THE PURSUIT OF ‘HAPPY’NESS

Just finished watching this movie starring Will Smith for like, the nth time. I just love this movie. What makes this movie work for me is not the struggle of the guy to get that job in the brokerage firm he is interning for. Nor is it the huge odds that the guy has to overcome. Its not even the poignancy of his life. I mean all these things have been brought out extremely well in the movie, no doubt about that. But to be very honest , struggle –against –insurmountable –odds –to achieve –things in the end kind of stories have almost become a cliché , I mean we respect that but are no longer awed or inspired by that stuff.

What makes this movie work for me is the clearly articulated motivation of the protagonist to do all the things that he does in the movie. He wanted to be happy. But that’s what everyone wants , isn’t it? Yet , no place else have I seen the motivation being articulated so clearly and unambiguously ..” All of them looked so happy ..why cant I be like that” . And that’s where it all starts.

I mean we all keep talking about our goals …we neatly divide them into long term ,short term , middle term , short to medium term …too medium to be long term and so on. In various movies ,different protagonists are shown to be motivated in different ways. For instance , its revenge for some , patriotism for others and sheer manhood (real ,imagined and most importantly perceived)for most protagonists in a lot of Tamil and Telugu movies!!!!

But this motivation struck me as the simplest, truest and the most fundamental of all …..”I want to be happy like they are” . He is not envying their position in life ,nor was he envying the broker’s material wealth in that scene , he is envying them for their happiness , without being bitter about it.

Even better than that was his admiration of Thomas Jefferson for saying “Pursuit of Happiness” instead of happiness in the declaration of independence. I mean no one is entitled to happiness nor can the state guarantee it to its citizens like it can ensure liberty and justice. But yes, you are entitled to pursue it. And this is perhaps the most fundamental of human motivations and the declaration recognized it. No wonder that , to date the declaration retains relevance.

But that brings me to another question. What is being happy ?? I mean , yes I know all that stuff about each one searching for his own happiness and looking for happiness within himself and loads of crappy stuff like that . They are a given. I am not talking about the various means and tools that people use in the pursuit to happiness but the various feelings and emotions that characterize the state of happiness . Does that state exist?? If it does is it distinguishable from other states like joy , satisfaction and contentment?? Most importantly should we make that distinction???

How should we measure happiness?? We keep making statements like “I would have been happier if….” ,suggesting gradations and degrees of happiness. What does that mean??? How are we measuring happiness in this case.???

How should we measure happiness ?? Wikipedia suggests that it is a function of various emotions relating to the past ,to the present and to the future.

For instance .satisfaction about the past …hope for the future etc. Essentially this makes happiness your bottomline figure in the balance sheet of life. Add up all good feelings , subtract all bad ones ..make provisions for future good or bad ones and lo behold ..you know whether you are happy or not. Of course assuming that your feelings are a reliable and accurate indicator of what you have done in and with your life and that they faithfully represent all of that.

Ofcourse this means that this bottomline figure will be different in different situations , at different stages in life and different points in time . Of course this seems acceptable . We all are differently happy in different situations.


Is this happiness???

Some people define happiness as harmony , some as self actualization .

Some say happiness should be looked at in a rather long term perspective ,rather than foucssing on things like immediate gratification ..Is it true???

Imagine a person who is striving towards a goal. He is satisfied about his past. Hopeful about the future . Hence his happiness balance sheet is in the black .He is not focusing on immediate gratification . He knows he will be happy if he achieves what he has set out for. On the way he is encountering a lot of odds. He is not happy at all. He wants to achieve the goal as quickly as possible. And he is very confident that he would be happy if he achieves it. He does , And he is happy. For a while. Then ennui sets in. Now he is unhappy that it is over. He feels he would have been happier if it were not over.

So should happiness be a function of the journey or of the destination??? If the journey is through hell then can even heaven as a destination make us happy???


I wish I knew whether I am happy or not.

