Liking Happiness

Over my recent trip, I had the opportunity to read two books by the late Theologian Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1989).  I had not heard his name until almost my move from New Home, but was intrigued enough to seek out books about him and order (book reviews are in the works).  A very short summary is that he was for many years a missionary to India and returned, finding that the Western Civilization he had grown up in was in the process of changing drastically.  He wrote about the change in roles of Christianity as it addressed this post-Christian society (I will note for writing in the last 1980's he was ominously prophetic).

One of the notes he does make in both books that I read was that - even at that time - he perceived the Post Enlightenment Society of Western Civilization to be a society without hope.  Change that idea of "Hope" to "Happiness", and suddenly we have a blog post.

We are all unhappy from time to time; and anyone that has read me knows that more often than note, I fall into that category.  And yet, as strange as it may seem if all you knew of me is this blog, I am on the whole a relatively happy person.

Part of it is simply the fact that the simplest of things makes me happy.  A new book. Almost any sort of animal.  Free food.  Enjoyable conversation.  Puns.  On the whole, there really is a lot to be happy about and take simple pleasure in.

That said, I have come to appreciate more and more that there are a lot of people for whom simply do not like happiness.

What I am speaking of here is not those people that, often through no fault of their own, find themselves the victims of terrible circumstances.  These things lamentably happen, as they always have.  Who I am speaking of are the individuals that, in the face of pretty good lives and (in the case of Western Civilization) very affluent lives, cannot stand for any sort of happiness.

Bring up a subject, there is always something wrong.  Bring up a moment of joy, and there is some reason that joy should not be enjoyed.  Always, ever, looming over us is the great cloud of things going potentially going wrong or never up to snuff. Try to do something happy, and there is a wild look in their eye that one is either crazy or ill-informed or both.

Given a choice of liking or not liking happiness, they will almost always choose the latter.

Which, I suppose, brings up the world view which Newbigin suggests above: In a world that lives without hope, how can one like happiness?  There is no future, only a failing present that is ever destined for something worse.  Liking happiness, from that point of view, probably seems like a very great fool's errand.

Maybe we are on a fool's errand, given the world we live in.  But the one thing I will note is that, given the choice of being around the blithe but happy or aware but unhappy, I will almost always choose the happy.  Why?  Because life is already sad enough.  Constantly, only every finding the bleakest and most exacting thing wrong with it is not creating a sense of stark realism and it is certainly not winning people to their side.  

Is there a way to combined realism with happiness?  I am sure there is, although I am equally sure that I do a pretty lousy job at it.  But I will make one note:  the realist can attract me, but the happy will almost always attract me.  The unhappy, much less so.

Subvert the dominant paradigm.  Be Happy in a world that dislikes it.