happiness.doc

HAPPINESSRobert Coles 1No other country in the world has worked the notion of happiness into its Constitution, the very source of its national authority, the way the founding fathers of the United States of America chose to do when they linked the pursuit of happiness with life and with liberty as a trio of utterly inalienable rights. Not that happiness was, thereupon, defined. Anyway, a pursuit was specified - perhaps a rather knowing decision, in the tradition of Don Quixote, that the journey or way is better than the inn. Happiness, a psychoanalytic supervisor of mine used to tell me, again and again, as I presented information to him about my patients, is something people yearn for. Hed stop, and after a while Id know the next sentence: When they have it, theyve redefined it, so they can keep searching. Again, one thinks of Cervantes hero- not to mention any number of restless heroes and heroines in the novels of, say, George Eliot or Hardy or D. H. Lawrence. 2What is happiness? The word itself only appeared in our English language during the sixteenth century, and is etymologically and, yes, spiritually connected to the word happen - which, of course, has to do with the occurrence of an event. Happiness in Shakespeares time, and later as well, referred to good fortune, good luck to favorable circumstances visited, somehow, on a particular person who registered such a state of affairs subjectively with a condition of good cheer, pleasurable feeling. One was satisfied with ones situation, glad to be in ones given place and time by virtue of how ones life has gone. The emphasis is, put differently, upon fate - an almost external force. To be sure, individuals craved pleasure, money, power, territory, a certain woman, a certain man - but happiness was not in itself sought. Rather, a persons personal and workaday success was noted by that person, and thankfully acknowledged- his or hers by virtue of divine grace or the stars and their mysterious doings, or, quite simply, a series of fortuitous events 3Without question there were different interpretations of what prompts happiness, and what constitutes it. For many devoutly religious people (to this day), a stroke of business success, a marriage that works, the emergence over time of strong, intelligent well-behaved children who seem able and content with their lot in life are all signs of sorts, evidence of Gods favor. For those who dont know what to believe (about this life, and .our place or purpose on earth), happiness seems something accidental, contingent, or, at best, a feeling for which one has worked hard indeed. But now wearer a bit ahead of, ourselves, historically: years ago, there was a sense of awe about happiness-as if it were visited upon some in accordance with the unfathomable workings of an inscrutable universe. It was only in more recent times, as men and women became more the center of this world (in their own minds, more the makers, the doers, the ones who wield and see the consequences, that happiness became, with everything else, a goal, a purpose, or, as those hard working, ambitious rationalists who framed our Constitution put it something for which a pursuit is waged, No longer does happiness happen happiness is obtained. 4But again the question has to be asked: what was this happiness which increasingly became mentioned by people in England and America from, say, 1600 or so onward? The English poet Alexander Pope, always one to render a quotable statement, once exclaimed Oh Happiness! Then he tried his hand at spelling the matter out: Our beings end and aim! Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! Whatever thy name. An interesting way of regarding an elusive quality of mind and heart. First, the avowal that, the possession of happiness is connected to our very purpose in life, to the central thrust of our human striving, to our aspirations as the peculiar creature which - well, has just that, the capacity to have aspirations. Then, a kind of bafflement: the poet, handy with words as he was, surrenders to the puzzling variety of hope and direction and orientation among us mortals. He makes a list, a various one at that; and yes, the list still works as we consider “happiness.” 5For some, Good is yet what counts: happiness as the inner feeling that corresponds to a moral perception of the part of a person. I have done my duty to God and country; I have lived as I was taught it is right to live, and Im ready to die happy-the words of an ordinary twentieth century American working woman a nurse of fifty, actually, whod raised her two children well lived out a solid, satisfying marriage with her optometrist bus band oncologists, and, she would sometimes add, her minister. He prays for my recovery, she once told me, and then added, but I dont believe you can bargain with God that way. Ill be dying soon and I know it. I dont pray to God that He give me more life; I pray to God that the life Ive already lived not be judged too bad and too sinful when I meet Him. I think Ive been a fairly decent person, and so Im not afraid. To tell the truth, except when Im in pain, Im quite happy. . 