Toll can write of how we need to be more settled, your therapist can tell you that you’re being destructive, you can realise this yourself, you can buy any number of books on how to change your life, drugs may give you temporary relief, the legal ones can dull your senses, so can alcohol, you can stay busy to stay happy, you can love the drama to stay alert and alive, but happy? It’s not that simple….
Marcuse wrote of the impetus to chase a dream, that the endless pursuit of an ideal destination drove people towards accumulating stuff that might one day make their consumption complete and let them finally then get on with being happy. To Marcuse this is a delusion, and it is a problem that prevents their actualisation because they are identifying their self with products, as a consumer. The quest for more and more and better and better is just a prelude, a present imagining of tomorrow’s happiness. We could name that ending place ‘contentment’, treating the concept of happiness as if it were a destination that could be arrived at by following a set of steps or buying a range of products or experiences. But how many people do you know who are contented, if they are also burdened with stuff and actively trying to accumulate more?
If you’re rich then you manage your portfolio as your primary daily task, if you are poor then you manage bills and burdens, if you are ambitious then you’re seeking something, if you’re modern you likely wish for some sort of validation, if you are troubled then the end to your troubles is what you may be working toward. Goals are all around us, we are always working toward something even if that something is distraction.
We want things and stuff, but we need to be regarded, we may have gotten these assertions the wrong way around, mentally focussing on the former and ignoring the latter. That latter one is interesting, I understand it to mean the intimacy and love of close persons, just few of them, to provide an emotional transaction of good feelings in a somewhat altruistic way (but not quite purely) and without caveat (unconditionally). From my limited readings of psychology papers this seems to be a harmoniously recognised primary need for all humans, so whence does the expression “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me” derive from? I suspect that the statement leaves something out, and it should read “I don’t care what anyone who I don’t have regard for thinks of me”.
You cannot buy all the things that will make you fulfilled. Better things will come along faster than you can absorb them, and if you could buy anything, because you have the means to, you’d just get bored and start purchasing experiences that are increasingly extreme. Worse yet, you may become powerful and enjoy playing with other people’s lives like pawns on a chessboard. This is not a good one because power is the opposite of benevolence, power is based on restriction not enablement or freedom. That important aspect is something neoliberals strongly need to learn! Another mistake is to do charity the wrong way, to draw attention to yourself by making yourself the lens by which other people look at problems they have usually chosen to not notice. I am particularly strongly against virtue signalling, actually do what you can to help, the reward is better for the self.
Happiness is an attitude, I have decided this. Now before you call me delusional let me explain. I admire religious people somewhat, but only for one reason, something that Nietzsche berated them over in his book ‘the genealogy of morals’. A believer can cultivate an idea of happiness and fulfilment by naming the barrier that they put up to stop them realising their base desires, calling it virtue. So they become happy by not having what they want, which sounds like a paradox because it is. Of course this is bullshit, but it’s bullshit that quells them a bit for a while, purposeful bullshit. Now Freud might have said that their Id was out of alignment with their Ego because their Superego was too successful in winning the fight, and he may have speculated that someday the fragile illusion would break apart, Yet religious people seem to find contentment in scripture-based interpretations, ones I suspect they know to be falsehoods, and that makes them happy. It’s not a happiness I would want, it’s kind of like climbing into Nozick’s experience machine where you would be guaranteed to feel a false elation and soon oblivious that it was a falsehood.
False belief is a delusional, but a delusion is just one way to stop the spiral of desire and disappointment, another is to value now and appreciate standing still. There will always be turmoil, life is complex, bad things happen, there is no fairness, but one can try to take a different attitude towards the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Seneca thought you could simply decide how you wished to feel and than feel that, now wouldn’t that be wonderful if it could be achieved? I made a suggestion to a friend recently, someone that is very much currently not enjoying enduring a hard time. A bit of amateur psychology on my part this was, based on my personal observation that all anxiety drives from a perspective of future uncertainty. I suggested that this pal book a holiday to allow them to have something right now to look forward to in the right now, something they anticipate with happiness that will stand as both a constant underlying distraction to the now, and a placeholder in their mind for them to shift their thinking towards whenever they feel overburdened with whatever metaphorical shit-sandwich they are currently consuming.
I personally am stuck, not in a rut, but paralyzed by the fear of change. My attitude holds me back from escaping circumstances that consistently cause me to feel frustrated and angry, yet I am a thoroughly happy man. I’ve come to actually enjoy being frustrated, does that sound weird? I described in a previous post how angry I am all the time (on the inside). I had a therapist a while back and she helped me, I should say guided, or counselled, or just say she sat there and let me find my own resolution, because therapy does not work how you imagine. You go, you have a problem, you work on yourself and resolve your problem, the therapist merely facilitates this process. It’s really not like some dude with beard and a couch wanting you to tell them how you feel about your mum, at least it wasn’t for me.
The problem with writing this piece, one that encourages the reader to re-frame their happiness into an attitude, is that it may discourage change. I am aware of the paradox in Stoic traditions where they may act to stifle the potential revolution. I mean that if happiness could be achieved attitudinally, then North Koreans could be perfectly happy in a regime that oppresses them to the Nth degree, and if happiness can be achieved no matter what happens to you, and Seneca is correct about you being able to choose, then someone could kill your brother and you might smile and seek no retribution because you decided for that state of mind. So I’m not completely won over, but when you are unable to affect your circumstances, because of your inability to change personally, or your fear of the challenges possibly involved in change, then it is useful.
Robert Nozick, the guy I mentioned earlier, seemed to think that people did not wish to be happy or live a life that was fair, mainly I think because it would be too sedate. There’s something in this perspective that is at least interesting… If people have the capacity, intellectual capital, resources, and desire to collectively create a situation of happiness for all, and I think we could, then why does it not exist? The reason cannot be that anyone wishes actively to be unhappy can it? Maybe there is a deep need to always have barriers to get over, maybe it takes strife to enjoy achievement more, maybe we are incapable of contentment. I do not have an answer.
I’d still say, even when you are happy, when and if you get the chance, fire up the torch and begin the revolution (in small ways). Happiness is great most of the time but anger can also be an ally.
pinkfloydpsw's Blog 
Leave a comment