Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
So what the hell does that mean?
This playlist will move your heart if not your body. Peter Green, Boz Scaggs, JJ Cale. Blues never felt so warm and fuzzy.
Enjoy and please comment or share any music you would like to introduce me to.
Everyone knows a trucker. Everyone knows a nurse. Or a cop. Or a firefighter. Or has a buddy who is an EMT. Or a mom that works at Vons. How many warriors are in your orbit? Know anyone in construction?
How about the side-hustler, gig-worker, free-lancer, delivery-driver, dog-walker, house-sitter, care-giver, meal-prepper, wood-crafter or word-smith in your life?
Now think - how many politicians do you know? Best friends with any? I know a few. One on my phone. Because I worked at The Nixon Library for a decade, I met my share of current, former and future elected and appointed officials. Good people, mostly.
Politicians seem to talk a lot about the phrase. Like they know what kind of happiness we want or desire. And even if they did, doesn’t human nature make prescribed virtue as painfully profitless as proscribed vice? Doesn’t seem to stop us from chewing both ends to eat the middle.
Hearing that phrase the past couple of weeks in relation to the Supreme Court news naturally brings out the Constitution-Talkers. Some are ok. Others upset the marbles in my head so much that they started rolling around. Rabbit-hole.
The fun thing about research I do now for my content is the unexpected directions I find flowing and following. I started this post-theme-thought-thinking that I would write about happiness.
After all, after all the apocalypse of attrition, anger and angst, maybe do some Joy a good friend suggested. Not a bad idea, I thought. But how? And why? Joy?
Do we look for it? Does it come to us? Is it serendipitously plopped at our feet? Can it be dragged out of hiding? Why is Joy so hard to schedule and too easy to interrupt? It seems so rare that when we find it, we mistake it for Good Fortune.
Not that Good Fortune is bad. I’m digressing so much I will now re-route. Many people already know many things that I am discovering. Or rather, rediscovering. Call it remedial. I'll call it reinforcement.
What did Thomas Jefferson say about John Locke?
The John Locke Society is a good place to start. Wikipedia says this about John Locke. Just the facts, Ma’am. Too dry. I needed some texture and context. You know, mouth feel. Who was this dude TJ publicly revered?
Jefferson quotes John Locke only half a dozen times in his writings. In Jefferson’s view, Locke, Bacon, and Newton “were the greatest men that ever lived without any exception.” In a letter of 1790, Jefferson stated: “Locke’s little book on Government, is perfect as far as it goes.”
The twigs and vines I grab onto as I rumble and tumble down the shiny object rabbit-holeness are just what they seem to be. Something to grab onto. That stops the slide down the hole. Whatever or Whoever that twig or vine is now has history and power.
So here's the twig I grabbed onto, and maybe you should take a look. John Locke is really given his due and the proper treatment as a man of his stature and reputation earned during his lifetime. The vine this twig was attached to is called The Pursuit of Happiness, oddly enough.
This place is unreal. And so real. At the same time. They lead with this
Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.
Aristotle
Ms. Watson in 10th grade Chemistry certainly never ascribed to this philosophy. I wonder, if she had ever read this tenant, would she have been a different teacher?
Poor Miss Watson, bringing the pain of Chemistry and never grasping the pleasure of it.
What is Joy??
Speaking of Buddha, somebody who thought a lot said this about him
During his life, he had experienced intensive pleasure and extreme deprivation but he found that neither extreme brought one to true understanding.
Aristotle
So probably the best part to start this heart full of Joy thing is to identify the thing.
Merriam defines it this way:
1a: the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires : DELIGHT
b: the expression or exhibition of such emotion : GAIETY
2: a state of happiness or felicity : BLISS
3: a source or cause of delight
Here is a nuanced, fuller, and more satisfying description:
Seligman’s bottom line is that happiness has three dimensions that can be cultivated:
“The pleasant life” is realized if we learn to savor and appreciate such basic pleasures as companionship, the natural environment and our bodily needs.
We can remain pleasantly stuck at this stage or we can go on to experience “the good life,” which is achieved by discovering our unique virtues and strengths and employing them creatively to enhance our lives.
The final stage is “the meaningful life,” in which we find a deep sense of fulfillment by mobilizing our unique strengths for a purpose much greater than ourselves.
The genius of Seligman’s theory is that it reconciles two conflicting views of human happiness – the individualistic approach, which emphasizes that we should take care of ourselves and nurture our own strengths, and the altruistic approach, which tends to downplay individuality and emphasizes self-sacrifice.
Wine-tasting opens Joyful doors of pleasant feelings. Sights, sounds and smells encourage emotional risk-taking. Instead of nursing old cold beer, the sip is now warm welcome wine.
Emotional risk-taking comes with back-loaded needs and wants. Wine unlocks the back-loader. The back-loader, when full, needs to be dumped. How many of those old expectations get unloaded?
Sifting through the unloaded feelings is the trick. So the search for Joy continues. With new memories and old scars. And a lifetime of familiar feelings. And a future of unfamiliar ones.
Let’s keep riding the vine,
Ric
“The pleasant life” is realized if we learn to savor and appreciate such basic pleasures as companionship, the natural environment and our bodily needs.
bonus here, this one will melt your heart . . .