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Reaping the bitter harvest of the pursuit of happiness
By Wan Lixin |
July 18, 2009, Saturday
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AMERICANS want to be happy, and in their relentless pursuit of happiness, some end up reaping something bitter.
According to Eric Wilson in his "Against Happiness," Americans are using pills, positive psychology, self-help books and motivational lectures to banish melancholia from their cultural landscape.
Now 85 percent of Americans claim to be happy.
I would not have the heart to disturb these "gods of a pleasure dome of their own making" if they are not so diligently spreading their gospel of happiness to the rest of the world.
The Oriental Morning Post reported on Wednesday that in Shanghai some workers are working 15 hours a day on a Happy Valley project to ensure it can start dispensing happiness on the doubly auspicious August 8 (8th day, 8th month, which sounds like "Richer, richer" in Cantonese.).
Live broadcasts of star-making "Happy Girl" and "Happy Boy" had so thrilled the young people that regulators banned such programs two years ago, but they are staging a comeback (July 15, Shanghai Daily).
According to Wilson, American aversion to sadness and pain stems from their fear of dying and their longing to feel in control of their lives.
They rush to antidepressants or psychiatrists at the slightest sign of mental discomfort.
They try to "have" everything, and thanks to their endeavors, all things once held sacred seem to be available in monetary terms.
Forests, fields, mountains, youth, beauty, life, marriage, sex, clean air and water, education -- all these now have a price.
"Happy people reduce the earth to a series of glittering boxes. They make it the mirror of their muted souls," Wilson observes.
This reduction to material terms shows the happy people to maximum advantages: larger homes, Ferraris, private jets, LVs, Evian.
Even war and tragedies have become a spectator sport.
"Some of our most sacred institutions have become happiness schools," the book concludes.
But in their eagerness to have instant gratification, they find happiness elusive.
The American Dream turns out to be a nightmare, not only for Americans but also for the rest of the world.
They have lost their capacity for tranquility and contemplation. They find nature not spiced up by human artifices to be dull.
A ceaseless plundering of the earth becomes the only obsession, leading to serious consequences.
The vital ozone layer is disappearing, and global warming is threatening all life on earth.
Some feel hopelessly frustrated by the rat race.
Currently about one in every 30 American adults is locked in jail or prison. In 1990s the US spent US$30 billion in building new prisons, and annually US$30 billion goes to the upkeep of prisons. The investment is about seven times the US' annual educational expenditure.
The inflexibly happy Americans have yet to learn to come to terms with melancholia, which like the night preceding the day, is a healthy and necessary part of life.
"The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe," says philosopher and poet Henri Frederic Amiel.
Americans do not need to go far to seek remedy. Some thoughtful Americans have tried to address their excesses not long ago.
For example, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) summed up his teachings in one word, "Simplify": simplify the outward circumstances of your life, your needs and your ambitions, learn to delight in the simple pleasures which the world of Nature affords, scorn public opinion and refuse to accept the common definitions of success.
He dismissed "Progress" as defined in terms of increasing material and mechanical complexity, and called "a high standard of living" a curse.
"This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used," he wrote while excoriating the commercial spirit.
Dread of the hereafter once made Europeans in the Middle Ages pious; family bond still put Chinese constantly in mind of their obligations to their ancestors and descendants.
But unless Americans learn to listen to their oracles, and begin to appreciate melancholia and the tragic nature of human existence, the American-style pursuit of happiness is bound to make more people unhappy.
According to Eric Wilson in his "Against Happiness," Americans are using pills, positive psychology, self-help books and motivational lectures to banish melancholia from their cultural landscape.
Now 85 percent of Americans claim to be happy.
I would not have the heart to disturb these "gods of a pleasure dome of their own making" if they are not so diligently spreading their gospel of happiness to the rest of the world.
The Oriental Morning Post reported on Wednesday that in Shanghai some workers are working 15 hours a day on a Happy Valley project to ensure it can start dispensing happiness on the doubly auspicious August 8 (8th day, 8th month, which sounds like "Richer, richer" in Cantonese.).
Live broadcasts of star-making "Happy Girl" and "Happy Boy" had so thrilled the young people that regulators banned such programs two years ago, but they are staging a comeback (July 15, Shanghai Daily).
According to Wilson, American aversion to sadness and pain stems from their fear of dying and their longing to feel in control of their lives.
They rush to antidepressants or psychiatrists at the slightest sign of mental discomfort.
They try to "have" everything, and thanks to their endeavors, all things once held sacred seem to be available in monetary terms.
Forests, fields, mountains, youth, beauty, life, marriage, sex, clean air and water, education -- all these now have a price.
"Happy people reduce the earth to a series of glittering boxes. They make it the mirror of their muted souls," Wilson observes.
This reduction to material terms shows the happy people to maximum advantages: larger homes, Ferraris, private jets, LVs, Evian.
Even war and tragedies have become a spectator sport.
"Some of our most sacred institutions have become happiness schools," the book concludes.
But in their eagerness to have instant gratification, they find happiness elusive.
The American Dream turns out to be a nightmare, not only for Americans but also for the rest of the world.
They have lost their capacity for tranquility and contemplation. They find nature not spiced up by human artifices to be dull.
A ceaseless plundering of the earth becomes the only obsession, leading to serious consequences.
The vital ozone layer is disappearing, and global warming is threatening all life on earth.
Some feel hopelessly frustrated by the rat race.
Currently about one in every 30 American adults is locked in jail or prison. In 1990s the US spent US$30 billion in building new prisons, and annually US$30 billion goes to the upkeep of prisons. The investment is about seven times the US' annual educational expenditure.
The inflexibly happy Americans have yet to learn to come to terms with melancholia, which like the night preceding the day, is a healthy and necessary part of life.
"The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe," says philosopher and poet Henri Frederic Amiel.
Americans do not need to go far to seek remedy. Some thoughtful Americans have tried to address their excesses not long ago.
For example, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) summed up his teachings in one word, "Simplify": simplify the outward circumstances of your life, your needs and your ambitions, learn to delight in the simple pleasures which the world of Nature affords, scorn public opinion and refuse to accept the common definitions of success.
He dismissed "Progress" as defined in terms of increasing material and mechanical complexity, and called "a high standard of living" a curse.
"This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used," he wrote while excoriating the commercial spirit.
Dread of the hereafter once made Europeans in the Middle Ages pious; family bond still put Chinese constantly in mind of their obligations to their ancestors and descendants.
But unless Americans learn to listen to their oracles, and begin to appreciate melancholia and the tragic nature of human existence, the American-style pursuit of happiness is bound to make more people unhappy.
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