And happiness tends to be thought of as a permanent state, when it may be only occasionally achievable. The philosopher Hannah Arendt has argued that the human condition is a cycle of exhaustion and renewal, so that going up is possible only after going down and attempts to remain permanently up will fail: ‘There is no lasting happiness outside the prescribed cycle of painful exhaustion and pleasurable regeneration, and whatever throws this cycle out of balance – poverty and misery where exhaustion is followed by wretchedness instead of regeneration, or great riches and an entirely effortless
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Hannah Arendt definition of happiness.
