know this because there was a time after my mother died when I certainly was as miserable as I have ever been, almost all the time). I have drive and optimism and enthusiasm to keep going on. Am I happy? People often tell me they just want to be happy. But if we can't pinpoint what being happy means how will we know when we are? Or maybe we have to build into our day enough of those moments of happiness that we feel happy overall.