The Pursuit of Happiness

I was quite interested in your topic of the Pursuit of Happiness. It is something I have spent a lot of time thinking about in relation to where I am living in the world at any given time.

I have recently returned from 7 months in Liberia documenting the effects of the 14-year civil war, both as a photojournalist for a charitable hospital ship and as an artist. The aim was to authenticate the experiences of Liberians through a series of portraits in an attempt to provide some dignity for people who have long-suffered. The project soon became more complex as issues of the current state of Liberia became evident. Some of the key issues are human rights abuses, reconciliation, education, unemployment, and poverty. An entire generation has lost out on all education as a result of the war. Children were forced to become soldiers and widespread rape, killing and human rights atrocities took place. One would think that happiness would be a virtual impossibility here.

I am a Canadian artist who currently lives in the UK, but continues to work abroad in the developing world. I have often wondered at happiness as a goal purely in itself. In the places that I have been it seems like a luxury to try and pursue such a “frivolous” goal when finding food in for your belly is such a basic everyday struggle for the majority. Happiness often seems a quest only the wealthiest 20 percent of the world (the entire Western world) have the luxury of considering. I regard the search for “who am I?” and “what is the meaning of life?” in a similar category.

The one thing that strikes me about a pursuit of happiness is that it appears a purely self-seeking goal. It seems to have little outward sense of empathy or giving of oneself to a greater good. I expect a kind and “unrewarded” act. If it did decide to take a charitable route, would no longer be the pursuit of happiness, but instead would have already turned from a question of “is this making me happier?” to “I am feeling empathy for another’s situation and want to look outside my own comforts to help”. Strangely I have concluded that pursuing happiness in itself is a recipe for failure in achieving anything close to the desired effect. Happiness seems to me a result or a by-product of something else. A very interesting question might be “what has caused the particular result of happiness in others?” knowing that immediately refocusing away from a singular goal might be the answer.

I suspect a one-track pursuit of happiness might lead to more dissatisfaction in the long run. To focus on what would make me happy would inevitably be to begin by focussing on the current fact that I am not. Unfortunately, I would need to continually focus on a current state of unhappiness throughout that pursuit.

How does one then measure the success of our pursuit of happiness? We sit strapped to our subjective minds able only to view life through our own lenses, which seem haphazard at best. C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed writes:

"Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of pre-conceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than a minority of them - never become even conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?"

If there are other routes to achieve such a desired nirvana how does one even go about discovering them?

It seems that it is precisely the fact that we are living in a self-seeking, self-driven world that is the very reason we are more empty and depressed than ever. It might appear that the pursuit of happiness marks the end of happiness. Similar to mistaking infatuation for love, striving to do what we want is not related to happiness.

I think I must take after the old mystics when I think that any happiness that comes will be as a result of looking outward not inward. Looking towards others not ourselves. Seeking to think of others before ourselves. Professional councillors advice clients to do something selfless for others as a form of removing depression from oneself. Happiness seems a derivative of something completely unrelated to its own search.