Happy to see the light of day

Philosophers of happiness, no less than any of us, experience their own weal and woe variably and moodily.

There are moments and days of stoic gratitude when our respective Sisyphean rocks feel lighter and we think, this is good. This may be as good as it gets. William James was having such a day when he wrote:

Happiness, I have lately discovered, is no positive feeling, but a negative condition of freedom from a number of restrictive sensations of which our organism usually seems to be the seat. When they are wiped out, the clearness and cleanness of the contrast is happiness. Letters

I have more and more of those days myself, lately, when the small nagging annoyances and aches and pains of everyday are in temporary abeyance. I'm much more sympathetic to them than I used to be. "Negative?" Not at all. "Freedom!" I think that's what some call "aging." Or nothing left to lose.

There are other occasions when the dominant mood is more robust, strenuous, and euphoric. Sometimes even ecstatic. That's the kind of day James must have been having, only weeks before he died in 1910, when he answered Henry Adams' dark ruminations on entropy and cosmic death.

Though the ultimate state of the universe may be its vital and psychical extinction, there is nothing in physics to interfere with the hypothesis that the penultimate state might be the millennium — in other words a state in which a... maximum of happy and virtuous consciousness would be the only result. In short, the last expiring pulsation of the universe's life might be, "I am so happy and perfect that I can stand it no longer." You don't believe this and I don't say I do . But I can find nothing in "Energetik" to conflict with its possibility. 

I'm likeliest to be in that mood during and just after my morning walk, when all is positive possibility.

And then there are the quieter, more reflective times, when the larger and longer meanings of life give happiness a depth and satisfaction it misses on those lower and higher days. That's the feeling I get from "What Makes a Life Significant":

The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing,— the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman 's pains.—And, whatever or wherever life may be, there will always be the chance for that marriage to take place.

The reflective mood yokes happiness and meaning most effectively. It's Sissela Bok's starting place in Exploring Happiness, when she marvels at her mother's decision to risk the pregnancy that became her life.

THE MIND REELS AT THE THOUGHT OF THE INFINITESIMAL chances that any one of us had of being born, able to relish even the slightest glimmer of happiness... Were it not for  my young mother's newfangled ideas about happiness, I would never have seen the light of day.

In whatever mood, we can be happy to see the light of day.

When the volcano blows

Enjoy ourselves while we can sounds so simple, and so it should. Over-thinking everything, happiness included, is the philosopher's biggest occupational hazard. Why not just let everyone discover what makes them smile, and get out of their way so they can do it? So long as we and they are doing no harm, what's the problem?

People find all kinds of ways to complicate the pursuit of happiness, of course. Philosophers tend to get hung up on questions of meaning. We want to be meaningfully happy. Or sad. Or indifferent. We want there to be a point, an enduring purpose and resonance to our acts and our days.

Call it the Alvy Singer problem. I've been calling it that for a long time, in fact. Last night I discovered that Samuel Scheffler has too. He's the latest Philosophy Bites interviewee, and it was surprising to hear him mention Alvy on the podcast right after I'd written of Woody's young alter ego yesterday morning. Scheffler asks: If all sentient life were to end a few minutes after my death, how would that affect the meaning of what I'm doing now?

Young Alvy's problem was less hypothetically urgent. Having become aware of our universe's finitude, he now saw no point in doing anything. Especially homework. It didn't matter to him that billions of years would elapse before the End. The sudden winding down of our ticking clock does seem to alter the scenario in important ways.

But either way, the solution proposed by Dr. Flicker, is to put annihilation and oblivion out of mind and get on with today. That was Bertrand Russell's solution too.

Nobody really worries much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out -- at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation -- it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things. 

 They're right, right? Get on with living and doing and making and being. Stop fretting and worrying and philosophizing. Try and  enjoy your life. Sound and satisfactory advice, for most of us most of the time.

But Scheffler makes a point about the long historical context of attending to the day at hand that's not easily shrugged away. We can enjoy ourselves today because today is presumably not doomsday, nor will the final curtain fall tomorrow, or tomorrow. That day will eventually, inevitably come for us all, one by one and, in the long run, collectively.

