Philosophy: Happiness and Love or “a rope in the quicksand of life”

Part of my own love of wisdom is due to admiration for those who have pursued it before, the lives they lead. Successful philosophers, perhaps like poets and theologians, are those most sensitive to the world, whether that be expressed in the political treatise or existentialist novella. Unlike the poet, however, the philosopher must rely on some degree of coherency and argumentation, invoking and leading the rational mind toward some agreed conclusion. Unlike the theologian, the philosopher makes reason the supreme authority, which is both exhilarating (I have control) and daunting (I am responsible).

So what have some western civilization’s sensitive, rational thinkers had to say about happiness?

Socrates, always a good place to start, is presented in the Euthydemus arguing that happiness is the overriding goal in life. We’re given a nice list of potential goods to choose from as the source(s) of happiness:

1) wealth,
2) health and good looks,
3) social status,
4) good fortune,
5) the virtues of temperance, justice, and courage, and
6) wisdom.

Athenian citizens generally agreed it was a matter of the first five, the sixth being merely an instrumental good (helpful for getting the other ones but not leading to happiness itself). Socrates disagrees, go figure, arguing that it is wisdom alone which ensures happiness. Wisdom, for Socrates, was not a matter of knowledge or political mastery or any of the rest of society’s misconceptions; wisdom is knowing what one needs in life, knowing how to use well what one has (including one’s body and intelligence) .

From this wisdom, Socrates felt that the virtues above would naturally follow. The other goods, as much today as then in Athens, may well follow, but are neither necessary nor sufficient for happiness.

Yet today, as much as ever, we fail to see the way to happiness. Simply put, happiness is our natural state of being, wisdom is the return to that state.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant makes the distinction between two kinds of love: practical and pathological. Practical love he defines as beneficence for duty’s sake, even though we are not impelled to it by any inclination- nay, are even repelled by a natural and unconquerable aversion. This is the love commanded in the Gospels, a love which is indiscriminate, universal, and effortless.

This kind of love both flows from happiness, it is an expression of our natural state ‘shining through’, if only for a while, and it sets in motion the conditions for further happiness. It creates the conditions for further happiness in giving others a glimpse, sometimes seen, sometimes felt, of goodness, pure and unassuming.

My hunch is that we can learn to watch ourselves, setting out each day with an ideal of openly caring for everyone (animals included) we encounter, and observing how well we bring that ideal into actuality through our actions. That original intention at the start of the day is needed while we develop our wisdom and virtues, but it is nothing if we do not translate it into acts of pure and unassuming goodness. We have all already experienced goodness at one time or another in our own lives and history has provided us with countless examples of people who have cultivated goodness, love, and happiness.

The fancy word for the back-and-forth between our ideal of pure love/goodness/happiness and the not-so-ideal muck of stress, frustration, and so on is dialectic. First we must recognize the ideal though – or the muck will envelop us, cynicism will set in, happiness will be sought in all the wrong places, and so on. The ideal is our rope in the quicksand of life. It won’t pull us out all by itself, but it soon becomes clear that the alternative, wildly thrashing about, won’t get us anywhere.