Happiness Revisited
Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle concluded that men and women seek happiness. Goals such as health, beauty, wealth, and power are valued only as a means to achieve happiness. It is a principle that remains true even to the present day - and one that is little better understood in our time than in his.
In the present day, mankind has conquered most of the challenges faced by his ancestors. We are wealthier and live longer, and even the least affluent in western societies hare surrounded by luxuries that exceed those of emperors of the ancient kingdoms. And in spite of his, people are not happy. Many spend their days between anxiety and boredom, with little sense of fulfillment.
There are various explanations for this: that people becomes inured to material success and want "more" regardless of what they possess. Others would say that our material culture puts us in pursuit of things that do not cause us to be happy. MC finds these answers to be unsatisfactory, and immersed himself in a 25-year study to discover a batter one.
What he found through his study is that happiness is not something that is achieved, but a state of being in which a person exists. That is, one does not become happy as a result of participating in drudgery to achieve a goal, but a condition in which a person exists regardless of what they may be doing.
He quotes JS Mill: "Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so." And then Frankl: "Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued: in must instead ensue, as an unintended side-effect."
Happiness is a perception of our own lives, which we regard as the outcome of many forces that shape experience. Many of our traits are outside our control: our appearance and our constitution are much like our height or our intelligence. We do not choose these things, but inherit the qualities. And most of all, we don't control the environment, the weather, or the actions of other people.
We are "buffeted about by anonymous forces" though at certain times and in certain regards, we do feel in control of ourselves. And on the rare occasions when this occurs, we feel a deep sense of enjoyment. This is what he means by the term "optimal experience."
He draws an analogy to a person on a boat, which is being tossed about by the tides and the wind. Such a person is miserable, in that they feel helpless. But when they take control of the rudder and the sail, and steer the boat in a direction they intend, they have a sense of control and command. And in this moment, the fear and the misery dissipate, and we are focused on what we are doing.
The sense that happiness is that something that happens to a person, when they are passive, receptive, and open to what is happening around them while exerting no control. Such experiences can be enjoyable provided we feel safe. But more often, we enjoy making things happen, and are more delighted in "doing" than in acting as a witness to events.
He mentions sporting activities, which can be very unpleasant: a muscles ache and his lungs burn, and he may be dizzy with fatigue. But yet, he finds great enjoyment in running. It is a sense of mastery, control, and competence that give him a sense of accomplishment in an otherwise unpleasant activity.
Here, he switches to talk a bit about the methods of his research, interviewing various people - particularly those who are considered experts in various activities and fields of endeavor. Such people are often happy, and feel a sense of fulfillment in their lives - but not because of their accomplishment, but because of a state of total immersion in what they are doing.
This is the essence of flow: it is a state in which people are so intensely involved in an activity that nothing else intrudes on their consciousness, and the experience itself becomes intensely pleasurable that they will undertake great effort to keep doing it. He has found this to be the case across a wide range of cultures and groups.
While his early work was purely academic, it soon spread to a variety of areas, and was applied to practical issues - and this makes perfect sense. Engagement in an activity, and increasing competence, are very practical and non-academic concerns - and as such "flow" is likely a concept that is of greater interest, and is far more germane, to the activities of everyday life than the laboratories of academic psychology.
Overview
A number of articles have been written on the concept of flow for an academic audience, and CS believes this book to be the first time" that this research has been disclosed to a broader audience.
He is wary of the popular psychology genre, many of which offer prescriptions for a happy and fulfilling life written by unqualified authors whose theories reflect more opinion than research.
"Books cannot give recipes for how to be happy" because optimal experience depends on the ability to control what happens in consciousness. But he expects that it is possible, and his goal in writing this particular book, to present a framework and a theory, based on research, for readers to reflect upon as a means to achieve their own happiness.
Many people attempt to achieve happiness by the accomplishment of goals, rather than finding happiness in the process of achieving them. The basic human urges (wealth, power, sex) give direction to their strivings. But it is not obtaining something that provides a sustained set of happiness, but immersion in the process of its achievement.
