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Happiness
as courtship display Taken from my book: How to make and fake happiness Happiness
signals that I’ve achieved an increase in survival capacity (meaning ‘fitness’
in Darwin’s language). An increase of survival capacity (real or imagined, in
any situation) readies me (arouses me as in fight and attack rather than fight
and flee mode) for contact, that is to say for renewed self-application. My
happiness expresses as increased arousal state, as a ‘high’. It attracts
those in need of a survival capacity increase (as it were, looking for
‘winner’s’ genes) namely the under-aroused (or relatively depressed). To wit,
‘Everybody loves a winner’ (in the hope of milking increased survival
capacity from him or her). So it
is that my display of happiness serves as courtship display, that is to say,
as a ‘Come on.’ Displaying happiness, made or faked (i.e. ‘as if’), invites copulation,
meaning touch or contact. Displaying
happiness, for instance by smiling, singing or dancing (to let off surplus
capacity) is sexy. Displaying unhappiness, for instance by frowning, moaning
or trudging is a turnoff. Faking happiness
or the display of its symptoms (hence signals) is a crucial means of
maintaining optimum survival capacity readiness when under survival threat.
In other words, faking happiness is a key life support tactic. It’s used more
or less by all humans if and when actual survival capacity increase cannot be
achieved because in a ‘losing’ situation.
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