“The
pursuit of Ness” (We already know what happy is)
So much has been written on the
human condition and our drive to find both contentment in our lives and
ultimately the want to be happy. So why
not add one paper to the stack? The English language is an interesting thing
and subtle words, changes and punctuation have major impacts. I pondered this the other day as I
contemplated being happy. I thought
about what that is, how to be it and how I would describe it if there were ever
a need. Personally I have had times in
life where happy abounds and where happy is in shorter supply than water on
Mars. I have seen so many people in my life struggle with finding it to the
point of total despair. I then thought
of how self-help gurus describe happy.
To me it came down to two things: Either
how to find happiness or the pursuit of happiness. That is where I felt my understanding of happy
has fallen a bit short.
Finding Happy
Finding happiness seems to infer
that happy is a thing, set in a certain place, and if we find that place Happy
will be there waiting for us with open arms and we can live in that place
forever. If we become unhappy it’s
because we have left the place where happy lives. We took a bus out of happy town. All we need to do is get back on the bus and
get off at happy station to be greeted by rainbows farting skittles and cheap
cable TV. This is totally
unbelievable. Not the skittle farting
rainbows part, the cheap cable TV part.
Not in a million years. Let’s
look at what happy defined is:
happy
adjective hap·py \ˈha-pē\
: feeling pleasure
and enjoyment because of your life, situation, etc.
: showing or causing
feelings of pleasure and enjoyment
: pleased or glad
about a particular situation, event, etc.
So
we know that we can define happy. But
that doesn’t mean happy, once defined, is found as easily as it is in the dictionary. For anyone under 28 a dictionary is a large
book, written on paper (paper is like a tree cut into super thin slices) and
the book contains words and definitions in alphabetical order. It’s contained
in a l-i-b-r-a-r-y but Google can explain what that is later and don’t even
start Googling the Dewey Decimal system.
I digress. We can tell you what happy is but finding it is never as easy as just
put “Happy” in to your navigation system and you will arrive at your
destination in 2 hours. Just follow the
blue line. Even if we could arrive in
Happyburg, why is it so hard to stay there?
Shouldn’t it be the best place ever?
So why leave? Why can’t we
achieve ness? As in Happiness.
Let’s look at what ness is:
Ness
Suffix[edit] -ness. Appended to adjectives to form nouns meaning
"the state of being(the adjective)", "the quality of being(the
adjective)", or "the measure of being(the adjective)".
We all
don’t just want to experience happy. We
want happiness- The state of being happy-The quality of being happy-The
measure of being happy. Something we all
want so desperately is something we, as a society, are finding harder and
harder to arrive at. Like the bus pulled
that particular stop off the route. The blue
line no longer runs there. But that all assumes happy is a static place and we
just need to get to it.
The
Pursuit Of Happy
In my
mind, happy is not a static place. It doesn’t have a defined location that can
be returned to over and over. Happy is dynamic. It gets a new address yearly, daily and
sometimes even moment by moment. That is
why it is so easy to get lost trying to find it or have it for just a brief
second before it is gone. We know where
we left it, but when we return there, it’s nowhere to be found. Is there something that is wrong with us? Happy should be there
but it isn’t.
Why is it
we all hold on to our youth? It was a
simpler time. Things were better. No bills no responsibility. We were happy then. So that’s where happy should be. Yet when we try recapture our youth and run from responsibilities and the
reality of aging something different happens. We only find the problems have gotten worse and we are even
further from happy. This issue is really
ingrained in us because happy used to be a thing others found and brought to
us. We were happy in the womb. But the womb was provided by mom. We are born and when we are unhappy we scream
and cry. So our parents went and found
what made us happy and brought it to us.
Change me, feed me, burp me, dance for me monkey! Make the face! Now swing me!
In our younger years happy was provided by getting shelter, food, love
and fun served up. Now it’s “Here’s your
iPad kid. Be happy”. But at some point happy can’t be
provided. We want to walk and talk. Be out on our own and experience life. We don’t realize it at the time but we are
out there trying to pursue happy. It
comes easy because the same way happy is dynamic and changing, in our youth we
are too. That allows us to spend a lot
of time with happy. Doing that puts us in a state of happiness.
Then
there is a change. As we age and “settle
down” we think that will make us stay with happy. Get married, have kids, get a job and you
will be where happy is. How is that
working out for us? We are where everyone says happy
should be. So where is it? We stopped the pursuit. For our entire lives
we thought it was a destination so now we can’t understand why it isn’t where
we wound up. Or maybe we were lied
to. There is no happy. Life is a series of disappointments and we
use happy like we do El Dorado. Happy is
just a made up city of gold that’s supposed to be worth all the trials and
tribulations for the person who finds it.
But they never do find it. Maybe
in the end happy, like El Dorado, is fool’s gold. It’s a worthless waste of time and effort for
something that never did exist. So if
happy isn’t real what can take the sting of that away? Melt into yourself? Lost in your thoughts and lose hope? Use a substance to let you forget what you
were looking for in the first place?
Work out obsessively to make sure you aren’t alone with your thoughts or
too tired to think them? Act like you have the largest mansion in Happyland and
never let people see what’s really inside?
Happy
isn’t where you left it. To be happy and
have ness I believe we need to
realize it is a dynamic place. Happy
may have one definition on paper but it has endless meanings. It isn’t a
town we want to live in but a pursuit we want to join in. Our relationships (friends, lovers, family) part ways because one or
both of us stop being on the same path of pursuit. Maybe the meaning of happy isn’t the same for
us today as it was yesterday and the other person doesn’t want to pursue it
with us. Perhaps to them happy now means
something else and they are going their own way. Often it’s because one person decided happy
needs to come to them. Like when they
were a kid. They feel the other person
in the relationship needs to provide happy.
So why is that person never happy?
Or abiding in happiness? Because
what we think will make us happy doesn’t actually do that when we rely on others to provide
it. It can’t be provided any more. Just like when we learned to walk and
talk. Walking and talking was a way for us to be able to go and get what
we wanted. Not just be given.
The human
spirit thrives on pursuit. It loves to
grow and expand and explore. It was
never meant to be static. It was meant
to be dynamic. You can’t create an
unchanging world where everything is provided instead of discovered and expect
happy to be there. Pursue happy. That is where you find ness. It’s the state of being in which you are feeling
pleasure and enjoyment because of your life.
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