The optimal state of inner experience is one in which there is order in consciousness, when energy and attention is invested in realistic goals, and when a person's skills match the opportunities for action. The pursuit of a goal focuses awareness to a specific propose, and it is in this focus that we find tranquility and a sense of purpose.
(EN: An outline of the book, chapter by chapter, follows.)
The Roots of Discontent
One of the main reasons that happiness is so difficult to achieve is that the world is not designed for the comfort of human beings. We may fantasize it to be a gentle and idyllic environment that is provided for our pleasure, but it is clear that our present condition, like our evolution, is a constant struggle for survival in an environment that is at most times hostile.
It seems that every time a pressing danger is avoided, a new one arises. The agricultural and industrial revolutions have provided a great many things that we wanted, but poison the environment and reduce our daily lives to repetition and tedium. We reduce infant mortality and are faced with overpopulation. It seems that everything we do, even when it works out, has negative side effects.
Science has done a great deal to explain the natural world, and we have gained a great deal of understanding about the properties of things and can bend nature to our will. But our observation of the environment does not take our own desires into account. Moreover, it seems to be our nature to be dissatisfied in any case: once we have fulfilled one desire, we discover another and long for its fulfillment.
And in reality, the notion that man has mastered nature is hubris: we really have little control over the forces that interfere with our well-being. We can mitigate their effects and rebound from tragedy, but cannot prevent tragedy from occurring.
This is not to say that we should surrender ourselves to the wiles of these external and uncontrollable forces - doing so is the means by which we are able to meet our physical survival needs. But our psychological needs, our desire to be happy, is entirely internal - it is the manner in which we choose to respond to the forces that affect us, not our control over them, that determines our disposition.
MC reckons that each person has a sense, however vague, of what they wish to accomplish in life. How close we are to achieving this goal becomes the measure of quality of our lives. Though it is not, strictly speaking, the distance to the goal, but the sense of our own progress toward it.
The basic goals of life are simple: to survive, and to be happy. The first is simple enough in the present world, particularly in developed economies, but the second remains elusive. We can satisfy our basic physical needs, achieve a degree of comfort, and do all of this with dignity - but we cannot free ourselves from the pain of want. And, per his earlier point, the satisfaction of achieving a goal is short-lived, until we find another goal to pursue.
But among us, there are people who possess this quality of happiness, and they are as plentiful among the poor and struggling as they are among the wealthy and comfortable. Common characteristics is that such people are open to a variety of experiences, keep learning until the day they die, and have strong ties to other people an the environment. Later in this book, MC will consider these individuals and the behaviors and characteristics they have in common.
The Shields of Culture
One of the primary functions of any culture is to shield its members from chaos - to suggest to them that the universe is an orderly place, subject to rules and reliable in its nature, such that following certain rules of conduct leads to success with reasonable dependency.
This is as it should be, as an entirely random and unpredictable environment would leave us paralyzed to act. But an unrealistic trust in the shields of culture leads to an equally extreme sense of disillusionment when they fail.
It also leads to hubris: when we are so certain that the assumptions and rules of culture are reliable, we do not acknowledge the inevitably of failure, which leads inexorably to a "rude awakening" with which we are utterly unable to cope.
In the present society, the cracks are already beginning to show: genuinely happy individuals are few and far between, and most people seem to have lost their way. There is less and less confidence in the societal institutions, and little sense of certainty in anything.
We are also showing early signs of denial: those that notice the failure of our culture are seeking external causes: it's the economy, or immigration, or something else that is external to the culture that poses a threat.
For others, it is merely a sense of existential angst - the feeling that something is wrong, and an inability to identify quite what. Nothing makes sense, and there no longer seems to be any point to striving to achieve what was once considered to be success. In essence, it is persistent disappointment as we face the nagging question of "is this all there is?"
And we turn again to externalities: we have been cheated by someone. If we accept, as we have been told, that we live in the richest country that ever was, in the most scientifically advanced period in human history, why are our individual lives not richer and more meaningful? Why are we all so essentially unhappy?
