The Pursuit of Happiness
On NPR this afternoon, they were referencing Thomas Jefferson’s immortal phrase from our founding -- “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. I had never thought about what it (pursuit of happiness) actually meant in our Declaration of Independence. https://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/20160630/column-what-is-meant-by--pursuit-of-happiness and https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/46460
In Jefferson’s time it referred to civic virtues and social interactions. https://news.emory.edu/stories/2014/06/er_pursuit_of_happiness/campus.html and https://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/about/why-happiness/jeffersons-happiness/ In our time according to the commentator, happiness is too often equated with seeking material wealth and material gains, which is more akin to John Locke’s original phrasing of “life, liberty and the pursuit of property”. In my life I have found that the pursuit of excessive personal material wealth can be an empty goal which too often leaves the getter ever emptier inside, and the non-getter sometimes consumed with jealousy and rage. Compare those in every aspect of human endeavor who are really creative and fulfilled in their work and their lives, and deeply immersed in and nourished by their creativity at home and work.
One of the KPCC show callers referred to her own epiphany at age 60 when she (a busy professional woman) realized how important it was for her happiness to take the time to talk to a homeless person on the street or to pick up litter or do a good deed for someone else or to go for a walk.
As I have been reflecting on our life lessons (pursuit of happiness) during the pandemic, it has left many of us socially bereft – not enough hugs and far too few person-to-person connections — and very angry. For many it has been unimaginably lonely and tragic as they lose loved ones, or their jobs, or their businesses fail or their relationships fall apart under the incredible and unremitting stress. It has been damaging to lives, the economy, but also our shared and common values. I have envied those like my sister, my friend Keith, and my friend Ruth who immerse themselves in the world of their arts. I have tried to find my fulfillment during the period of isolation in nature, in writing my blog, in photography, in walking, in the yard, in randomly talking with people, in the sea, but do feel somewhat scattered about and discombobulated.
I’m certainly aware both of the anger and of the sense of overweening righteousness that now pervades our nation’s discourse as our lives have been so disrupted by the pandemic. My heroes for the last 18 months or more have been the scientists, nurses and doctors who are trying to do something about the pandemic, invent a pill, a vaccine, a treatment, suggest changes to reduce infections and death or just some palliative care to a hospitalized patient, dying alone. Oh and of course the California firefighters who have been battling huge blazes brought on by our drought.
We badly need compelling, comforting, inspiring, and compassionate leadership from the top. We need to be able to hear the gifted communication skills of an FDR or an Obama; the best we have had in my opinion is Dr. Anthony Fauci (or in LA, Dr. Barbara Ferrer).
We are all looking for scapegoats to blame, a Trump or Biden depending on your political persuasion, and for simple saviors, the vaccine or hydrochloroquine, masks or ivermectin. It is instead a time to challenge and find answers first from within ourselves, our families, our communities, to look at our own behaviors and thought processes for our happiness. This is not the time to listen endlessly to the hucksters, grifters and snake oil salesmen swarming the internet in our pursuit of happiness or even just answers.
Do I get depressed, and so what if I do? Yes, the combination of aging, the awareness that my and our time on earth is growing ever shorter, and the many and evolving uncertainties of the pandemic gets me down. At the same time, I have found uplifting joy within our more hermit existence. It simplifies and strips life down to bare essentials like survival and love, appreciation and acceptance, the art of going on, the pleasures of time for thought and inquiry. Life for me has lately become more of a slow, steady, determined crawl than a mindless sprint.
I have felt a greater sense of patience and acceptance, the need for deeper wisdoms than ever before. And yet also at the same time I have felt such deep and utter helplessness and irrelevance. I have appreciated the compression of feelings and thought honed to a fine point in a picture, a phrase, a simple gesture, a piece of music, the sunset. While I have longed for my life back, but, even more, I wish for a common, shared sense of purpose in responding to this pandemic and moving the nation onto a better path, a sense of belonging to each other.
For the first time in many years, I have relished and found great joy in the simple act of going to the local grocery store or to the farmer’s market, the pleasure of interacting with the people there, and bringing home something like a handful of lemons or a pound of butter, like a bag of shrimps or peaches that will give great pleasure, in watering the plants and keeping them alive. Life is a lot simpler and more satisfying when distilled to the concrete, the discrete and the achievable and then somehow fitting that into the bigger picture and the harder to attain societal reforms that have dominated my adult life — I haven’t gotten very far.
I never would have expected that zooming with family or with old friends would bring such intense joy and happiness. And those very special moments with kids and grandkids have meant so much more during these plague years.