Happiness

Happiness

by Marco M. Pardi

“The life of the intellect is the best and pleasantest for man, because the intellect more than anything else IS the man. Thus it will be the happiest life as well.” Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics 10.7

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Although I had heard this continually since childhood I was still a bit surprised when, in my mid-forties, I was told my staff of city, county state, and federal employees said my facial expression always looked “sad” or “unhappy” and it was affecting their morale. My response: “That’s the way my face hangs and I’m not getting plastic surgery.”

Among efforts at labeling human states, and even projected onto or detected in non-humans, happiness seems to come very close to leading the pack if it does not already do so. In the assignment I cited above I was the director of an epidemiology program addressing “Special Diseases”. We had a related component devoted to HIV/AIDS. The majority of our cases were connected to prostitution and I.V. needle sharing and other drug/alcohol usage. While some people automatically presume those are behaviors found only among low income, transient people our surveillance of public and private medical providers indicated otherwise. Therefore, I decided to venture into the domain of hospitals providing in-patient 28 day drug/alcohol treatment programs to assess and reach populations not commonly seen in pubic health settings. I specifically intended to offer free on-site confidential HIV testing, bracketed by pre and post test counseling and referral for services if needed. I obtained an on-site interview with the director of a major private hospital program.

Our meeting began in his office but soon included a tour of the facility. Everything was certainly “high end” and the staff were all well credentialed. Finally, we settled in the Group Therapy room. All the many chairs were faced toward one wall, as in a classroom. On that wall was a large poster chart with the heading How I Feel Now. Below that heading were columns of affective states such as: Tired; Sad; Confused; Hopeless; Lonely, and on and on for what were certainly more than fifty, all rather negative states. I was Put Off, but that wasn’t on the chart.

Perhaps the Director read my expression, or maybe he had been through this drill before. He explained that as group sessions began the therapist called for the group to study the list and pick a state they felt. Discussion would then ensue. I had assumed as much and was already thinking of my silent objections, which I would not voice. Questions like, What does “Now” mean?

Regular readers know I place very high value in Buddhist philosophy. In my view, which I share with others, Buddhism is not a religion, it is a means of self discovery in the sense of Ultimate Self and personal self all at once. As a tool it is like holding a child’s toy telescope in hand and when turned one way it opens to the macro universe and when turned the other it opens to the micro universe. Realization occurs when we become aware that we are a manifestation of At Onceness: the perception that macro and micro are separate and distinct is only a perception, a perspective emanating from how we hold the telescope. At any given moment what we perceive as an affective state contains its opposite; to exist, Up must contain Down, Here must contain There, Grief must contain Joy. An easy way to experience this reality is to SCUBA dive in salt water on a moonless night. Drop down about 100′ and set your BCD to hold your depth. With your light off so you don’t see your exhaust bubbles, roll around and then try to orient yourself to up and down. Yes, there’s that moment until you turn on your light and see which way your bubbles are going. Scary, isn’t it? Imagine being an astronaut in deep space.

Years ago, while examining my own experiences and pursuing my studies of how people dealt with theirs, especially the traumatic experiences, I concluded that many therapeutic models were structured toward an improper goal. They were designed to move a client from a disapproved state to an approved one, completely separating the two.

It has been said that a person cannot experience happiness unless and until they have experienced grief. This, then, tells me that to appreciate the measure of one we must be aware of the measure of the other. The Anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, in his seminal work Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge tells us that his informant, Don Juan, a Yaqui brujo, frequently reminded him that Death is always just over your left shoulder. In the same way, grievous experiences are always with us, forming the context from which we experience happiness. In contrast to the trite advice that It will get better I advised clients that it will NOT get better; They will get better at handling it. Heard the one about Forgive and Forget? Show of hands for those who think they have done either. I am not suggesting we walk around half aggrieved and half joyous. I am suggesting that we acknowledge and we own that part of our history which is as valid and contributory as any and every other part of our current reality. But doing so should not become a fixation. An example given to beginning students of Buddhist meditation is that of the monkey in the tree tops. Meditation is not a process of inducing coma. It is a process of seeing through both ends of the telescope at once, of seeing the infinite through the large and the small. As we open our minds in ALL directions we experience thoughts: Monkeys in the tree tops. The thoughts are there. The thoughts are memories, suppositions, conclusions, hopes, fears, and etc. But once we yield and chase the monkey the monkey turns and captures us; it becomes “the monkey on our back” as the old saying goes. Attempting to prevent that by banishing thought will not work, unless once has achieved senseless coma. In fact, “banishing thought” becomes just another monkey to chase, and we are off and running. Let the monkeys run. Recognize them in their context and let them go.

For over a month we’ve been watching Donald Trump’s mentor, Vladimir Putin, invade and devastate Ukraine. Every day and every night we see video footage of villages and whole cities, mostly civilian targets, destroyed. Those people that survive are fleeing with what they can carry in numbers not seen since WWII. As a parent and grandparent I am very deeply affected by what I see on the faces of all the people, adults and children alike. Perhaps more to the point, I am a child of war myself and, though far too young to actively “remember” the trauma, I lived with the familial effects well into my teen-age years.

I find myself watching cable news for updates, deeply aware that this is not a video game or a Super Bowl. This is horrible trauma being impressed upon people in ways we will not fully understand for years to come. Even if the attacks stopped today, what would the more than 3 ½ million refugees return to? Who will rebuild the homeland and will it be done such that later generations will wonder Did something happen here? In the 1960’s I was a guest in the home of a German physician who had been a military doctor in Hitler’s Werhmacht and a proud member of the NAZI party. Since he had shown me an elaborate album of photos I asked him about WWII. Each of us spoke only a few words of the other’s language and had no other in common. Yet, he managed to say “You wouldn’t understand”. Well, no, I think I would not have understood if he had tried to hand me a justification for what was done.

I have no doubt that every reader of this piece has a memory stored file of experiences spanning a broad spectrum from tragic to joyous. And, no, I don’t think we find many people, if any, who truly understand. But we go through our daily lives almost always without a sign, a “tell” as gamblers put it. Because daily life is a superficially neutral state. A person walking constantly about in apparent “happiness” is as suspect as one in apparently constant grief. Something is off center.

Readers of my column know I have a fairly extensive list of subjects I carry on about, sometimes in ways some people find unpleasant. I confess: I hope to disturb people into action. Let’s take a lesson from The Time Machine and remember that the blissful Eloi were eaten by the not so blissful Morlocks. Happiness can be pleasant, even productive, if experienced and understood in a context of justified cost.