Origins of Happiness

For a long time I kept a short quotation on the wall in my kitchen. (It was taken down when I moved and hasn't made it back up in the new house, but it is - seared - into my memory:

"Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness."

This resonated with me because I'm always happier when I have a plan whether it be short term, long term, or anything in between.

Two days ago, JK blogged an article that examined declining levels of happiness in middle-class Britain. The author placed blame for the condition with the same group's rise in affluence. JK expressed confliction over the piece saying, "it's against all I believe and hold dear -- but it is well written. And it cannot be discarded as anti-modernity claptrap." Well, I say it can be regarded precisely so, and made a brief case for that conclusion. But the more interesting observation here is how JK recognized that this well written jibberish flew in the face of his every value yet still resonated with him.

To explain this phenomenon I'd like to refer readers to an excellent philosophical piece in the June 2004 issue of Robert Tracinski's 'The Intellectual Activist.' Entitled 'The Tragic Grandeur of America - Tillman, Reagan and the American Sense of Life,' it presents an in-depth analysis of the ideals that motivate us and how they work in our minds. [Entire article in print edition only, but enter your email address for a free trial edition in PDF format plus the TIA daily email service for 30 days free!]

The piece begins by describing how Pat Tillman walked away from a $3.6 million football contract to join the Army Rangers and fight in Afghanistan, yet told friends that he couldn't talk about his reasons. The cause for this life changing decision based on unstatable values is described:

"Man's subconscious mind - the automatic psychological functions that form, maintain, and assert his sense of life - is constantly engaged in mental work. It is filing away facts and experiences and filing away connections and patterns among these experiences. This is the "subconscious integration" Ayn Rand describes as the process of forming a sense of life.

Thus, even for the clearest and most profound thinker, an important truth is often grasped first as a "sense" or "feeling" - a vague pattern his subconscious has tagged from among countless individual observations, but which is still only half-grasped by his conscious mind - a "sense" that requires a great deal of conscious analysis before it can be fully defined and cemented in words. And for the common man - especially in today's skeptical, anti-certainty, militantly un-philosophical age - [the 'post-modern' era] many important moral truths remain at this half-grasped stage.

Tracinski goes on to describe how President Reagan embodied many of the ideals of individualism and self-reliance demonstrated by Tillman and many other American heroes, as well as the framers of the Constitution. He describes how Reagan's sense of life was the powerful antidote America needed to President Carter's "national malaise." Rather than cower in fear of the totalitarian USSR, seeking to stave off defeat for as long as possible, Reagan set in place a strategy for victory. Chief among its components was a little well deserved chest thumping on the part of the last, best hope for freedom on Earth, the United States of America. He defiantly labeled the Soviets "the evil empire," and took overt and covert steps to undermine their economic house of cards. "It is also in deep economic difficulty..." Reagan said. "The dimensions of this failure are astounding: a country which employs one-fifth of its population in agriculture is unable to feed its own people." The result was not only the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union, but the replacement of malaise with optimism, of fear with happiness.

Tracinski concludes by showing how, despite Reagan's grasp of the power of the American sense of life, his failure to fully understand its origins held him - and America - back from their fullest potentials. But this important analysis is to be reserved for a future blog. The conclusion here is to understand how happiness is a condition to be enjoyed by individuals; that every individual's happiness is tied inextricably to his knowledge and understanding of his own values; and that those values must be consistent, conscious, and metaphysically sound (i.e. consistent with reality in the physical world.)

When JK reads an eloquent appeal to abandon his values, and fails to discern the carefully camoflauged logical error that the appeal is built upon, it leads even a clear and profound thinker such as himself to experience doubt, uncertainty, and a tendency toward 'compromise' with the advocates of his antitheses.

The path to happiness for those of us like JK is to "trust our gut." When something seems flawed, look for the flaw. If at first you don't find it, don't assume it's not there. Share your dilemma with trusted friends. Don't abandon your ideals without evidence.

The path to happiness for the rest of the affluent middle-class is similar, but they also require the aid of new intellectuals armed with a consistent foundation for America's ideals. It certainly won't be reached by renouncing their greater prosperity.

Posted by JohnGalt at August 27, 2004 11:27 AM