• Question: Can we have happiness without sadness?

    Asked by Olly to Christie, Dan, David, Dawn, Sian on 20 Jun 2016.
    • Photo: Christie Waddington

      Christie Waddington answered on 20 Jun 2016:

      Ooh, a philosophical question! One could argue how would you know what happiness is if you have not experience sadness? I see them as twinned emotions ie. you cannot have one without the other.

      There are some genetic diseases in which the children appear to be constantly happy e.g. Angelman syndrome (also known as Happy Puppet Syndrome), but this is not because of their inability to feel sadness, although they also have some physical and intellectual disabilities.

    • Photo: Dawn Lau

      Dawn Lau answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      I don’t think so! If you didn’t have a baseline, how would you be able to differentiate any emotions? So I think you won’t know what happiness is if you didn’t ever experience sadness.

    • Photo: Sian Thomas

      Sian Thomas answered on 21 Jun 2016:

      I agree, that to fully appreciate one you need to experience the other.

Comments