Sans Fig Leaf
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"Chewin' on life's gristle"
15 February, 2008
You could say I brought it
on myself.
I was surfing the net, when I came across an eloquently argued paean to
contentment. The writer's main point was that some people drive
themselves crazy trying to acheive a gleeful and giddy level of
happiness, without ever appreciating the value of contentment. The
problem was that the way the author described what contentment should
feel like sounded a lot more like grudging resignation.
I barely resisted the urge to send a comment to the writer that if they
didn't believe happiness was sustainable, they were doing it wrong.
That very night I began to feel the symptoms on a nasty flu. For more
than a week after I endured gastro-intestinal ickiness, stuffed head,
scratchy throat, aches and pains, and an overall run-down feeling.
Simultaneously, several stresses and frustrations arose at work. And,
just as the flu symptoms finally began to abate (more than a week after
starting), gout flared up in not one, but both of my feet.
I was grumpy and out of sorts for days and days. Just when I reached
that point where I was really angry at myself for being so grumpy,
something reminded me of the earlier commentary on contentment.
Thinking about how smug I'd felt about my own happiness, then thinking
about all those cranky days since, made me chuckle, because the joke
was definitely on me.
But then, as the Monty Python song says, the last laugh is always on us.
Once I was able to laugh at myself, I realized where my real
disagreement with the other writer was. Many people do seem to be
obsessed with the pursuit of glee or pleasure or other intense feelings
sometimes described as happiness, to the exclusion of less transient
feelings such as contentment or a sense of accomplishment. I agree that
there is a difference between that transient sort of happiness and an
enduring state of contentment. But it's more like the difference
between the act of seeing and the act of understanding.
Imagine we're part of a group of people watching a person working on a
mathematical problem on a chalk board. We may all see the person
perform all of the steps. Not all of us will understand what's
happening. Some will only understand while they are watching it, then
are incapable of solving an identical problem afterward. Some that do
understand well enough to solve a similar problem may not understand
the theory well enough to apply it to a problem which is less similar.
Some people may be quite capable of understanding, but they don't care
to, so they watch the demonstration, but they're thinking about
something else. Some people will believe that they are totally
incapable of understanding, and will watch, but not even try to follow
what's happening.
Yet we all saw the same demonstration.
That's what I mean about the difference between seeing versus
understanding. In a similar vein, happiness isn't merely an emotion or
feeling. It's an interpretation, an attitude, and a decision.
As we experience life, we also experience various emotions. The way
that we interpret them--the way we choose to assign meaning to both
events and emotions--changes the way we experience similar emotions
subsequently. If we decide that a the good feeling we get the moment
someone thanks us for doing something for them is the greatest part of
the experience, completely overshadowing the work we put into making
that moment happen, the consequences of our actions, et cetera, we may
become tempted to take shortcuts. We don't put in the work, we don't
pay attention to the context, and we have a more difficult time
achieving that satisfying moment again.
Or, if we assign too much importance to some specific details of the
events that led to the good feeling, the next time a similar feeling
comes along, we may be too busy looking for the missing details to
fully appreciate the moment. If we focus on the transience of that
initial burst of feeling, we may not notice the more enduring sense of
joy that can follow a moment of accomplishment. It's sort of like the
way we develop a tolerance to certain medications. Inappropriate use of
the substance causes us to "resist" it, so that larger quantities are
required later to achieve the same effect.
Except I'm not sure that's the right analogy. Sometimes emotions are
more like muscles. The ones you use get stronger. The ones you don't
use atrophy until you're barely capable of feeling them at all.
It's not just a matter of
strength, endurance is important, too. When I was in school, I ran in
track and cross country. I was into distance running, I was never a
great sprinter, but the 2-mile or 4-mile runs, those I was great at.
I think that finally
brings me to the analogy I'm looking for. The folks who believe that
happiness is unsustainable, are the kinds of people who may be decent
at a 50-meter dash, but the only way they will cover 4-miles is a long,
painful trudge.
I'd rather be a marathon
runner.
Life's a laugh, and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show, keep 'em laughin' as you go,
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
--Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,
written and performed by Eric Idle
.