Chasing Happiness

“The Pursuit of Happyness” is such an endearing movie, isn’t it? Will Smith pretends to be poor and cries while his son sleeps in the subway station bathroom. And then he gets the job at Dean Witter and now I’m crying. Well not really but the title of the movie makes me think. The pursuit of one’s own happiness is somewhat of a sacred right in our culture, considered the prerogative of everyone and even a life-philosophy by some. “Whatever makes you happy” is often the answer given to the question of “what should I do?” Or “whatever you’re passionate about.” But what if you’re passionate about the wrong thing? What if you being happy isn’t and end in itself?
 
Have you ever noticed how concerned people are with what they like? “Oh I like that a lot.” “No no I don’t like that at all.” “He gets on my nerves.” “I can’t stand people who think they’re better than you, ya know?” “I’m a cat person.” “I’m a morning person.”  “I’m a blah blah blah (insert endless list of preferences). It’s only natural. We are very interested with what pleases or displeases us. Need I cite to any number of Facebook profiles where the “about me” section is a disgustingly long rambling list of everything the author could think of to include about their interests? Why does this matter? It matters to us, of course, because our likes and dislikes are reflections of our personality, and our personality is the one we’re most occupied with. There is no limit to the amount of time we spend imagining how other’s think of us. This occupation with our own personas easily translates or evolves into a perpetual concern with our own happiness. Do I like who I am? Do I like what I’m doing? If not, the pursuit continues.
 
An old German by the name of Immanuel Kant once said “let us seek happiness in others; but for ourselves, perfection—whether it brings us happiness or pain.” This obviously requires a determination of what “perfection” is, but even so, I think it’s profound. It may sound like an overly dutiful perception of life—but maybe it’s suggesting that the surest way to secure happiness is to stop trying to fulfill your own needs and look towards the needs of others. If there is any such thing as perfection of the self surely it is the freedom from the self. We are by design self-interested beings. This could explain our belief that by fulfilling our own needs we will find the most satisfaction. To deny ourselves much of what we would naturally incline to seems unpleasant, but how many times do we find ourselves on the other side of indulgence, bored with what was only moments ago a satisfying state of being, looking for something else to please us again? Even those with utterly predictable lives often rely on a host of simple and repetitive pleasures that should they be deprived of them, their mood sours and they wear their discontent on their sleeves. Whether it be acknowledgement paid by others, having a luxury car, not having to put up with annoying people, or making sure all your personal accessories are made by Apple —whatever your pleasurable poison—I say if you’re the object of it, it’s fleeting.
 
Boy, with all this austere writing, I should probably go live in a monastery somewhere and kneel on rocks in prayer half the day long. I don’t deny my own faults. Most of what I write about is really a complaint against myself. It’s my own struggle with these issues that inspires my writing (except the Facebook page thing). I guess as I watch myself and those around me attempt to find happiness, I can’t help but notice that it is mostly our own needs and desires that guide our search. We do this from the accepted position that trying to be happy is a good thing, and I think it is. But I think we mistake being happy with having everything we want.  Or being liked by everyone we know, or having the perfect body, or having the perfect house that we somehow forget is just a house and not an indisputable sign of one’s intrinsic worth. This leads to a very circumstantial sense of happiness and one that doesn’t do much for anybody else.
 
If I’m going to be a monk, I guess I’ll have to give up my iPhone, which sucks, because I sure do love my iPhone. Although I can’t wait for the 5. Do you think it will have swipe text? I heard you might be able to use it as your Visa. I hope so.  I’ll be happy then.
 
 
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At the end of the workday, I walk out of the building in which I work, and a man asks me for money, an alcohol-scented request which I do not oblige. Yet as I walk away I wonder if I’m turning my back too quickly. I think sometimes beggars are actually opportunities for good deeds, disguised as repugnant examples of human apathy, irresponsibility, and body odor. I know that handing out cash is less a solution and more an enabling cop out, but it gives me some sense of security that even if I’m naively counting on the honesty of my help-ee, I’m doing something. The other option is taking the time (and sometimes risking your personal safety) to actually talk to the person standing in front of you, swearing that they’re a veteran of the Iraq war and that their car’s out of gas, asking you for money to help them get to work.

And when I’m feeling even more reflective, I see the beggar and wonder if life really is a zero-sum game that some say it is. There are only so many jobs, so many slots at universities, so many desirable places to live. There is only so much food (although we waste so much of it) and so much water (less now that I’ve taken another 20 minute shower) (and I would add there’s only so much oil, but we all know that the earth has an infinite supply of oil). But is this the way it has to be? Must socio-economic stratum include a lower class and the truly poor? We can’t all be rich, can we? No? Can we all simply have what we need? And if so, how do we get there without taking the rightful earnings of some and giving it to others who have earned nothing? The redistribution of wealth already occurs in large measure, and yet the problem of need remains. Perhaps it’s not that we just need more, but that we are helping in the wrong way. Or perhaps it is the very nature of civilized society today that perpetuates the systemic problems of our world, and particularly of our culture.

