I shat this morning too. I am happy!

I have blogged in plenty about happiness.  Perhaps even obsessively.  It is not at all strange to me that I think a lot about death as much as I do about happiness.  How could one not?!

One aspect of happiness that has always bothered me, and in increasing magnitude as I get older, is the "pursuit" of it.  As I noted in this post earlier this summer, when the context comes up--and it always comes up in any class that I teach--I remind students that they can go to Walmart or Amazon or wherever and buy whatever they can afford to, or even not afford to ... but, no retailer sells at any price something that we often talk about--happiness.

I commented here about the impossibility of pursuing happiness; if at all, we are in pursuit of death, from the moment that we are born!  The challenge in life then is to find that inner happiness when we pursue the ending that awaits us all.

"Pursuit" of happiness?  WTF!?

The Epicurean outlook on happiness – which Thomas Jefferson was thinking of when he enjoined Americans to cherish ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ in the Declaration of Independence – is exceedingly simple and different. As Epicurus saw it, happiness is merely the lack of aponia – physical pain – and ataraxia – mental disturbance. It was not about the pursuit of material gain, or notching up gratifying experiences, but instead was a happiness that lent itself to a constant gratefulness. So long as we are not in mental or physical pain, we can, within this understanding of happiness, be contented.

I am on-board with this interpretation of happiness.  Well, except about praising Jefferson.

Think about the lack of pain and not suffering from any mental disturbance.  What an awesome life that is, right?

One can see this understanding of happiness across the foundations of the Western world, as in the Jewish prayer of asher yatzar, in which each morning, after going to the bathroom, one says thanks for being able to achieve even this most basic task under one’s own power. Happiness, in the Epicurean sense, is as simple as being able to go pee.

Being constipated for a couple of days will be enough for anybody to appreciate such a view of happiness.

Alas, we live in a world in which happiness is all about the external.  People buy stuff, go places, and document all these in order to demonstrate that they are happy.  Money is made by those promising such fake happiness, and those chasing the fake lose time and money.  "But all of this happy pretending catches up. A person living in a Western culture is about four to 10 times more likely to develop clinical depression or anxiety than a person in an Eastern culture."

I am not sure about the Eastern culture either.  Back in the old country, people seem to be in the "pursuit" of happiness as much as people in the West do.  We are messed up all over world.

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