In Pursuit of Happiness

Mankind’s ultimate aim is happiness. I can only think that in their eagerness to achieve this myth, early humans stipulated that ‘progress’ was the answer. So convinced by this, man fell into a vicious cycle of progressing in the name of progress. 

The result of this horrendous enterprise has indeed been progress. We have become a proud species, emulating Orwell’s pigs in a ludicrous belief that our evolutionary path has placed us above all other Earthlings. We laugh and point at the chimps through our safari SUV windows, and we eternally damn the poverty stricken safari driver as ‘developing’. We have progressed so much that we classify humans according to how progressed they are, pigeon-holing entire continents according to the demographic transition model.

Take a step back and look at fellow man today. Is he happy?

Man today has all the ingredients of “happiness”. He has money, a house, a car and a smartphone. He has friends and “friends”. He has the best medical care and food.

Yet he remains unhappy. He wants more Facebook friends and wants his BBM to ring more often. He wants a faster car and a bigger house. He wishes his spouse wasn’t such a whinge and is annoyed he has developed urinary incontinence at the age of 90.

All progress has done for mankind is cause unhappiness. With the advent of progress, the basal emotion of ‘satisfaction’ was obliterated. You can’t be satisfied in the face of progress; all you want is more and more of it. I envy the chimps we so patronise because they know what satisfaction really feels like.

Leo Tolstoy is a man who understood what happiness really is. Here is a quote from his novella, Family Happiness: "I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbour--such is my idea of happiness. And then, on top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps--what can more the heart of man desire?"

Tolstoy had an obvious reverence for solitude and privacy. It used to be that Man’s only true possessions were his body and privacy. The former has been removed by fellow Man and his Laws, the latter shamelessly sold by Man himself.

We now live in a world where it is encouraged and expected of somebody to tell the whole world through text that he hates Cheryl Cole’s X-Factor choice. A culture of voyeurism and consensual spying has taken the world by storm.

Gone were the days where you judged fellow man on your actual meetings with them. Gone were the days where ‘friend’ meant someone you could rely on and whom you interacted mostly in real-time. All we have now is a debacle of an online theatre. The acting is frankly terrible. Friends post to each other carefully crafted, excited and pointless messages. Some ‘friends’ have never even seen each other and rely wholly on virtual, non-representative dialogue to keep their friendship ‘strong’. We live in a society where acquaintances are informed about your life just as much as your friends are. 

What Tolstoy also envisages is freedom. As much as modern man prides himself on his Freedom, he remains oblivious to the fact he is a slave. He is a slave to progress. He slaves away in his job with the hope it will gift him progress and a better life. He doesn’t own the land he himself ploughs and can’t even renovate his own ‘property’ without permission.

There was once a time where man was satisfied. God’s land was free and not under any ownership; his shelter was of his own free choice. His food was of his own toil and his friends were the people he cared most for and whom he lived with. He was satisfied even against the hunger, cold and dangers his life faced. Man was benevolent and helped fellow man. He lived life as it came to him, and reaped what was sown. This man was satisfied, and he was happy as he knew not of a better life. Then the Wheel came along and with it progress. It was the spark which lit the eternal flame.

This man was the Cave-man.

I envy the Cave-man and his Tolstoyan happiness.