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Socrates, Plato, Aeschylus, and Aristotle, agree that a person cannot be truly happy unless he is wise, and he cannot be wise unless he has suffered. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel remarks, "The man who has not suffered, what could he possibly know, anyway?"
The Greek word that Aristotle uses for happiness is Eudaimonia (Greek: εὐδαιμονία [eu̯dai̯monía]. It has three parts. The first sylobol, eu, means good; and the middle part, daimon, means spirit or soul; the last sylobol, ía, which makes it into a noun, means some objectively
real or lasting state or nature. So εὐδαιμονία means the objectively real or lasting state of really having a good soul. It contains three connotations that the English word for happiness does not. First, you must be good to be happy. And second, it is in the soul more than in
the body--not as external goods of the body: good fortune, good luck. And third--and most important of all, it is an objectively real state, or nature, so you can be mistaken about it. In English, it makes no sense to say to somebody: "You think that you are happy but you are
not"; or, "You think that you are not happy, but you you really are." But in Greek, it does make sense. One clear test of that difference is suffering, as mentioned above, in the first tweet. Could suffering possibly be a part of happiness? Not in modern English, but in Ancient
Greek, Yes. "Hap" is the Old Norse and Old English root of "happiness", and it just means luck or chance, as did the Old French heur, giving us bonheur, good fortune or happiness. German gives us the word Gluck, which to this day means both happiness and chance. Among the many
things that I would like to say, based on the above, the most important might just be for me to recommend highly that each one of you read (or re-read) St Thomas Aquinas Commentary on Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics. There is no more worthy guide through Aristotle than Thomas.
I have given the Nichomachean Ethics to non-Catholics and it always turns out that they need help. Aristotle's is the first and best systematic treatment of ethics; how to live the truly good life. That we must get our lives in order before we slip off this mortal coil will come
as no surprise to any of my readers. St Thomas is the best teacher to lead us by the hand ["manuductio", cf. De veritate, q14, a10], as it were. Please prayerfully consider getting your hands on a copy of the Aquinas' commentary on Aristotle's Ethics. May the Lord be in your 
Syllable as opposed to sylobol: apologies: I was writing in the parking ramp after visiting one of my doctors, while my phone rang [not the all-important spine surgeon, unfortunately]. Because of the new clinic layout, I had to walk nearly 3,000 steps, which is killer for me.
As a side note, I would have hired an architect who would have used the large spaces to implement slow moving walkways that would spare the unhealthy many steps. As it is, the entries are huge concourses. The galleries [hallways] are enormous. Truly a public burden.
