It’s all about the range of mood, not the type of mood!
Been meditating for years, and it took me a long time to realize that excitement is not happiness. But closer to what Buddhism calls restlessness and worry. And it tends to cycle with sloth and torpor in a pattern very similar to what we call bipolar.
Manic episodes, for me, are when the excitement keeps going without any rest. Exhaustion occurs. And delirium sets in.
I don’t find any of these states pleasurable (i.e. euphoric). Joy is what I equate closest to euphoria. An overflowing abundance of positive feelings shared with others. I imagine if we got worried or restless hanging onto that positive feeling, it could play a role in the cycle though.
Happiness is calm, restful. A lack of restlessness, anger, sloth and torpor, etc. Contentedness is a synonym for happy.
Anger/Desire, are, at base, aversion and attachment. If I’m attached to joy or angry at my depression, those are additional factors that keep us caught in the cycle.
Oh god eastern religions have puritans too? jk, glad to hear you’re doing well.
How was I being a puritan? I used language throughout that demonstrated I was speaking from my own experience and sharing my own understanding.
All language points at people’s real experiences and understanding. And how I define a word, such as excitement and happiness, affects my understanding of what is possible. I thought they were synonyms for many years, growing up in a consumer capitalist culture, it’s kinda what I was fed by advertising and my environment. Eventually, I learned to delineate them. And found, in my own experience, they’re not the same.
If you use different words and have a different understanding of your lived experience, more power to you.
Are you sure euthymia is the right word here? I had to look it up and it (after wading through a lot of crap actually) seems to say that you are in an okay state when you have bipolar problems. Which doesn’t sound right?
Just saying maybe its a very specialised word compared to the other ones
Euthymia just means to be in a calm and tranquil mood.
There is a generally accepted medical definition that is frequently used with bipolar and depressive disorders to describe a stable mood (at least in the UK, I assume it is in other English speaking countries).
Given the community we are in I think it’s being used suitably here 😊We use it the same way here in the US medical system.
I would call that state ennui, personally
Ennui is more despair*. The center is half way between mania and depression, and half way between happiness and sadness. It’s a state of calm and tranquility. Not happy or sad, but not manic or depressed.Edit:
*Sorry, don’t think I could have been more unclear with that if I tried. What I meant to say was “Ennui is like Euthymia, but with a touch of despair. It’s more about feeling a little down and listless.”I feel like that would be the depression version of sadness but idk what the equivalent would be for the depressed intensity of happiness. Honestly from going through a thesaurus (a hobby of mine) “complacence” has almost the exact connotation but an imperfect denotation.
Like the others said, it’s the exact right word for that exact level (a state of overall mood intensity that allows for anger, sadness, and happiness, but that doesn’t often go to the extremes of rage, despair, or euphoria) and I couldn’t think of a less clinical term for that exact state.