When it happens, happiness can often feel more troubling
than comforting. It feels like something is not quite right. It
almost intimates an end—a sort of death. For many of us,
happiness does not feel like home. What we seem to prefer,
rather, is the strange, paradoxical comfort of misery's
discomfort; the soothing darkness of melancholy; the striving
agitation of discontent. How is it, or why is it,
that we can be so intelligent, so aware, so equipped—perhaps
successful and well-off in the traditional, societal sense—and
yet, we can still feel so unhappy? We appear to be unable
to obtain what we want and set out to accomplish:
perfect happiness and contentment and peace. Perhaps this is because, in part,
we actually do not want these things; perhaps we are far less
aware of what we really want and how our mind really works.
If, right now, you could push a button and feel nothing but bliss for the rest of your life,
or push a button and never feel misery or discontent ever again, would you do it? If not,
why? What does this suggest about what you really want and value in life?
If experiencing the so-called ideal all the time is not ideal, and never experiencing the so-called
undesirable is undesirable, are these things really as they seem? In Aldus Huxley’s novel
Brave New World, John says, “But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry,
I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
Arguably, like a tyrannical government concealing the truth
from its people to maintain order and function of its state, we
are told by our conscious mind that we desire happiness, and
that happiness is the goal, while simultaneously, our
unconscious mind conceals from us that our real desire is a sort
of unhappiness—a continual state of discontent, and all the
states and views that grow out of its muddy but fertile soil.
The pursuit of happiness seems to be a mirage created by the
opposing temperatures of our conscious and unconscious minds—the
heat of our conscious desires and hopes met with the cold
indifference of our unconscious mind’s continually unsatisfiable
nature. This might sound bleak and absurd, and perhaps it is on
some level, but perhaps it isn’t totally.
Twentieth century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein described
himself as being miserable his entire life. He was afflicted by
depression, anxiety, anger, self-loathing, loneliness, and an
unyielding, impossible desire for perfection and philosophical
truth—of which he of course never found. He frequently discussed
with others and wrote in his diary about these afflictions
throughout his life. And yet, on his deathbed, reportedly, his
last words were, "Tell them I've had a wonderful life." This
final testament and endorsement of his life raises the question:
how can someone who lived their life in misery also claim they
lived a wonderful life? What does this mean about what a
wonderful life is, or could be,
and how happiness and misery play a role in its development?
The dichotomy of Wittgenstein’s life and his final testimony at
the end of it reveals its own a remarkable philosophical insight:
the strange difference between day-to-day happiness and the quality
of the net outcome of one’s life.
Of course, there are different degrees of misery—some that
are not in the category of functional. Melancholy, discontent,
and the sort of existential suffering of all conscious being is
likely different than depression or a lifetime of overdrawn
misery. And it isn’t always obvious which is which. And none of
this is to say that there isn’t anything good or enjoyable
throughout life that isn’t worth being happy about, and nor is
it to say that there are not things and methods that generally
make life better. Things like diet, exercise, sleep, financial
stability, and at least a few close friends and loved ones can
make a substantial difference and ought to be optimized as best
as one can. But in the context of a purposeful life, it is to
say that perhaps a good life is not one without misery, but
rather, it is one that is often seeping with it.
Consider the creation of a great work of art, or the
creative process more broadly. The creative process can often be
seen as some enchanted process of a divine burst of inspiration
and talent. What it more typically is, however, is a process of
continual dissatisfaction. A great piece of creative work does
not merely emerge out of a burst of inspiration and effort, but
rather, a collection of these bursts (forced or natural), in
which most amount to nothing—something the creator finds
unsatisfactory. The creative person, however, continues on
through the process until they evolve the work into something
satisfactory (at least enough). One might be immersed and
perhaps in some sort of flow state during certain stages of this
process, which is arguably some amount pleasant, but broadly,
the creative process is beset with uncertainty, self-doubt,
misery, stress, and discontent. Moreover, the degree of how
great a creative work is often largely depends on how unhappy
the creator was with their work throughout the process, all the
way up until the final form of it—after countless brush strokes,
key pushes, pages written, answers attempted, and so on, all of
which were deemed as not good enough. By the end, relief and
perhaps pride and some form of meaningfulness is likely to be
experienced—exhaustion-fueled willingness to move on—but not
happiness (not in the traditional sense, at least). Happiness
never really enters the stage—at least not for long. It appears
on the program booklet, but its character never really makes
much of an appearance. And yet, the show is still incredible,
somehow still desirable and worthwhile. If persevered through,
the creative person almost always returns to do it again, and
again, and again. What is life if not merely
the greatest art piece we will all create?
The philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche argued that the process of continually defining,
striving, and achieving new ideals and goals in life is the means through which an individual
can achieve a meaningful and worthwhile life. He referred to this concept as self-overcoming.
In order to achieve and sustain this process, he suggested that one must continually set up
an ever- evolving ideal version of themselves with which they can aim and strive toward.
He would term this ideal self the ubermench. By continually creating a new image of the ubermench,
and then recurrently going through a process of self-destruction and self-creation toward it,
the individual, for Nietzsche, justifies life’s suffering and develops personal meaning and
greatness through it. What is needed throughout this process, though, is a continual sense of
dissatisfaction and misery; a sense that the work of art of one’s own life is not yet good enough.
In this paradigm, the basis of meaning is self-creation and
self-improvement; the basis of creation and improvement,
however, is desire; and the basis of desire is discontentment.
And here is where the sort of reflexive, interdependent relationship between desire
and misery emerges. If we agree with this paradigm, in a sort of strange way, we desire
desire’s continuation, and we need discontentment and the misery that stems from it for this to
occur. “The end of desire is the end of sorrow,” said The Buddha. And so, desire and sorrow are,
in this way, inexorably interlocked—two sides of the same coin. Thus, in a strange way,
if it is true that we want to persist our desire, we desire this sort of existential sorrow.
In an even stranger way, by not having our desire satisfied, we satisfy our ultimate desire:
the desire for the continuation of desire. If, rather, happiness is the highest possible goal,
then this form of meaning and agency is undermined. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche wrote:
When I think of the desire to do something, how it continually tickles and stimulates millions
of young Europeans,
who cannot endure themselves and all their ennui. I conceive that there must be a
desire in them to suffer something,
in order to derive from the suffering a worthy motive for acting,
for doing something. Distress is necessary! . . . This young world
desires that there should arrive from the outside – not
happiness but misfortune; and their imagination is already
busy beforehand to form a monster out of it, so that they
may afterwards be able to fight with a monster.
Arguably, whether we are familiar with Nietzsche’s ideas or
not, a vast majority of us in the modern western world live our
lives with at least some sense of and calibration with this
paradigm. And so, if and when happiness does occur in our lives,
or we obtain the conditions that would allow for it to, many of us do not accept it fully. Instead,
we might sabotage it. We might reject it. We might look for what’s still wrong or
contrive something being wrong, if there isn’t anything. Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer wrote,
“The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.” Perhaps a more
apt version is, the safest way of not being very miserable is to realize your taste for misery.
Of course, the idea of liking, justifying, or pursuing
sorrow and discontent isn’t without reasonable critiques. If
every time your life gets better, it’s still not good enough and
essentially feels the same, no matter how much better life gets,
if it feels the same, how much better is it really? And what is
the point of life if not to be at least some amount happy as
reasonably often as possible? Perhaps it is a matter of being as
happy as possible while living the most meaningfully interesting
life possible—reaping and persisting through suffering and
enjoying happiness presently and fully when it comes and when we
can. Like most things, it is perhaps an impossible, constant
balancing act unique to the valuation and
strength of each individual.
Ultimately, though, it seems that if we want engagement,
wonder, meaning, greatness, and a continual sense of forward
motion, to some degree, we should embrace our desire for
discontent until finally at the end of our life,
when we have done everything we could to produce the greatest piece of art that is our being,
and we are exhausted and ready to move on, we are able to say, tell them I've had a wonderful life.