Happiness

Please remember this for me: If you don’t
have happiness in the present moment, there
is no way to have happiness in the future.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

A friend of mine posted this quote (with a picture of jumping happy people!), but instead of appreciating the sentiment and moving on, I am taking this opportunity to delve into the meaning of happiness. 

What is the sound of one hand being happy?

As most people would agree, "happiness" is a pleasant emotional state. I bring this up because below, I will suggest that there are better interpretations, or perhaps better words, in this context. For now, though, using the definition that 99% of readers will use, then on the surface, this seems like a pretty standard inspirational quote from a Zen master. Be happy now. Stop trying to be happy in the future. Take this opportunity to enjoy the life you are living. That's one way to interpret it... go jump around and be happy!

But because it is Zen inspiration, there is far more to it than appears on the surface. "If you aren't happy in the present, you will not be happy in the future"... well, that actually sounds pretty grim! The burden of happiness is laid heavy, and there is an implication of immense pressure: this is it, be happy now! If you aren't happy it's you're own fault and you will never be happy. Literally, that is what the quote is saying. But luckily that's just another way to interpret it, and literal interpretations are lame and boring and very un-Zen-like.

I would say that both of those are wrong, or at least only partly right. The first interpretation, positive and light, is correct in that happiness happens in the present moment. The second, with its Zen disregard for making sense, is correct in that happiness never happens in the future. You could substitute "happiness" with anything else and these would still be true. When things happen, they are in the present, and never the future. The future doesn't exist, and neither does the past, so how could you expect to be happy in the future? There is only now.

Therefore, if you aren't happy now, you will never be happy. The Zen thing to realize is that now is a constantly changing moment that each individual experiences in different ways as the Universe moves through time. Now is always. Then is merely what you remember, or what you anticipate or worry about. Basically, the quote is saying, "don't worry, be happy." (Now you have that song in your head. You're welcome.)

Be happy, or else.

The problem is this: I fully get behind the "don't worry" aspect of the quote, but not the "be happy" part; I reject the presumption that happiness is somehow the goal in life. Most people take this happiness goal as given. Various forms of "wisdom", whether religious, philosophical, or colloquial, are interpreted as ways of living that maximize happiness. And, if you are not happy, then something is wrong either with you or with your life situation, so one of those should change until you are happy all the time. Be happy now sounds nice, but it is a meaningless burdensome thing to say to a sad person.

Perhaps Thich Nhat Hanh only said "happiness" to be generally understood, because I think there is a deeper wisdom to be learned that the idea of happiness clouds. Happiness is just the other side of sadness, and vice versa, each meaningless without the other. Striving for happiness invariably strives against sadness, puts this ahead of that, whereas the experience of being human involves both. Fighting sadness thus fights the full expression of who you are in the moment. Here, too, the trick is not wallowing in past sadness or imagining future sadness. The trick, in my opinion, is not to be happy now, but to be here now.

When we get down to it perhaps we don't want to be happy. Perhaps what we want is meaning. Some substance to our lives that stitches it in with the rest of Life so that we feel alive. No one wants to be sad, but if we were happy all the time how would we grow? Why would we ever change anything? What would be the point? (Though, maybe realizing this would instantly trigger sadness, proving that it is not possible to be happy all the time, thereby solving the momentary existential crisis and restoring a feeling of well-being.... paradox averted!)

I might even go so far as to say that society's preoccupation with happiness is damaging, in the long run - that trying to be happy now will actually reduce future happiness. For example, it has been conclusively shown with sarcasm that listening to NPR makes people sad:

NPR is committed to delivering the news, and the news is not good. Whether they're reporting on corporate greed, school shootings, religious extremists, or a grossly over-entitled populace, it's hard to listen to public radio and not come to the conclusion that we're all just completely and totally screwed.

I believe that it is vitally important to pay attention to what's going on in the world, and that if we as a society continue to ignore things that we don't want to hear, we are lost. But that doesn't mean we should listen to the news and be sad. We should listen to the news and do what we can to make things better, and not worry about not being able to fix everything all at once. Don't worry, and listen to the news. But that somehow doesn't sound inspirational.

Be in the moment, or else.

 "We're often happiest when we're lost in the moment" seems obvious to me, but it was "among the surprising results" of this TED talk. Another talk says "flow" is the secret to happiness, when the "sense of time disappears" and you "forget yourself," which to me is the same as being lost in the moment. And yet these discussions are still framed in terms of how to achieve happiness. Being lost in the moment, forgetting yourself... how can you be happy if there is no you?

I don't think the experiences those talks describe actually amount to happiness, but that we lack a better word. I like to think of it as the intense experience, with full awareness, of the present moment... but that is tedious. Joe Campbell might call it "the rapture of being alive" and that is good too, but it sounds like an even more pleasurable state of happiness. (Happiness +1.) Being in the moment is beyond happiness or sadness, but even describing it that way is just moving the target. (If you are not beyond happiness and sadness now, you will never be...)

Despite all my above words, I don't have anything against happiness. My issue here is with happiness as a goal, because my issue is with any goal at all. Goals are things to be had in the future, and I think the real wisdom in the quote that started all this is the insight into the nature of time: now is all there is. Or put another way, from the pages of Dune and one of my own personal mantras:

Eternity is now.