My Pursuit of Happiness
Happiness…
The subject of so much speculation,
The subject of so much angst,
The subject of so much confusion,
No two people that I talk to seem to have a remotely similar understanding of what happiness is. Some don’t even seem to want to be happy. They seem content to disregard it as not being a useful state of mind. Ironically, some of these people cling to something they call contentment as a virtue, which could be called a form of happiness. A state of contentment seems to make them happy or at least the thought of it, the possibility of contentment does. I always ask if not happiness then what? It is interesting to note that the ancient Greek’s considered contentment to be a state near death.
Our Declaration of Independence states that the pursuit of happiness is a natural human right bestowed upon us by our creator. This mindset would suggest that happiness is a human drive. Happiness is something that we rightfully and naturally seek.
The consumer climate of our country and Japan, whose conspicuous consumption rivals the United States and sometimes surpasses it, has happiness tied in with materialism. Naturally, the more spiritually and religious minded recoil in horror at such notions of happiness, but except for either the most cynical or ascetic of these folks, they still capitulate to the consumerism of modern day life to some degree regardless. It almost can’t be helped unless you are totally conscious of the contents of your mind and the actions that result from it. And then you still need to eat, sleep and shit so some material needs are necessary
I am neither cynic (I do have moments of despair which breeds cynicism at times)
Nor am I an ascetic
But, I am not totally materialistic either. I have lost my possessions. In fact, when I failed both as a husband and an entrepreneur I lost everything. I even ended up homeless and had to start over again. I didn’t mind that. It is nice, even quite enjoyable, to lose the weight of material objects to live unencumbered for awhile. I wouldn’t have thought that at the time.
I also enjoy some creature comforts as well. I see nothing ethically wrong about wanting to own stuff. As long as I don’t harm anyone in the process of accumulating and that I use some of my resources to help others as I can. Stuff, as one blogger suggests, is the artifacts of our life. Having been someone who has “lost it all” I understand the value of things differently than those who have been comfortable for the most part. My opinions were arrived at from experience and not just sitting back in my recliner with a cup of coffee.
I draw a lot of criticism from the cynic and the spiritual,
I used to get irked whenever someone criticized me about my pursuit of happiness, which they always tied to materialism. The funny thing is that I have never thought my happiness contingent upon what I owned or where I lived. I just don’t always have a clear understanding of what I mean by being happy. This is what fueled my irritation.
I’d go into a defensive posture.
I buy my furniture from places such as Goodwill,
I shop locally,
I support local small businesses first,
I recycle,
Before I bring new stuff into my house I donate or give away to others what I no longer want or have need of. My protests would continue in the same vein. I recoiled at being thought shallow or materialistic by another. Always tying it to the material as my detractors did.
Now I don’t care. I don’t even listen to those voices, at least in regards to this.
I think spiritual people have it wrong.
We are not necessarily spiritual beings having a physical or material experience. Rather, we are physical beings who occupy time-space and occasionally we have moments of transcendence - peak experiences -that give us a glimpse of what might be a thimble full of a much larger universal experience.
But, I would add, perhaps, because I can’t say for certain whether or not this is true.
Time is an illusion my critics have said
I reply, “Perhaps, time is not so much an illusion as our perception of it is. Because of the way our minds work our experience of it is limited to experiencing it in a linear progression.”
That seems true to me. I am aware that my body ages, it deteriorates and eventually give out on me. It doesn’t matter how well I take care of myself. Eventually “time runs out” on our physical bodies. If I get hit by a bus crossing the street I will become injured and maybe even crippled. I might even die.
This seems to negate the whole body is an illusion argument to me.
The pain or death I experience is real.
The body is not an illusion,
It is just a form of existence, which may or may not have boundaries beyond the physical.
So if the body is real in its own way, so is this physical realm we inhabit.
The Buddha cautioned his followers from engaging in what he saw as idle metaphysical speculation. Metaphysics - the highly subjective sub discipline of philosophy which purports to lift the veil of reality to study what is, in fact, the “really” real - actually impedes our understanding and experience of reality.
Go figure.
This is the single biggest problem of pursuing transcendence as the “thing itself.” The experiences are erratic and too subjective. It is difficult to know for certain whether we are experiencing a greater truth or our fantasy of truth…even worse we might be delusional. Someone truly versed in classic metaphysics understands the epistemological constraints to human understanding.
I prefer to enjoy my life as it shows up. I let the moments of transcendence occur when and as they will. Peak experiences are delicious. They often occur; it seems, to remind me that there is more to my life than meets the eye. They keep me open to the possibility that there is a larger life that I can tap into even though I don’t believe necessarily in a creator god or a divine plan.
My life doesn’t have any inherent meaning.
I am the product of an orgasm
One of my father’s sperm merging with the egg of my mother,
I am a happy accident.
There is no predestination as to which sperm and which egg meet up.
That is random
I am one individual result of natural selection and thousands and thousands of years of human evolution. I am product of my parent’s amorous copulation.
But, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a higher experience or even a transcendence of consciousness.
I just think that my life has no inherent meaning except that which I give it.
So I choose to be happy.
Even as I don’t know exactly what I mean by that,
Even as I look forward to the experience of happiness I understand that my experience of it is limited as well.
New Thought gurus like to opine that we are always at choice.
But, they fail to see that choice is not always 100% in our control,
We only have an approximation of free will. Genetics plays a role in our lives too.
As a life long struggle with clinical depression and anxiety has proven to me, I cannot always choose to not be depressed. My state of mind has a lot to do with what I choose to dwell on, but what I choose to dwell on is often influenced by my neurology, by my bio-chemistry.
It’s vicious cycle of the chicken and egg variety,
This cycle, however, I have begun to exert some direct influence over with the aid of therapy and pharmaceuticals and medical treatment. A change to a drier, sunnier climate has helped immensely as well.
Big Pharma may need to be reformed, but their products - wisely selected and used as prescribed - have helped me get my mind back.
I still don’t know exactly what happiness is. But, I do know that I am happier today than I was ten years ago. I am enjoying my life a little more fully than before. My happiness may not look anything like what you think happiness should be. So what? My happiness isn’t contingent upon what you think it should be or that you should choose to pursue it at all.
I don’t care
I can’t make you happy.
I can’t choose happiness for you anymore than I can choose to keep you from being an alcoholic or a junkie.
You can have whatever state of mind or being that you desire.
As for me,
if not happiness then what?