Dear Reader,

I’ve been thinking about happiness. I believe that most people in the world are driven by happiness. Underneath it all, we all just want to be happy; even the psychopaths and the evil warlords. The problem, of course, is that we disagree on how we can achieve happiness.

If only we could convince everyone that happiness can be achieved easily by having enough food on the table, with the table being inside a house of some kind, and being surrounded by loved ones and enough time to just sit around and do nothing and gossip with each other, but also enough exertion and the kind of work that’s not absolutely soul-sucking and can provide us enough food to put on the table. Apart from that we don’t need much. Perhaps the feeling of security that no one will barge in our house with a gun and kill our loved ones and take our food away. All it takes is some security, some food and shelter, some companionship, some love and sex and touch, some physical exertion and a good night’s sleep. Everything else is superfluous.

If we could convince people of this, we’d realize that it’s not that hard to provide this to everyone. We have advanced technologically to the point that we can provide such a simple but good life to each 8 billion+ humans on the planet. The tragedy of the human condition is that we will never be able to convince everyone of anything.

Even within our own family, we can’t stop our loved ones from being manipulative and seeking attention, and talking over others, and taunting someone to make them feel worthless so they remain dependent on the narcissist manipulator, just because the narcissist can’t feel secure unless their family members are completely under their control.

The happy image of the family laughing around the dining table, fades quickly into taunting and fighting and awkward silences and slammed doors and people sobbing into pillows. And if we can’t achieve this with our own family, what hope do we have of achieving any kind of utopia at a global level. Who’s going to convince the masters of war that there’s no need for war? Who’s going to convince the masters of industry that there’s no need to produce so much stuff? Who’s going to convince the rich people that they have more than enough? Who’s going to convince the not-rich-but-want-to-be-rich people that they don’t need extreme wealth to be happy? Who’s going to convince the psychopath that they don’t need to kill their victim to ensure they won’t leave them?

The answer, my friend, is no one. It is impossible to convince everyone of anything. But if you look deeper, perhaps this version of happiness itself is flawed. Perhaps happiness is not something that can be achieved permanently. Perhaps the happiness of a good meal with family can only be achieved once in a while, after a day that’s as full of stress and strife as any normal day. And perhaps we can’t avoid awkward meals and slammed doors. Maybe that’s what makes the happy meals, worth it.

Instead of trying to convince people of our version of happiness, maybe we should recognize that people will always be driven by happiness and will seek it in different ways and will only ever find it sporadically. That’s just the human condition and we haven’t advanced enough to rise above it. All we can do is to remind ourselves, and others, to appreciate the times when we do find happiness. Don’t stress over the fact that it will be over soon.

If we can just learn to do this, our lives will be better. If we want to do a little bit more, we can learn to allow others their moments of happiness.

Happy holidays,

Rudya Aditya