Need is a global problem, although it ranges in scale and scope by region. In America, without a doubt, there are certainly those that have either nothing or so few resources that they cannot live independently of government or community assistance. The cycle of poverty is a vicious one, as the loss of income, standard of living and the semblance of civilized life seems to deal a debilitating blow to the ability of the poor to recover. Yet poverty is also relative. The standard of living in America is comparatively high, and what counts as lower class or poor in the U.S.A. might be middle class elsewhere. It is this notion of class—so ingrained into the American psyche, reinforced by a prevalent consumerism—that is the real culprit, I think. We allow it to define us, to set our ambitions, and even to form our worldview. To be counted in the ranks of the poor must leave quite the impression. If society tells people what they are long enough, people begin to agree.

Worse yet, the path out of poverty is not always there for the taking. For the poor, one of the only sustainable means of upward mobility is the asset of labor, an asset whose worth is largely determined by education, and education is expensive. And in times like these, when labor is in abundant supply with still dwindling demand, the path is narrower still. Even more “worse yet,” the lower classes in America are prey to the forces in the economy that profit from need and want. Once upon a time, the poor were skin and bones (and in many places still are). Today in America we have the anomaly that obesity among the poor is increasing, as the cheapest food also tends to be the unhealthiest. Cheap food, cheap clothes, cheap everything—it can only be so cheap at a cost. Providing America with cheap goods means cheap manufacturing processes, which means cheap labor. And cheap labor can be found in some of the poorest countries in the world, who despite the business of big American manufacturers seem to remain poor. And cheap goods often means lower standards, and that can mean a lot of things, like pesticides on your tomatoes, hormones in your meat, lead in your toys, and pollution everywhere. Not to mention of course that many of the cheap goods that the poor buy are not to fulfill some objective need, but to fit in with the rest of the consuming classes in America, to create the appearance of wealth where it does not exist. And the government, the great benefactor, try though it might, cannot exert the oversight necessary to always ensure that the dollars it hands out go to the right people for the right things.

I know, I know. Who am I to talk about the poor as if I had once lived among them, or prepared an exhaustive survey of their social habits? I guess I’m just am observer, who’s observations, although not made with perfect knowledge, are made regularly nonetheless. And what have I observed? I have observed that need in America, while sometimes objective and plain to see, is other times the product of social constructions. Our culture praises form over substance, appearances over reality. It is better to look rich and be poor than to look poor (or be poor for that matter) and have a rich inner life. What we need to survive, to thrive even, is a fraction of what we often have, and a smaller fraction of what we want. The financially able consume with little regard for their need or its effect on the world, and then criticize the poor for being irresponsible. I have also observed that in our modern world, division of labor and our dependence on technology have so narrowed our roles in the workforce and the requirements of our vocations that we are left without many of the skills of our ancestors. If tomorrow we were forced out of our homes with the clothes on our backs and the tools in our garage, to live on land of thick forests and fields of rich soil, most of us would surely freeze or starve. This lack of wherewithal depletes us further yet. The keys to “success” in America are often discovered at the cost of character and humanity, and I fear that while we work towards acquiring the aims of our toil, we are actually bowing to the standards our culture professes, and nurturing that regrettable “acquisitive” tendency of humankind. Still we look on the poor with pity, as though we are so content.

I guess what I’m really saying is that those without may be freer than they realize. Of course hunger and vulnerability to the elements are nothing to be envied, and I’d be kidding myself if I didn’t admit that many would be better off with a stable income and a reliable standard of living. But this doesn’t mean that those things are more conducive to human happiness, but that maybe humans are too dependent on circumstances for their happiness and too blindly accept the values our society puts forward. To be homeless is a shameful thing, because people live in houses, that’s what people do. And they drive cars, and go to work in buildings, and go to college, and have closets full of clothes. If we can’t do those things, we’ve obviously failed. I know there are people who make it a point to have less, to live on only what they deem necessary to be healthy and without discomfort, and who work to sustain a sustainable way of life—all in the midst of developing their inner lives towards a satisfaction that does not depend on new things from the store or a bigger house or anything material at all. Maybe someday they will succeed in redefining what it means to be fulfilled in the modern world, and poverty will refer only those who lack in spirt and soul.

I used to see a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and, having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least, get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid, and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and, whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting.

-From Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

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