But meantime, we can try to build happy lives whose meaning may endure and resonate. Or not. But the bare possibility of meaningful happiness counts for a lot. The withdrawal of that possibility would be devastating, for all except those who really do live entirely in the moment. The thought that our personal expiration date will coincide with the extinction of all life on Earth seems to suck the meaning right out of the marrow of existence.

Happy days set against a backdrop of an enduring species and planet make reassuring sense. This is the meaningful happiness of John Dewey's "continuous human community."

Dancing on the rim of the volcano just before it blows, or even millions or billions of years before, seems (to continue speaking Dewey's language) too precarious and unstable. "Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius!" How'd that work out for you, Nietzsche? Or you, "Carlos Danger"?

On the other hand... remember how Arthur and Ford prepared for Earth's immanent demise? They headed for the pub, for a couple of last-minute rounds of "muscle relaxant." Made the barkeep happy with a fat tip, too. Sounds like a plan.

Walk in the sunshine

Aristotle "in a nutshell," from astute non-academic Tom Butler-Bowdon:

Happiness comes from expressing what we have rationally decided is good for us over the longer term. Happiness is not pleasure, but a by-product of a meaningful life.

Butler-Bowdon's 50 Philosophy Classics is an impressively wide-ranging, alphabetically-ordered compendium of nutshell clarity. Surprisingly impressive, perhaps, to those academics who've been miseducated to suspect and discount the work of non-credentialed generalists.

I don't think I'm one of those, but I was suspicious that the latest volume in a drab-seeming series of 50s (spiritual, self-help, success, prosperity, psychology, no "shades of grey") might be a bit lite. It's not. It strikes just the  right balance between accurate explication, insightful contextual analysis, and breezy illustrative anecdote.

I hadn't known, for instance, of A.J. Ayer's encounter with Mike Tyson at a New York party. Ayer interceded when Tyson "assaulted" his date, and replied cooly to the thug's "Do you know who I am? I am the heavyweight champion of the world." -"And I am the former Wykeham Professor of Logic..." My esteem for Ayer just tripled.

But the Butler-Bowdon quote I found most moving and helpful (and relevant to my present project) yesterday was not in 50 Classics but in his twitter stream:

“I always knew that someday I would once again feel the grass under my feet and walk in the sunshine as a free man. I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed towards the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair.”

That was Nelson Mandela, whose meaningful life will continue to be a source of human happiness.

Most festival goers are just there for the party, I know, and some for the experience, while a few are seeking something spirited and meaningful and liberating.

Your life is your life, don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission… etc.

Older Daughter says she’s “just trying to accept that I’ve got three more days of this.” I think that’s the sunburn and travel fatigue talking, but she’s usually not one for Greek-style party mysticism. Jennifer Hecht has interesting thoughts on all this.

We first-world moderns are not like everybody else. Historically the average person expected to be a little miserable most of the time, and ecstatic on festival days. We now expect to be happy all the time, but never riutously so.

I usually expect to be happy while walking around looking at stuff and thinking about things, or not. It definitely looks to me like there’s plenty to walk around and gawk at the ‘roo-fest. I should go. Can any of my music friends get me backstage to see Paul? He should still remember a thing or two about manic ecstasy.

Sometimes, particularly in summer, I surprise myself at the end of a walk by deciding, impulsively and unpremeditatively, to just do something I’ve been putting off forever.

Yesterday morning I strolled home and suddenly decided to just clean out that unnavigable overstuffed “potting shed.” Told myself it would take just a few minutes. Of course, it ended up taking hours. And of course, yesterday was the first really summery day we’ve had here. It hit 90 before I was through.

Removed a large, mostly empty large wooden crate my Dad gave me many years ago (after confiscating it from a negligent renter). I used to keep dogfood in it, lately it’s been home to spiders and empty space.

Also removed that large platform I got from I don’t recall where, that I imagined I’d someday repurpose as a daybed for my Little House.

Now they’re both down the hill in the dog barn, to gather new coats of dust and house the next generations of spiders.

Threw away a ton of forgotten stuff, including a few broken pots. Younger Daughter’s moldy old Hannah Montana purse, and her doll stroller. Kept the little red wagon.

And a light bulb came on: the rapacious rabbits won’t eat elevated potted petunias, will they?

So now I have a “clean” shed and a fresh planting project.

And a new metaphor. Gretchen Rubin says projects are better than journeys. I like both.