to be happy, or not to be? is it possible?

Freud’s pessimistic vigor about the human race is definitely evident in his work. I find it very hard to relate to his theories of happiness and the pleasure principal. I myself have never thought twice about the possibility of happiness and assumed I have been quiet happy most of my privileged life. But is this my ego trying to protect me from suffering and a false sense of my biological need for pleasure? Or am I just mildly contempt through achieving a sought out ideal in my pleasure principal? Freud even states that creation may not have made humans able to be truly happy, which implies it is very unlikely he believes it is possible to be happy.

The “pleasure principal” states that we are driven by a desire to achieve happiness by avoiding/postponing pain and suffering. But we have realistic aims in life, which Freud calls the “realistic principal,” where we are willing to accept that our goals will take time to achieve. But these pleasures we seek are very infrequent and there is a considerable and guaranteed amount of suffering which awaits us constantly. This does not sounds as if Freud thinks we can be truly happy, we are guaranteed to age, to be antagonized by the external world and to be tormented by our human relationships through loss of the person or the persons love. This does not sound like a joyous scenario and I must agree that the majority of suffering in my life has been from my human relationships.

There is also his theory that humans have a need for violence and death and there is considerable evidence for such things even in the video games I so choose to play. This pent up lust for violence is also accompanied by a sexual lust and both are suppressed by the super-structure which humans themselves have created. He does agree that it is better to restrict our sexual urges however, but there are too many restrictions especially in Christian societies. The ideals of no premarital sex and monogamy are against our pleasure principal and therefore makes us discontent.

With civilization being the largest cause of suffering should not the solution be to revert back to our primitive instincts and leave civilization? But Freud argues this would make us much less happy then civilization. “The liberty of the self is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization, though then, it is true, it had for the most part no value, since the individual was scarcely in the position to defend it.” (Freud, 72). After all as he states humans have created the super-structure, civilization as we no it is built by humans. We give up certain liberties to live in a society that makes us discontent. Then is it at all possible to be truly happy? It certainly does not appear so.