The common reaction to this sense of malaise is simply to ignore it. Continue to strive to achieve the goals that we have been told will bring us happiness: make more friends, make more money, get healthier, undergo plastic surgery, and so on. And as we achieve each of these goals, we discover that the "success" does not add one iota to the quality of life.
Another reaction is escapism: to retire graceful from the rat race, give up on the world, and delve into some hobby or another - or dabble in alcohol or drugs or other distractions. Such things can take our mind off the problem for a time, but cannot solve it.
Historically, the problem of existence has been most often confronted through religion. Whether the mystical western or esoteric eastern variety, all religions provide a framework for an orderly and predictable universe. The rise and fall of a progression of religions demonstrates its inability to solve the problem, and more often offer peace of mind only on the conditions that adherences simply ignore a great deal of what experience demonstrates to them.
MC then cites a number of negative statistics about the United states: increases in crime, suicide, poverty, drug use, mental illness, and the like are clear and undeniable indicators of cultural bankruptcy.
Reclaiming Experience
I culture and its institutions are no longer functional, and have in many instances become dysfunctional, then it is necessary for the individual to take things in hand, and carve out a meaningful and enjoyable existence for himself. This must be done in spite of external circumstances.
One o the primary flaws in present culture is that we are taught to believe that what counts most in our lives is that which will occur in the future. Parents, educators, religious leaders, and employers raise us from childhood to accept that the unpleasant things we must experience, never embrace, will result in a future reward - or more aptly, the promise of a future reward, which may not be delivered. Meanwhile, immediate gratification is discouraged, portrayed as being immoral or harmful.
This is a very effective and efficient model for controlling others: servility can be obtained immediately and the reward may be withheld so long as the subjugated believe it to be possible. Virtually every such promise made is never kept.
Neither is this arrangement entirely artificial, but exists in nature: to enjoy the benefit of a meal, we must undertake the effort of hunting or gathering with no guarantee that the activities we perform will result in success. The necessity of action is a certainty, and its consequences are always an uncertainty. This is inevitable, and it is by no means inadvisable to take action in hope of achieving an outcome that is uncertain - but to continue to do so indefinitely is to be constantly disappointed.
Submission to genetic programming, and especially to those who would leverage these "tricks" to gain obedience, leaves an individual helpless: it is a one-sided bargain in which we have no ability to compel the other party to make good on their promises, and we are easily exploited. It is by this means that we are trapped into meaningless and unfulfilling lives - because activity that does not achieve its desired outcome is ritual.
"There is no question that to survive, and especially to survive in a complex society, it is necessary to work for external goals and to postpone gratification. But a person does not have to be turned into a puppet jerked around by social controls."
The solution the author proposes is to augment or substitute for these external rewards by seeking rewards that are within one's own power to achieve. It is also valuable to discover rewards in the events of each moment: to find meaning in the process of achieving outcomes, not merely in their ultimate achievement.
The pain and pleasure we experience psychologically are different to their physical counterparts in that they exist entirely in the mind. We define the conditions under which we feel them - or at least are capable of so doing. This technique goes back to Marcus Aurelius, who wrote "if you are pained by external things, it is not that they disturb you but your judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment."
Paths of Liberation
MC mentions a few historical philosophies that have grasped this basic principle: that the greater part of our unhappiness is not due to external causes, but the manner in which we choose to react to them. This concept exists in western philosophy and many eastern religions.
If this has been known for thousands of years, why have not more people achieved it? It is because the forces of society and civilization work against it. A man who sets his own goals and earns his own rewards is not as easily manipulated as one who depends on others to tell him what to do and reward him for doing it. Which is to say, he is less useful to society, which wishes to set goals, give orders, and obtain obedience in exchange for a promise that it will not need to fulfill.
Society opposes individualism - the two are moral enemies - which is the reason that any philosophy will be perverted or undermined. Marx would have been mind boggled by what became of his system of communism, meant to restore the individual against his masters. And "if Christ had returned to preach his message of liberation ... he would be crucified by the leaders of that very church whose worldly power was built on his name."
If liberation is to be achieved, it must be through individual effort - in spite of society and its institutions. It will never be through them.