LORD SHUDDHA

Shuddhartha or Lord Shuddha as now he is respectfully called was born on the 29th of February ,1935. He passed away today peacefully in his sleep after 73 glorious years spent in the service, enlightenment and enrichment of the people. Devotees across the country mourn this great loss to the nation in particular and to the world in general. At the moment there seems to be no one who is not singing paeans to this Great Sage ,as he was called with reverence. Some have even gone so far as to call him the 10098th avatar of Lord Vishnu. Some devotees do scoff at this notion , but that’s not the point. But however divided the views on this avatar stuff , people in general seemed to agree that there was no greater personification of sacrifice and abstinence , love and compassion. Perhaps this would be the right time to look back at this great man’s life and reflect on how it all came to be.
Lord Shuddha was born as Shuddhartha , to a father who was a multi millionare and whose zest for business could only be matched to his desire to have children. Lord Shuddha was born after his father had been in despair for a long time that he never might have children. As soon as he was born , the family Astrologer had proclaimed ..”This dude would turn out to be a complete loser or a total winner …..most probably the former ” . The last part was a totally unnecessary addition. A more worldly wise astrologer would have said “hmmm” and nodded his head approvingly . No body has seen that astrologer ever since.
Though he did make the astrologer disappear , the father had taken his prediction seriously. So he set about making his son a total winner. Unfortunately he thought the best way of doing it would be by not denying his son anything he might ask for. So the son grew up , as the cliché goes , in the lap of luxury. He had more pocket money in a day to spend than what most families made in an year. He had servants ready to serve him at his slightest signal . he had friends fawning on him . He had girls plotting against each other for him. And most importantly he had his father doting over him. The son grew up to be a spoilt rich kid ,infamous for his behavior and notorious for his pranks.
When he was 25 his father married him off to a beautiful girl who came from another multi millionaire family. After an year they had a son. The father having painfully noted the lack of talent of any sort in the son , made sure that he never had to run the business and worked the rest of his life ensuring that the his father in laws businesses were also integrated with his and that they would run themselves. After having done all this , as befits a dutiful and doting father , he passed away , leaving Shuddha a little sad but still a multi millionaire atleast two times over. Shuddha got over this soon and started living life as before. Anyone who would look at Shuddha and his family couldn’t help remarking on how lucky some dogs can get .
But something was not feeling right for Shuddha . Though he had everything , he felt a strange vaccum. A gap which he could not quite either place or touch , but it was there , growing everyday and demanding to be filled. Shuddha was perplexed by this. I mean he was really happy mooching off on his father ,he didn’t need that shit right now. But still , the harder he tried to ignore it , the more persistent in its demands it became. And it kept gnawing at him. Then suddenly it dawned on him one day ….”THE WORLD IS EVIL AND IT IS FULL OF GRIEF” ..thats it that was the epiphany.
Yes the world is evil, he thought . I mean , it was only the other day that he had given his wife a beating for something he could not remember. She was really hurt and bleeding . He had been evil but later he was overcome by grief for not having a reason to hit her. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
Once , when he was a teenager , he had beaten this guy up black and blue for eyeing the same girl that he had his eyes on. He thought that was evil. But later he was overcome by grief because the sex hadn’t been as great as he had thought it would be. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
Very recently , he had squished a bug in his drawing room . He thought this was evil. But he had felt grief later on that it had made a mess all over his expensive carpet. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
It was only yesterday , that he had slapped his butler , for not keeping his coffee warm enough . But he was overcome by grief when the butler made the same mistake a second time around , how many times do I have to slap this moron ,,he had thought. Isnt this enough proof , he thought, to prove that the world is evil and full of grief.?
So after this epiphany , he decided . “I shall relinquish the world” he told himself
And relinquish he did . He gave up everything he had.
He wrote off all his properties to charitable organizations. All in one night .
And of course , he had overlooked to inform his wife of his decision or his actions.
Wasn’t he relinquishing the world after all?/ He reasoned . And whenever he felt a little guilty about doing this, he construed it as a further proof of the world being evil and full of grief.
He wanted to become a sanyasi and a sanyasi he would become , he told himself.
People welcomed him with , again as another cliché goes , open arms. They had known him as a glamorous heir to millions , they had known his notorious exploits , so popularity was never a problem for Shuddha.
First they had loved him for his glamour and his millions . Now they loved him for his glamour and lack of millions.
First they glanced over his fashionably dressed photos in page 3 , now they worshipped him in his saffron clad new avatar.
First they had called him a talentless moocher. Now they called him a great sacrificer.
“Oh what a great sacrifice..” ,they all said , “and what a bold decision . Even His wife did not know” , they all admiringly said.
In very little time , Shuddha had a huge following of disciples. He established an ashram and several charitable institutions . A lot of his time was spent administering these. He also traveled a lot rendering discourses.
People came in troves to listen to his speeches on family values , and respecting other human beings and love and compassion for all living things.
They said he was a great soul. Soon he became Lord Shuddha . – the Great Sage.
The one who had relinquished his property ,left his wife and would have nothing to do with his son but had brought so much joy and enlightenment to the world . And the world needed it . If anyone asked why , they would say , “because the world is full of evil and grief”
Obviously when such a great man passes away , there would be an outpouring of grief. People all over the nation mourned his death. They said that a greater man , would never walk the earth for a long time to come.

Of course , everybody forgot to ask about the wife and the kid.

But by a freaky coincidence of nature , the date of his death was the same as the date when the wife had turned insane 10 years ago due to poverty and the sheer strain of living life and when the kid had died in a mob fight 15 years ago.