Airs – Ian Lance Taylor

Happiness

One of the drawbacks of our secular age is that it is less clear what we should strive for in our lives. In medieval Europe it seems as though life goals were pretty clear for most people: keep your nose clean, and you get to go to heaven after you die. Heaven is a good place, and the details are left undefined because they are sort of hard to imagine.

Most people want to lead a good life, but my guess is that these days most people don’t really believe in a literal heaven. Without a set of rules handed down from the priests, how do we know what a good life consists of? Based on what I see in bookstores, a lot of people—at least enough for a niche publishing market—are aiming for happiness. A good life is a happy life.

This does not imply an outbreak of hedonism and selfishness, as many people are made happy by altruism and quiet reflection. However, to me, it doesn’t seem like the right sort of goal. I don’t think I have the goals of a good life fully pinned down, and it’s not like I think one should strive to be unhappy, but happiness as a goal doesn’t seem right to me. It seems to me that happiness should be a result of a good life. We should aim to do the right thing; if we succeed, we can expect to be happy. Aiming for happiness seems to put it the wrong way around.

Happiness by itself just seems too disconnected, too prone to short-circuiting a deeper examination of the situation.

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Ian Lance Taylor

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5 responses to “Happiness”

  1. bartv Avatar
    bartv

    Well, are you sure you need something to strive for? I think the idea that there should be a grand masterplan to your life is an unnecessary one that comes from the religious background/history of society. It was the logical continuation from the dogma that there is a grand masterplan behind the universe (what people called God).

    Now that it is increasingly clear that there is no grand masterplan behind the universe, the automatic conclusion that there should also be a grand masterplan behind your life is, to me, not convincing anymore.

    Don’t misunderstand me : I am not nihilistic. I have things I want to achieve and do. But they are neither final nor do they exist beyond myself. If they were, then I should be OK to get killed (or kill myself) once I would have fullfilled them. Which I am not. I suspect that the majority of people feel the same way, but the pervasiveness of the religious thought both in society and in (increasingly it seems) our biological make-up, prevent them from shedding the idea of the grand-masterplan.

  2. tromey Avatar
    tromey

    There’s always Maslow’s hierarchy.

    Or Erik Erikson’s research into adult development — though that is more about discussing what you will do whether you aim for it or not.

    Or consciousness, the buddhist answer (to put it succinctly).

    FWIW I tend to agree overall. Happiness is an emotion, it will come and go. Real tragedies do happen and if you are happy in the face of these, you are probably mentally ill.

    However, one can do the right thing and still be miserable. In fact this happens frequently, I think, and is perhaps a major reason that people behave badly — they are trying to avoid the pain.

  3. ncm Avatar
    ncm

    Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has worked on this question for decades with collaborators all over the world, and his book, “Flow”, records his results. In short, happy people, everywhere, are those who reflexively measure how well they’re doing whatever they do, and always seek to improve those measures.

  4. rskrishnan Avatar
    rskrishnan

    I tend to agree with bartv. I don’t necessarily claim to have found “it” in any way or form, but I think the idea that there is no real “it” is looking more and more appealing (and it’s not a case of sour grapes).
    If have a few hours – I think “The Fall” is a good read – a combination of clarity of thought and hope.

  5. Ian Lance Taylor Avatar
    Ian Lance Taylor

    bartv: I don’t think I needs a grand master plan. But I guess that I do think I should lead a good life, and that means some understanding of what that means. That is, the thing to strive for is not some specific set of goals, but the notion of a good life in itself.

    tromey: It’s clearly true that for some people consciousness is enough in itself, and perhaps that would be true for me too if I had been raised as a Buddhist. I do note that I think that I may be more optimistic than you are by nature.

    ncm: I think you could turn that into a best-selling business book.

    rkirshnan: Thanks for the recommendation. I read The Plague a while back.

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