As a kid I had many qualities: I could recite the entire alphabet at age eight, I could dance, I could sing. But gratitude wasn’t one of my many virtues. When my grandmother offered me a piece of chocolate, I’d pout because it wasn’t more. But nobody offers me a lollipop these days, much less two of those wonderful Lindt truffles.
On the other hand, I’m 22. I can afford 35 cents for that brownious goodness. When I can’t, I stand outside Store 24 looking menacingly at the beautiful ladies. I get my letch on I get my 35 cents. And if that isn’t one of the best things about this infidel capitalist nation right there, you can spank me with a spiked paddle and film it. (Well, I’d probably let you do that anyway, but you get what I mean.)
However, while Lindt truffles are pretty damn good, they’re at the bottom of the Aristotelian pyramid of happiness, where self-actualization is king. The venerable philosopher says, ‘Happiness, a state we all pursue, is the full realization of our rationality. In order to be happy, to reach a self-sufficient, attainable and final end, we should aim at the good.’ I say, ‘That’s chill, dude.’
Like the gent says, we seek spiritual fulfillment, gainful employment, education, consummation even love. Most of us fail miserably. But even though we’re doomed to spend the rest of our fat lives trying to pass computer science 101 without showing up for lecture, hoping to find a girlfriend on an online personals site and begging our parents for enough money to finance a case of Newcastle Brown Ale to forget the slings and arrows, H-O-P-E still prevails.
Hope tells us that someday we’ll be able to complete a 16 credit semester, someday we’ll be skinny and most importantly some day, through some bizarre concatenation of circumstance and reality television, a girlfriend will show up at our door with a case of Newcastle Brown.
And why not hope? Things could be worse, right? There are flying anvils and new forms of social rejection just waiting for you. Or you could suffer what I call the Knife-Demon Paradox. This comes from a rural Islamic legend about a minor demon in Hell, whose body is made of knives (hence the name Knife-Demon). When you plummet into the infernal circles of the Fiery Pit, he hugs you. But is he evil, and does he want you to hurt? Or is he just some friendly guy who doesn’t realize that being hugged by a guy made of knives isn’t exactly a foot massage? Who wants to be a knife-demon? Or be hugged by one?
Anyway, the point is: our lives aren’t as bad as we think they are. We’re not knife-demons, nor are we friends with them (unless your lifestyle is really alternative). Spiritual fulfillment is a tough baby though. Is not being a knife demon enough reason for you to be truly satisfied with your life? The friendless, lonely knife-demon would answer ‘Yes,’ but most of us want a life of eudemonic pleasance, preferably a really garish one which others can envy. But when causing envy in others becomes the only racecar in Happy Lane, you’ve already defeated the purpose of seeking happiness.
‘What would you know, Fatty?’ I hear you say. ‘It’s not about making others jealous of the fact that you use Product B and use Preparation H, it’s about the quality of said products and the joy involved in using them!’ Well OK, bunky, but I’ll tell you something Confucius probably said a couple thousand years ago: material goods ain’t the answer here.
True happiness lies in realizing that it’s actually possible to be happy. Like the Three-Fingered Grip I’ve been known to employ, this sounds simple but is fairly hard to implement. But here’s the logic behind it: If it’s actually possible to be happy, that means that impossibilities such as owning every cool thing ever made in the history of the world or making everybody else in the entire gigantinormous universe be jealous of your diamond-soled ruby slippers are not the vehicle to actualization. And once that’s established, you can seek joy in what you already have.
The three things that make me happiest, for example, are:
a) Giving my mother a hug, because she makes me tea and I love her.
b) Talking on the phone with my brown pals Imran and Zisha (and Imran plays guitars in my band, The Watson Brothers, and we rock! We were born to be wild! Yeah!)
c) My friend Caitlin’s pecan pie, because she’s pure love and her pecan pies are awesome.
Now these are fairly simple, and most people have a mother and a couple of friends, even if those friends can’t make pie. Tell them you love them. Ask them to buy you Lindt truffles. Being satisfied with your life, happy about the state of things and so on is really easy. And if you can’t manage that, there’s always masturbation use the Three-Fingered Grip. Unless you’re a knife-demon, that is.
Arafat Kazi, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press and can be reached at [email protected]
