What Happiness Isn’t

Maybe it’s a hot berry pie with three scoops of ice cream?

Three in the morning in Melbourne. Princess Fluffypants — my dearest darling cat — decided that this was a perfect time to give herself an extended full body wash. Liquid sounds involving tongues and gurgles of pleasure are not unknown in my bed, but I cannot say that this particular episode was doing me any good.

So here I am.

What is happiness?

Or, as the French would say, “What is ‘appeniss?”

Something involving pleasure, most would say, but I beg to differ.

What sparked my musing — and my crepuscular cat spurred into action — was an interchange I had yesterday:

Are you familiar with the concept of intergenerational trauma? In order for individuals and humanity to actually BE happy, we need to acknowledge and validate trauma, so that we CAN move past it. — Sallyanne Hitler (not her real name)

I’m sure Sallyanne believes this, and is merely passing on her wisdom, but frankly, I’ve never heard such a load of guff in my life.

And I’ve been around. Drunken midnight conversations in youth hostel common rooms have nothing on this.

As an aside, you ever try to talk some sense into a drunk who is convinced they have the secrets to the universe at their command after a joint or three?

Nod and smile and wait until they go off to raid the snack machine, get distracted by the dunny, and never come back.

Or if they do, you have found the exit and gone off to clamber into your bunk bed, careful not to disturb the German backpackers who are enjoying their last hour of sleep before stumbling awake, clumsily packing and noisily heading off to catch their dawn flight.

Moving past trauma

Intergenerational trauma may or may not be a thing. This was in the context of whether one’s ancestors might have been conceived through rape, and while I am sure we all have ancestors who were rapists, I am equally sure that I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.

Fellers, maybe your great-grandad was a rapist, a village blacksmith, and enjoyed pineapple on his pizza. You don’t have to do any of those things, okay? It’s not mandatory.

One doesn’t have to be unhappy as a precondition to being happy, is what I’m saying. You can go straight from meh to fab without passing through gak.

I’m pretty sure I come from a different tradition than Ms Hitler. In my culture, happiness is available all the time. All that is required is the desire to be happy, and there you are.

Hot berry pie not required

I’m not averse to a good slice of sweet baked dessert, mind, but I don’t need to go through dinner to find happiness. “Stressed” is the opposite of “desserts”, as a sign behind the counter of Mr D’z in Kingman AZ notes, but although it is good advice, and I can heartily recommend their pie, neither word has anything to do with happiness.

That sort of delicious feeling is pleasure, and pleasure is fleeting, generated by something external. Pie, a purring cat, a rainbow, a nocturnal adventure…

Granted, sometimes intense pleasure comes from something internal, but I’m not talking about anything physical here.

A life spent in the pursuit of pleasure is a wasted life. Fun, sure, but does it advance humanity’s path to happiness? Does it help us to understand our place in the cosmos?

Happiness is freedom

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is the motto on America’s thousand dollar bill, but although Americans like to say that they have liberty and that makes them special, the reality is that they have more of their citizens behind bars than Soviet Russia at the height of the gulag system, so that’s more guff we may safely set aside.

Happiness, at least in my tradition, is contentment, acceptance of the way things are and the absence of any desire or attachment to anything else.

There’s no inter-generational trauma involved. The past is gone, there’s nothing we can do about it, there’s no point stressing over something we cannot control.

Likewise the future. It’s also out of our control. Who saw this dreadful year coming with 2020 clarity, hey? Nobody. We might plan for a wonderful life ahead, but in the end it may not happen despite our best efforts. We absent-mindedly step into the road, the 471 bus collects us, and we miss our chance at eternal sunshine.

Happiness is freedom from stress, worry, anger, hate, blame, or criticism. My friend Ms Hitler seems to enjoy all those emotions, but I don’t. I accept that the cosmos is the way it is, the present moment is all I have, and I’ll be happy for this moment because any other option is worse.

That doesn’t mean that I condone rape or genocide

Accepting that the world is not perfect doesn’t mean that I turn a blind eye, or encourage, bad behaviour. On the contrary. I encourage good, lawful, positive, productive, and loving actions. I think that all of us should work to the common good. As one of my favourite Sanskrit prayers says,

May all be happy May all be without disease May all creatures have wellbeing And none be in misery of any sort –Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

But I’m not humanity’s happiness enforcer. That sort of thing never leads to anything positive. A need for a perfect world is a recognition of imperfection, and an implicit postponement of happiness indefinitely.

Happiness is always available

We don’t need pie or a day at the beach. Just the acceptance that the universe is doing just fine without our hand at the controls.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. — Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

But, having said all the above, I don’t think there is any doubt that happiness is better with three scoops of ice cream on top.

Britni

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