Happiness: Time, Wealth, Success??

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 "But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?"

                                                     -  Albert Camus

         As a young boy, my definition of happiness was very simple - either I be allowed to read stories from 'Champak' or be allowed to watch 'Duck Tales' or 'Talespin'!!(the pre-cable network era in rural India. The now extinct 'DD Metro' was a savior back then.) I still enjoy them thoroughly and they do make me a lot happier. Then as I grew up, I was smitten by my first love - 'Poetry', to which I have stayed loyal all these years. And the affair has been getting intense as the days pass. Every time I encounter the lyrical beauty, we fly on a fulfilling journey of poetic ecstasy. From that retreat, I derive immense happiness. So, does this conclude that Happiness is a total personal perspective? Are not there any prerequisites and general prescriptions for Happiness?

        These questions did arise as I read through another of Camus' less appreciated work - 'A happy death'. It was his first novel, but the last to be published. It is said he was twenty when he wrote this. But it was published after a decade of his death, about forty years after being written. The work has been criticized by the learned as being inferior and a mere preparation for his magnum opus - 'The Stranger'. (In a lighter vein, maybe the critics were expecting to find the great 'Noble' philosopher Camus in the 20 year old 'rebel' lad;-)) Though rated inferior literally, to me, it appears philosophically as fascinating as 'The Stranger'.

         Well, leaving the critics, I shall come back to the question of happiness. To get perspectives on track, 'A happy death' tells the story of Patrice Mersault, a working man who fails to be happy while struggling to make ends meet with meaningless work occupying his time. He meets Roland Zagreus, a million dollar cripple who tells Mersault that "....there's a kind of spiritual snobbery in certain "superior beings" who think that money isn't necessary for happiness. Which is stupid, which is false, and to a certain degree cowardly... It takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience. And in almost every case, we use up our lives making money, when we should be using our money to gain time...." Mersault later murders Zagreus, and takes all his wealth(a whooping 2 million!!), apparently with Zagreus' consent since his crippled state blocks his own happiness, and the rich Mersault begins his quest of happiness. He tries travel, that fails; he lives with three young women in "the House above the World," but that fails. Everybody is in the pursuit of happiness. Yet Mersault retreats to a solitary life. He marries a pleasant woman he does not love, buys a house in a village by the sea, and moves in. Mersault achieves a degree of happiness but this is short lived since he becomes ill and dies his "happy death."

            Fine, now is the question time. Money and time are prerequisites to achieve happiness? Was this Camus' conclusion? Or does he indicate a different conclusion at the climax? Money is indeed a necessity as long as we are part of the society. Its money that satisfies hunger, sustains life, and gets us a place of dignity. But how much of it will do? We are the wealthiest generation on earth, I suppose, considering our GDPs and the Financial Capital we generate. (Though the socio-economic inequlities are at their Zenith, I am talking in gross terms of the present global generation as a whole.) But are we living through the happiest phase on earth? I find it pertinent to quote Richard Layard, the British Economist, from his book 'Happiness: Lessons from a new Science' - "There is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want income and strive for it. Yet as Western societies have got richer, their people have become no happier."

       The next ingredient - 'Time', but who on earth has time these days, except for the lazy loafing souls? Going by Zagreus' assertion, maybe in the fast paced world of ours, if anyone feels deprived of happiness its because they have robbed themselves of time. Again, there are counter arguments to this, as are for everything that exists. But how valid are these remarks? 

          The achievement of things that we value and our noteworthy accomplishments render us a sense of happiness. So another significant dimension of happiness is our perceived notion of success. Stories of success are pouring in every day. The opportunities offered in our globalized society have no parallel. More are our chances of striking gold in the pursuit of whatever we take up. Has all this contributed to achieve a better gross happiness index? Or are we burdened by the guilt of ascending to the throne on corpses of the less advantaged? 

         Looking from another angle, How original is our perception of Success? Prof.John McMurtry in his groundbreaking research work "Unequal Freedoms: The Global Market as an ethical system" sheds light on how perceptions of success are seldom our own. We are fed a value system which asserts we 'must' compete in the global marketplace and its a closed system of choice. He observes 'All people enact its prescriptions as presupposed norms of what they should do. All assume its value designations and value exclusions as given. They seek only to climb its ladder of available positions to achieve their deserved reward as their due. Lives are valued, or not valued, in terms of the system's differentials and measurements....' Is their space for happiness in this system? Forget it, does a concept called 'happiness' exist here or is it that we are being unconsciously fed notions of happiness too!? I don't know or maybe I don't understand.

         To find solace, I shall return back to Camus' Mersault as he, in the course of the novel, says - "You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters -- all that matter is -- is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest women, art, success -- is nothing but excuses…." I put all the mess aside and think its time to heed to Buddha - "To be happy, rest like a tree". Is the tree happy? Ask not me, but the Gutama Buddha my friend. I only find it safe and convenient to assume so. My maxim for happiness is quite simple. I modify the phrase of Leo Tolstoy to describe it - "If you want to be happy, be; and never impede others freedom to be."

         "In a silence violated only by the silky sounds of the sky, the night lay like milk upon the world. Mersault walked along the cliff, sharing the night's deep concentration. Below him the sea whispered gently. It was covered with velvety moonlight, smooth and undulating, like the pelt of some animal. At this hour, Mersault's life seemed so remote to him, he felt so solitary and indifferent to everything and to himself as well, that it seemed to him he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which filled him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of this warm world so willing to deny him without anger." 

                                                                 - Albert Camus('A Happy Death')