Happines is fickle. It exists in no certain or absolute terms and translates differently from one individual to the next. It courses its way through acts of kindness, of acknowledgement and quiet recognition, of a kiss, an embrace or the comfort of a familiar hand above one’s shoulder. Happiness can take its form in the tangible, the material, the inanimate objects afforded to the rest of us in the banality of the everyday. In the seeming triviality and commonplace instances of comfort food, public transportation and an inviting couch at the end of a long day.
In sunsets, sunrises, rain, snow and the myriad occurences existing in nature and our belief in fate, or hope, or a higher being. Western society for the most part, peddles a version of happiness which exists in the crudeness of big houses, fast cars, copious amounts of money, friends, family, a successful career, and being all one can be; simply put: perfection. Jon Gertner on the other hand, believes that happiness and mankind’s endless pursuit of it is futile, and refers to the idea of “affective forecasting” as the reason for such futility.
Gertner believes that humans generally expect and anticipate how certain circumstances in their lives will turn out and unfold before they actually ensue. And more often than not, instances which they anticipate of being glorious and wonderful fall short of their expectations; while occurences which they predict will result to their undoing, turn out to be not as detrimental as they imagined. In which case, it hardly matters if a person is able to attain the ‘happiness’ he wanted to reach because it wouldn’t taste or the feel the way he would have wanted it to once he arrives there.
The Essay on The Existence of Happiness
... believes that in our modern time our search for more happiness co-exists with our desire and search for more money. We ... written an essay titled “What Happiness Is”. In this essay Mr. Porter ... The Existence of Happiness Happiness, the intangible emotion that we all desire. Is there proof that this emotion even exists? Eduardo Porter has ...
Not finding it in one place, people are likely to proceed looking for it in another, and they will probably find it, but in the same short lived instance which doesn’t amount and level up to their expectations. Then pursuit of happiness then becomes perpetual, an activity inherent to humanity and people’s existence, so much so that happiness and the pursuit of it is not only a futile and hopeless occurrence and endeavor, it exists for the better part of human lives as an illusion. But the pursuit of such an illusion isn’t an entirely evil prospect.
Gertner pronounces that our pursuit of happiness is what drives us forward, what fuels and motivates us to get through the dragging space of banality and triviality in the everyday. A point by which we find ourselves moving closer to, and although we may never reach our intended versions of it, we are moving towards a better version of ourselves, however vaguely, in struggling baby steps. Ultimately, happiness is a state of mind. It translates differently from one individual to the next.
It is fickle, ephemeral and elusive to the point of being dismissed as mere illusion. But happiness does exist, perhaps not to a certain degree, standard and form people prescribe it of being, but it is nonetheless a reality which exists in the mind of every individual since the inception of thought, and such won’t be dismissed as easily by reason of folly or futility. Despite what the title may connote, the pursuit of happiness isn’t as futile, but in fact, a healthy and essential aspect of human existence.
It allows for aspirations, growth and movement, and paves roads clear of direction. As Gartner already aptly and metaphorically puts it, “maybe it’s important for there to be carrots and sticks in the world, even if they are illusions… they keep us moving towards carrots and away from sticks. ”
References
“The Futile Pursuit of Happiness. ” (7 September 2003).
Gertner, Jon. Retrieved 13 December 2007 from http://query. nytimes. com/gst/fullpage. html