The Happiness Conundrum

I have lately been running across articles on happiness, many that encourage making a project out of it and a liberating few that question the whole notion. I am not one, in general, to want to make a project out of anything for the simple reason that the joy of living seems to quickly disappear the moment I want to force things in one direction or another, particularly where my emotional life is concerned. 

Expectations have a way of sapping the life out of relationships whether that is the relationship I have with myself or whether it is the one I have with others. Standards are important, I think, but making happiness a project, expecting that life should be happy, entertaining notions of entitlement to happiness, strike me as somewhat misguided.

Pain seems to be an inherent component of living and, as I mentioned in my blog post on paradox, the dissonant aspects of life are part and parcel of the harmonious (or happy ones, if you will). To expect to be happy most of the time seems like naive wish fulfillment to me--a childish dream. Where is the respect for suffering? 

In my own experience the degree to which I am comfortable in my life is often the degree to which I may be anesthetized or numbed to the pain of others and also to the more troubling emotions that populate my own heart and mind. 

If I want to be fully alive (and perhaps this is where my notion of happiness resides) I must be alive to everything, to the whole construct, not just to my favourite parts of it. I seriously question whether happiness should be a goal as such.

I prefer to let life speak for itself, to experience joy with gratitude when it surfaces, but to experience pain with a degree of appreciation and respect for the way in which it broadens my mind, opens my heart and keeps me from being complacent and inured to all the vibrancy of life. 

There may be something to the notion of cultivating one's life in such a way as to create optimal conditions for happiness to make its appearance, but not, in my opinion, at the expense of life's dissonance. Perhaps we should consider the possibility that dissonance plays an important, even vital, role in our lives that gets short shrift. 

Happiness may even be dependent on respect for the fruit of our suffering. This may seem harsh and depressing, but I believe it a reasonably accurate reflection given what seems to be the nature of life in general. From my point of view it is harder, emotionally, to live in contradiction to this basic truth.

Ironically, I am happier when I allow for life's inevitable dissonance-when I am flexible enough to roll with the punches-not when I create a happiness project requiring its avoidance or eradication.

A Greater Sense of Ease

Part of what motivates me to keep things simple in my life is the sense of ease that accompanies it. There are still times when I get caught up in unnecessarily complicating the orchestration of whatever it is I am engaged in, but I breathe a sigh of relief when I at last remember that it doesn’t have to be that way—there is generally always a way to pare things down and clarify.

An example of this would be shopping for clothes. When I need something I am confronted with what seems to me an outrageous variety of colours, styles, sizes and quality. Part of me appreciates that I have options, but another part of me resents the fact that 80% of those options, aren’t really reasonable options. I find myself bombarded with a dizzying array of clothes that are either poor quality, poor fit, poor design or ridiculously expensive. Then there is the ethics of clothing manufacture to consider adding one more layer of complexity to the endeavour.

Sometimes I wonder whether a uniform of sorts would be a good idea, like the Indian sari. It is beautiful, practical, looks good on all shapes and sizes, and is the essence of simplicity as it is one piece of fabric. It is used for all occasions as well.

 I am so taken with this notion that I have lately been dreaming up my own variation on this theme, which involves jeans and t-shirt or blouse of some sort—not the most unique of conceptions, but it fits my lifestyle and innovation comes from designing it to suit all occasions. I’m a bit of a rebel here, for I agree with Thoreau who said, “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”

Living in the mundane world is sometimes a complicated venture, but I am determined daily to keep it as simple as I can. Basic good design, a few well-chosen things that delight the senses and knowing when enough is enough—the art of contentment, a greater sense of ease, a work in progress.

A Place for Pleasure

There would be little point in living a simple life if there were no pleasure in it. I think pleasure is an important aspect of being alive, and I am speaking here of pleasure in the sense of the intimate connection we have to people, places and things around us—a small dinner party with friends, a glass of really good red wine, the smell of poplar trees in the spring, laughter. 

I want to make a distinction, however, between the deep pleasures I have just mentioned and the more superficial variety, such as the thrill people sometimes experience when shopping, engaging in casual sex with a stranger, or getting completely drunk or high—these, in my opinion, are facsimiles of pleasure at best.

I do not mean to moralize here. Sex can be a deeply pleasurable experience, no contest. All I mean to say is that a deeply felt sense of pleasure cannot be derived from a superficial, relatively thoughtless engagement with life. 

The moments that have provided me with sustenance are always the ones where I was intimately connected and alive to what was happening around me—starting my dance badge in ice skating, swimming naked in a small beautiful river, brushing my hand over a lavender plant and smelling the intoxicating aroma of fresh lavender, downhill skiing. 

I believe that these moments have the power to nurture and sustain us, to the degree that we are awake and alive to them. That is why a minimal, but nonetheless, elegant life is important to me. I have time to be present to all the richness of life around me. 

Pleasure requires an immersion in life, a savouring of experience. It is present to the degree that we cultivate intimacy with all the people, places and things that surround us. It requires taking one’s time, going slowly and being sensitive to the way things feel, the way they speak to us and leave impressions. I believe it is as essential to life as breathing. There would be no point to life without these moments. 

We often exaggerate the importance of status, money and the acquisition of material goods, and they, consequently, end up taking over our lives. We treat pleasure like it is a luxury item, subordinating it to all the aforementioned. I think this is a tragedy and greatly misses the point in being alive at all. 

Pleasure wants us to be open and receptive, warm and inviting in orientation to life. It wants us to dig in and have a good time!

Make a place for pleasure. Your life in the most meaningful sense depends on it.

The Art of Letting Go

'Just let go' is one of those buzz-phrases that makes me wince inwardly, as it seems that people often bandy it about, with all the credibility of Nancy Reagan encouraging people to ‘just say no to drugs.’ On one level it is just that simple and on another, very real level, it is not.

Acceptance is a word I like a little better as it gives you some idea of what is involved in the act of letting go. I think the notion stems mainly from Taoist and other Asian religious philosophies, which stress the importance of living life in harmony with nature. Rather than fighting to control our lives in a bid for happiness and freedom, they suggest aligning our lives with the natural order of things. 

Struggling against the momentum of the universe by struggling against the moment we are in is understood to be foolish, painful and ultimately pointless. No freedom and happiness there. The idea is that Nature is intelligent, the Universe as a whole, is as it should be, and therefore our lives, in some fundamental way, are as well. This is where true freedom lies, though the whole notion is antithetical to the way our society is constructed--we are taught to believe in CONTROL.

In the West we are rewarded for competing successfully, even if that means stepping on other people’s heads—message being, presumably, that happiness lies just on the other side of an insatiable appetite for conquest and the rewards of money and consumer goods. At best all that does is distract us temporarily and give us a hangover, of sorts. 

Happiness is ours for the taking and freedom lies not in the systematic conquest of nature (read: ourselves, others, life in general), but in respect and reverence. We need to learn how to let life be on some level. The world is what it is, whether we choose to acknowledge and live sensitive to that truth or not. Living in harmony with Nature’s intelligence makes sense and guides us into a way of life that is more accepting, effortless and carefree. 

Letting go in this context means allowing ourselves to be human, and making allowance for others to be human as well. This requires humility, intelligence, courage and trust, all of which are key to a life of simplicity, happiness and freedom.