Stumbling on Happiness

Stumbling on Happiness May 22, 2008

It’s a book that tells you “why you are so bad at predicting what would make you happy.” (yay!?)

… just about any time we want something—a promotion, a marriage, an automobile, a cheeseburger—we are expecting that if we get it, then the person who has our fingerprints a second, minute, day, or decade from now will enjoy the world they inherit from us, honoring our sacrifices as they reap the harvest of our shrewd investment decisions and dietary forbearance.

Yeah, yeah. Don’t hold your breath. Like the fruits of our loins, our temporal progeny are often thankless. We toil and sweat to give them just what we think they will like, and they quit their jobs, grow their hair, move to or from San Francisco, and wonder how we could ever have been stupid enough to think they’d like that. We fail to achieve the accolades and rewards that we consider crucial to their well-being, and they end up thanking God that things didn’t work out according to our shortsighted, misguided plan. Even that person who takes a bite of the Twinkie we purchased a few minutes earlier may make a sour face and accuse us of having bought the wrong snack. (from the book website)

Ah-ha. I suppose the upshot is that we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves or others when we or they are unhappy. In Buddhism, unhappiness is a result of buying into our mental projections. We project identities on things and expect them to function according to that identity indefinitely. When those functions break down, as all do – anicca -, we are unhappy – dukkha. In truth, all things exist in a way that escapes our projections, they are free of identity – anatta.

To live without clinging is the goal of Buddhist practice; it is a life that can plan without getting stuck in the future, can remember without getting stuck in the past. It’s a tricky path. The Buddha never said it would be easy. In fact, many traditions simply accept that it will take/has taken many thousands of lifetimes to awaken to the Dharma. So take it easy, step by step, remember the moment.

~

One thing that Gilbert might not mention in his book is the effect of environment. This morning I had breakfast with Christopher Preston, one of the great philosophers here at The University of Montana. I told him of my experiences in London and DC and he said, “of course, that’s environmental epistemology” – his way of saying that your environment alters the way you think and know and see the world.

Christopher, a native of England who studied at Durham before becoming enchanted with the wilds of North America, has become so convinced of this phenomenon that he has a book out on it: Grounding Knowledge: Environmental Philosophy, Epistemology, and Place. Christopher uses his own travels to Alaska, Oregon, Colorado and of course Montana to contrast to his urban youth, laying out the arguments for the intrinsic superiority of those former places, open spaces, and protecting the natural world. It’s a beautiful book, a bit heady, but enlightening.

Certain places evoke the best in people, and Missoula is certainly one such place. As he commented this morning,

“that happiness is contagious.”


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