Hashing vs. Encryption vs. Encoding vs. Obfuscation

This is
a brilliant piece
about the difference between happiness and meaning, or, more specifically,
the difference between pursuing a happy life vs. pursuing a meaningful life.
I suggest you read the entire thing, but here are some choice pieces of it.

Examining their self-reported attitudes toward meaning, happiness, and many
other variables — like stress levels, spending patterns, and having children
— over a month-long period, the researchers found that a meaningful life and
happy life overlap in certain ways, but are ultimately very different.
Leading a happy life, the psychologists found, is associated with being a
“taker” while leading a meaningful life corresponds with being a “giver.”

Most importantly from a social perspective, the pursuit of happiness is
associated with selfish behavior — being, as mentioned, a “taker” rather
than a “giver.” The psychologists give an evolutionary explanation for this:
happiness is about drive reduction. If you have a need or a desire — like
hunger — you satisfy it, and that makes you happy. People become happy, in
other words, when they get what they want. Humans, then, are not the only
ones who can feel happy. Animals have needs and drives, too, and when those
drives are satisfied, animals also feel happy, the researchers point out.

What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness,
which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which
is unique to humans, according to Roy Baumeister, the lead researcher of the
study and author, with John Tierney, of the recent book Willpower:
Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Baumeister, a social
psychologists at Florida State University, was named an ISI highly cited
scientific researcher in 2003.

Meaning is not only about transcending the self, but also about transcending
the present moment — which is perhaps the most important finding of the
study, according to the researchers. While happiness is an emotion felt in
the here and now, it ultimately fades away, just as all emotions do;
positive affect and feelings of pleasure are fleeting. The amount of time
people report feeling good or bad correlates with happiness but not at all
with meaning. Meaning, on the other hand, is enduring. It connects the past
to the present to the future. “Thinking beyond the present moment, into the
past or future, was a sign of the relatively meaningful but unhappy life,”
the researchers write. “Happiness is not generally found in contemplating
the past or future.” That is, people who thought more about the present were
happier, but people who spent more time thinking about the future or about
past struggles and sufferings felt more meaning in their lives, though they
were less happy.

I find this description of the distinction to be interesting, but not 100%
solid, as many forms of Buddhism focus on happiness (here/now vs.
past/future) but seem to clearly evade the charge of selfishness.

I think there’s value in making a distinction, and I think this is a good
way to start, but I’m not convinced it’s the purest answer.