Fresh thoughts on the matter of happiness in a pain-filled world
It's not merely escapist to strive for some personal contentment in these undeniably unsettling times
Derek Thompson has a thought-provoking piece at The Atlantic today that begins with a look at public opinion regarding the state of the national economy juxtaposed against people’s assessments of their own economic well-being. He broadens his scope, though, which is where things get interesting:
Why is the gap between “how I’m doing” and “how America is doing” so dramatic?
One answer is that the Everything is terrible but I’m fine philosophy is something close to human nature. At least, people all over the world tend to be individually optimistic and socially pessimistic.
Poll numbers would indicate that that principle is playing itself out in 2022 America:
Even outside economics and finances, a record-high gap has opened up between Americans’ personal attitudes and their evaluations of the country. In early 2022, Gallup found that Americans’ satisfaction with “the way things are going in personal life” neared a 40-year high, even as their satisfaction with “the way things are going in the U.S.” neared a 40-year low. On top of the old and global tendency to assume most people are doing worse than they say they are is a growing American tendency to be catastrophically gloomy about the direction of this country, even as we’re resiliently sunny about our own household’s future.
There’s a resonance between this observation and some questions I raised in a piece for Ordinary Times (that also had appeared a bit earlier here at Precipice) entitled “The Moment and the Parameters of Happiness”:
I ask myself another fundamental question: On what basis can one be happy at this moment of suffering and peril?
Other questions branch out from that one. Do we have a right to pursue happiness when millions of people are in agony, as our television screens remind us 24/7? How much of a difference is there between happiness and joy, and which is the more worthy of pursuit?
These questions are not all that abstract. The ability to manage one’s life requires a basic level of mental health. That in turn requires a basic sense that one’s feet are on solid ground.
This isn’t a self-help treatise. I have no answers for myself, much less for you.
Some commenters chimed in regarding the difference-between-happiness-and-joy question, asserting that there is indeed a difference. Actually, as a person of faith, however wobbly, I know that.
But I’m not going to wrap this up in some kind of tidy package. The fact that divine grace offers a peace that surpasses all understanding leaves a significant portion of the terrain of human existence unaddressed. I do no readers of this essay any favors by dropping that tidy package in their laps, for a couple of reasons.
One is that our society is getting more secular by the day and a writer reflecting on the human condition can’t reach most people with pamphlet-level boilerplate.
The other is that most people are aware that institutional Christianity is full of corruption and therefore doubt that it’s the place to look for guidance rooted in integrity.
Part of me is inclined to look down my nose at my fellow American for this dichotomy of viewpoint, what Thompson calls the everything-is-terrible-but-I’m-fine outlook, to dismiss it as shallow escapism. There is validation for that perspective. We certainly love to distract ourselves. But, as I say in the Ordinary Times piece, people don’t want the broadly viewed circumstances through which they maneuver in their daily lives to drive them nuts. It seems reasonable to assume that some degree of instinctual self-preservation is at work.
The kicker is that one really does have to stay informed. It’s going to be an unbearable emotional jolt if one is completely taken by surprise as developments in this world come to fruition.
And, yes, availing oneself of divine grace is going to provide the most effective resolution of the chasm between personal circumstance and the nature of the contemporary world.
But one can, no matter where one stands on questions regarding ultimate reality, project a bit of the human type of grace we’re all capable of. We can all do things of benefit to our own mental health and each others’ by cutting each other some slack, employing some tact, kindness and patience in our dealings with each other, and permit ourselves to have moments of basic fun whenever possible.
Go forth and have the nicest day you can.