People are
obsessed with the idea of happiness.
Just visit your local bookstore, if it even still exists, and walk down
the Self Help/Psychology section. You
will find thousands of books with the word "happy"or
"happiness"in their titles.
This happiness industry flourishes because no one can actually define
the meaning of happiness. I am not sure
that I can, either. But I believe that I
can tell you exactly what it is NOT.
Happiness is not pleasure;/ happiness is not success; and happiness is
not security.
Pleasure is
good. Who doesn't enjoy the taste of
good food when we are hungry, or the oblivion of sleep when we are tired, or
the ecstasy of orgasm when we are--well, just about always? Pleasure is intense and wonderful, but, alas,
it is so temporary! No matter how
delicious our dinner, no matter how comfortable our bed, no matter how erotic
our lover, in a short time we will have recovered ourselves to a sort of
baseline existence. What follows for
most of us is a mindless march until we can experience the next pleasure. Surely this is not happiness, but, instead,
long periods of routine punctuated by brief moments of delirium.
Success is
impressive. We admire the rich and
famous. We watch and listen to the words
of the powerful. We envy the
beautiful. Success, however, never
depends on who the individual is, nor on what the individual does. No, instead, success relies on the
perceptions of others. No matter how
much money, or beauty, or talent a person has, success derives from what the
rest of us think. Have you ever noticed
how many so-called successful people feel inferior, inadequate, or even
depressed to the point of suicide? Surely
this is not happiness, but, instead, an endless struggle to satisfy public
opinion.
Security is
nonexistent. Whatever house in which we
live, whatever money we have saved, whatever health we have enjoyed, all, all
can be taken from us in a flash of lightning.
Ultimately, we cannot hide from the inevitable; we will grow old, we
will break down, and we will die. If we
are lucky, that is. Depressing? You
bet. Security is nothing but the
illusion that we can protect ourselves from the randomness of our
universe. And oftentimes those who worry
most about being secure are those least likely to actually feel safe. Surely this is not happiness, but, instead,
an attempt to control the accidents of our lives.
If we are
going to get a handle on this elusive notion of happiness, we need to recognize
and reject the temporary methods we employ to avoid accepting responsibility
for our sense of well-being. Our lives are
enriched by pleasure; our lives are sweetened by success; our lives are
softened by security. But it is all too
possible to have all three of these illusions yet still feel profoundly
UN-happy. When we learn to accept the
dismal frailty of life, only then can we begin to construct a philosophy of happiness.
