On Happiness

If we are asked what our ultimate goal is, we are often driven to the conclusion that we all want to be happy. As we become more mature, we realise the reality is not as promising as what we hope to be. We are always confronted with repetitions of misfortunes and worries. Therefore, it is not uncommon to ask how we can obtain an abstract notion of what we may call "happiness". In the world of philosophy, from Plato to Bertrand Russell, they suggest what constitutes happiness as if it is in the control of our own hands. However strong our faith in the existence of free will, empirical evidence suggests the possession of happiness depends on mere sheer luck. But does that mean it is impossible to obtain happiness except to submit ourselves to the mysterious force of what we call "luck"?

Happiness is not possible if we do not know what we are looking for. But there comes the paradox. What makes us happy is often not the notion of 'happiness" per se, but rather the process of pursuing it. Alain de Botton makes a similar case for love in his "Essays in Love",

"There is the old joke made by the Marx who laughed about not deigning to belong to a club that would accept someone like him as a member, a truth as appropriate in love as it is in club membership. We laughed at the Marxist position because of its absurd contradictions: How is it possible that I should wish to join a club and then lose that wish as soon as it comes true?"

The easiest people to fall in love with are those whom we know nothing because they defy our ease of understanding. Our longing to possess someone lies not in a clear-eyed investigation of one's personality, but in knowing it as less as possible. Familiarity breeds contempt. We ought not to forget the fact that men are creatures of habit and therefore liable to grow contemptuous of what is familiar. Only through someone whom we know nothing, we are able to secure a romantic conception of love.

Similarly, the case for happiness follows this trajectory. If happiness is stripped of its idealisation, we may be taken away what gives meaning to our life because it is no longer out of reach of our hands. Happiness should be considered a by-product of what we do. It is merely a direction, not a place, and burns itself out with the attainment of its goal. Happiness is perhaps something contrary to the spirit of scientific inquiry, namely, the attainment of truth, rather than expose it to nudity at full force, we should learn how to entertain a bit of ignorance.

Perhaps most philosophers have been wrong. The more their analysis goes in depth, the more happiness flees from us. Like Robert Rowland Smith puts it, "happiness can only be known in retrospect." We often never enjoy much of the time we spend with our friends, but only through the process of backtracking, friendship bears fruit. It is precisely when you are not aiming for happiness, you become happy.

It is time to retract our thoughts on happiness. Rather, we should do what we love and submit our thinking to the Marxist position that we should always keep our dream in the realm of fantasy. Happiness cannot be obtained by our conscious effort. It is only through not obtaining it we can be happy.

"Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be happy."- John Stuart Mill

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