Sunday, January 01, 2006
The Pursuit of Happiness
My wife is addicted to the weekly series "Gilmore Girls". I did not care for it at first, but she purchased an entire season on DVD,... so I sat and watched it with her, to be sociable, for 4 hours straight. Some things are acquired tastes, like ripe olives, sharp cheeses, strong whiskey and pipe tobacco.
Anyway, one main character, Luke Danes, owns and runs a lunch counter. He is always wearing a backwards baseball cap (except in a few bedroom scenes).
I am leading up to my point.
In several episodes, he has taken in a young man aged 20. One day, the young man, frustrated about something, makes a negative remark about the lunch counter/restaurant business. The owner/cook makes an interesting answer: "You should be grateful if you had such a business. I may work many hours at this, but I am my own boss, answer to no one, and make a decent living. No one can fire me or force me into early retirement."
I paraphrase what I can remember of his lines. But what he answered is the plus side of the small business entrepreneur in a nutshell.
We are, all of us, throughout all history, seeking "the better way", to avoid suffering and pursue happiness.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
"Seek pleasure. Avoid pain." This is a wisdom of all living creatures, down to protozoa.
Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed, Marx, Hitler and Dale Carnegie, to mention only a few, have all addressed the manner and methods of this pursuit of happiness with different techniques but a similar goal.
Camus, in his "Myth of Sisyphus", concludes that even Sisyphus may find some measure of existential happiness, during those moments that he walks back down the hill, to begin his eternal labor anew.
Viktor Frankel managed to find some measure of happiness even in a concentration camp. Frankel said "Our final freedom, which no one can rob, is our inner freedom to choose how we shall regard those circumstances in our life which we cannot change." (paraphrased)
In the final chapter of Camus' "The Stranger", we see the state of mind of Merseult, as he awaits execution.
The word "equanimity" comes to my mind; an evenly balanced spirit, like the keel of a great ship, which steadies its course through the roughest sea.
It is never hard to find extremely wealthy and successful people who are morbidly unhappy: Kurt Cobain, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemmingway, to name but a few. They cannot find happiness in their fame or wealth, in sexual pleasure or intoxicants.
We can also find people who live very simple lives, but find happiness in the smallest thing, in a leaf or a feather swirling in the wind, like a Forrest Gump.
Odysseus escaped certain death at the hands of Cyclops by calling himself "No-Man". Postmodern man is a no-man become Everyman.
If you ever have the opportunity to watch the movie version of Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge", you will see a young man who is restless and in pursuit of happiness.
He travels about the world, and rubs shoulders with dockworkers and transients. He plays cards with an unusual man who occasionally cheats. One day, he asks that man what he is running away from. The old man answers, that there is someone who relentlessly pursues him. "Well, why don't you face your pursuer. Perhaps prison or death would be better than constantly running away. The old man replies, "It is no person who pursues me. You see, I was a priest, but I left my vocation. It is God who pursues me with forgiveness. That is what I cannot endure and seek to escape." (paraphrased from memory).
The old priest tells him of a holy man in India. In real life, that man was Ramana Maharshi. Maugham visited the guru in India and based his novel on that visit.
At the end of the movie, the holy man sends our hero up on a lonely mountain, to dwell in a hut in solitude. After weeks, the guru climbs the mountain, with long beard, and staff in hand, as we imagine Moses, to visit the American. Our hero has achieved his vision of enlightenment, a feeling at dawn, seeing the sun rising.
The guru explains that the American must return now, to daily life, and carry with him always the memory of this moment of enlightenment.
Together they descend the mountain, just as Sisyphus, to begin that futile task of daily life once again, but now, with a vision, a memory, a choice, a freedom in our exile on death row, awaiting our unavoidable death sentence.
Anyway, one main character, Luke Danes, owns and runs a lunch counter. He is always wearing a backwards baseball cap (except in a few bedroom scenes).
I am leading up to my point.
In several episodes, he has taken in a young man aged 20. One day, the young man, frustrated about something, makes a negative remark about the lunch counter/restaurant business. The owner/cook makes an interesting answer: "You should be grateful if you had such a business. I may work many hours at this, but I am my own boss, answer to no one, and make a decent living. No one can fire me or force me into early retirement."
I paraphrase what I can remember of his lines. But what he answered is the plus side of the small business entrepreneur in a nutshell.
We are, all of us, throughout all history, seeking "the better way", to avoid suffering and pursue happiness.
"Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness".
"Seek pleasure. Avoid pain." This is a wisdom of all living creatures, down to protozoa.
Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed, Marx, Hitler and Dale Carnegie, to mention only a few, have all addressed the manner and methods of this pursuit of happiness with different techniques but a similar goal.
"Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to loose but your chains."
"I come to bring you life, and life more abundant."
"Win friends and influence people."
"Philosophy is a preparation for death."
"Work Shall Make You Free."
"O builder of this house on fire with desires, my body! I have discovered thee! This house thou shalt never rebuild! Thy rafters all are broken now, And pointed roof in ruins lies! This mind has reached this demolishment, and seen the last of all desire, the cause of all suffering!"
"Seek refuge from malignant witchcraft; from the evil, sneaking whisperer."
"They who are obedient shall all attain unto welfare."
Camus, in his "Myth of Sisyphus", concludes that even Sisyphus may find some measure of existential happiness, during those moments that he walks back down the hill, to begin his eternal labor anew.
Viktor Frankel managed to find some measure of happiness even in a concentration camp. Frankel said "Our final freedom, which no one can rob, is our inner freedom to choose how we shall regard those circumstances in our life which we cannot change." (paraphrased)
He lost everything, he said, that could be taken from a prisoner, except one thing; "the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
William Ernest Henley
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
In the final chapter of Camus' "The Stranger", we see the state of mind of Merseult, as he awaits execution.
Mersault is in his prison cell reflecting on his life and upcoming death. He remembers the time when his father went to an execution.
He remembers seeing a picture of an execution in the newspaper. He thinks about the shiny guillotine and calls it an efficient killing machine.
Mersault dreams about escaping the guillotine. He imagines fleeing from prison and being shot in the marketplace, which he feels would be a preferable death. He also imagines winning his appeal and being set free. He knows, however, that a man destined for execution has no hope of freedom.
The chaplain represents the religious and spiritual side of man, expecting forgiveness and believing in an afterlife. In contrast, Mersault is secular and down to earth. He is not devoid of emotion or imagination, but his perspective towards life is based on facts, not on hope that blindfolds the truth. As a result, Mersault is able to accept the absoluteness of his verdict, calling it a "brutal certitude." He does, however, believe that his execution will prove the absurdity of life. It is appropriate that Mersault will die an absurd death, for throughout the book he has been developed as an absurd man, living with detachment and lacking conventional values.
Mersault expresses no regret for his actions and refuses to ask for forgiveness. In fact when the Chaplain wants to pray for his soul, Mersault screams at him. However, after the Chaplain leaves, Mersault has an unusual sense of peace and calm, which allows him to sleep. When he wakes, he listens for the dawn, as usual, and wonders if this will be the day of his execution. He realizes, however, that he does not fear death; instead, he will welcome it as a chance to finally be in harmony with the indifferent universe.
The word "equanimity" comes to my mind; an evenly balanced spirit, like the keel of a great ship, which steadies its course through the roughest sea.
It is never hard to find extremely wealthy and successful people who are morbidly unhappy: Kurt Cobain, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Ernest Hemmingway, to name but a few. They cannot find happiness in their fame or wealth, in sexual pleasure or intoxicants.
We can also find people who live very simple lives, but find happiness in the smallest thing, in a leaf or a feather swirling in the wind, like a Forrest Gump.
Odysseus escaped certain death at the hands of Cyclops by calling himself "No-Man". Postmodern man is a no-man become Everyman.
If you ever have the opportunity to watch the movie version of Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge", you will see a young man who is restless and in pursuit of happiness.
He travels about the world, and rubs shoulders with dockworkers and transients. He plays cards with an unusual man who occasionally cheats. One day, he asks that man what he is running away from. The old man answers, that there is someone who relentlessly pursues him. "Well, why don't you face your pursuer. Perhaps prison or death would be better than constantly running away. The old man replies, "It is no person who pursues me. You see, I was a priest, but I left my vocation. It is God who pursues me with forgiveness. That is what I cannot endure and seek to escape." (paraphrased from memory).
The old priest tells him of a holy man in India. In real life, that man was Ramana Maharshi. Maugham visited the guru in India and based his novel on that visit.
At the end of the movie, the holy man sends our hero up on a lonely mountain, to dwell in a hut in solitude. After weeks, the guru climbs the mountain, with long beard, and staff in hand, as we imagine Moses, to visit the American. Our hero has achieved his vision of enlightenment, a feeling at dawn, seeing the sun rising.
The guru explains that the American must return now, to daily life, and carry with him always the memory of this moment of enlightenment.
Together they descend the mountain, just as Sisyphus, to begin that futile task of daily life once again, but now, with a vision, a memory, a choice, a freedom in our exile on death row, awaiting our unavoidable death sentence.