6Popes next category is Pleasure, and in years of medical and psychiatric work, I find that second line of response ever on the minds of todays men and women, especially the young. I happen to give a course at Harvard College(and another, similar one, at Harvard Medical School) titled Moral and Social Inquiry. We read poets, documentary essayists, and novelists who have, in their own ways, tried to figure out what men and women want out of life, and why. After exposure to the likes of James Agee and George Orwell, Tillie Olsen and Flannery OConnor Walker Percy and Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Day and Simone Weil, and, not least, those three marvelous Victorian storytellers, Dickens George Eliot, and Hardy, the students write their papers; and often enough, the papers are deeply personal: an effort to connect what theyve read to what the students are struggling to do, to be. Not rarely, the question of happiness comes up. 7Here is one young woman saying a few things about a college, a culture, a class of people, and, not leas herself I guess I expected to come to school here. I know I sound spoiled, but I was brought up to think Id go to a good college, an Ivy League school, and that Id have most of the good things in life, as a matter of course. I put quotation marks around that phrase, because its my mothers. She would tell us that she expected us to be have, and work hard, but thered be lots of fun, and if we would just be patient, wed get all wed ever want, as a matter of course. And mostly, I just assumed she was right, and wed get all the joy life has to offer. And thats how its turned out: Ive had just about every opportunity there is, every luxury Ive ever wanted. Sometimes, I wonder whats left in life! Is there any enjoyment I havent had? And I get the impression itll go on and on, until l die: comforts galore 8pleasure, then, is for many of us happiness: pleasure in possession, and pleasure in the capital weve accumulated, and pleasure in the authority we wield over others, and pleasure in the involvements we are taught we must have with others. 9. And Popes next variable Ease, is for us much connected to that pleasure. Such was not, of course, always the case. 10Years ago pleasure was not so readily obtained, had to be sought long and hard, and was by no means the mark of an entire lifestyle. William Carlos Williams, in a letter to a young friend (1950), pointed out that pleasure had to do with time - and not the extent of it some of us might think desirable: Im up early, and to bed late, working with my patients all day, and working at my poems or stories at night. Its the long haul that counts! Every once in a while, Ill stop and realize that Im happy with my doctoring and happy with what Ive been writing and happy at home, with my family; but hell, you dont live your life thinking that way. Happiness is an afterthought; it comes after years of putting out the energy, making the commitments, standing by them though thick and thin. 11An American modernist writer, an American physician of this century, Williams was hardly a stoic or a puritan. On the contrary, he was a passionate person whose poetry reveals a constant delight in the everyday things (and people! ) of this life. His eye took great pleasure in the natural landscape, and in the human one as well. His ears caught with joy the music of this world - sounds, accents, whispers, outbursts, sheer noise. He could celebrate the sensual. He loved:, especially, the feminine side of this earthly existence - women as our bearers, providers, and for him the incarnation of so very much that is civilized as opposed to crude and truculent and demanding. 12Ever playful with words, but at the same time, dead serious in such fun, Williams once told me: There are those who bear, and those who overbear, and if such sexually connected, large-scale distinction now seem outdated or naive over thirty years have passed then his way of commenting those two categories of being to the matter of happiness may still offer us reason for appreciative pause: “those who bear who give life and nourish life and you can do so, if youre a bachelor or a spinster, in the way you care for others those are the people who find happiness only gradually, in the long run; the others, who are over-bearing, grab what they can, pronto, and call it happiness, but theyre always grabbing, so theres a discontent there, lots of it! 13The word discontent connects, of course, with Popes last, categorical effort to provide a synonym for happiness: Content. He meant, one assumes, not the dubious contentment of smugness, of pride, of self-importance, but rather a state of mind characterized by a restfulness of sorts with respect to oneself: a self-respect that lasts, and prompts, yes, happiness. Nor is such a content feeling only the property of old age. The college students and medical students I teach have come to see me during my office hours and they have told me of decisions theyve made (serious ones, indeed) and the subsequent (and consequent!) contentment theyve experienced, often to their surprise. One young woman wanted me to know this: Ive struggled for two years about what Im going to do with myself - my future, my career. Ive struggled with my personal life, too: what kind of man will I get really serious with, and end up marrying. I dont have the answers for others, not even for my good friends; but Ive thought of others, as well as me. And the result is I feel a little better about things - a little peace within myself! 14She was, in her own fashion, indicating that there is a moral side to this life