For a friend, it lies in her cat. He is a bundle of energy, darting around her apartment like a speeding arrow shot from a bow. He is aptly christened Mischief.
For another friend, a traveler who regularly escapes from the city's dissonance to the solace of the hills, it lies in a steaming cup of lemon tea. Brewed with care, tea leaves bleeding amber into water, a dash of lemon, slices of ginger for zing. A dab of honey, voila, perfection!
How many times have you caught yourself thinking that people find happiness in the oddest of things? Whatever else it may or may not be, happiness is excruciatingly subjective. What makes your friend or spouse or parent dizzy with joy may leave you cold. Or plummet you into deep depression. A writer friend who recently moved to a new city is house hunting. His property agent looked befuddled when he heard his client's brief. "Find me an old, lived in house. Preferably something with moss on the walls. No gleaming marble floors and freshly painted walls, thank you very much!" For most people, living in his dream house would be the perfect recipe for unhappiness.
There are some universally accepted indices of happiness. Food, clothing and a roof over your head are counted as basic requirements for human contentment. We can safely generalize that in the absence any of these we are left hungry, cold and grumpy. If you live in an impossibly crowded Indian metro, it's a sure bet that a clear street without traffic jams will leave you jumping with joy. Sun and sand, feni and frothy Goan seas too are generally guaranteed to put most people in a cheery mood.
Happiness does have its share of predictable qualities, but unpredictability usually rules. One grumpy person may feel thrilled when she watches the first snowfall of the season. Another may rave and rant and wallow in a sea of misery as soon as the first snowflake lands lightly on her nose. Happiness, like beauty, seems to lie entirely in the eye of the beholder.
My sister who grew up in the warmth of the tropics moved to the badlands of Ann Arbor, Michigan a couple of years of ago. For all practical purposes, Michigan residents are fated to live in the Ice Age. Winter is not just a season, it's a way of life. Ice and snow line the streets almost all through the year. Proximity to the Great Lakes ensures that icy winds haunt the cityscape day and night. "In India, rain used to make me so happy," says my sister. "Now, I am ready to burst into tears when I see rain clouds because the down pour is sure to lower to the temperature," she sighs.
Rain in the tropics can make you light headed with joy. You hum a happy tune as the thunder growls. You reach for pen and paper as the sky splits wide open and scribble an ode to the magic of rain. In the freezing northern hemisphere, the very thought of rain brings a scowl to your face. You weep as it pours.
So the same trigger can make you happy or blue, depending on your surroundings. Management gurus never miss an opportunity to remind us that the secret of a successful business is location. Happiness gurus – shrinks who claim their pills can waltz away your blues, new age divinities who lecture you on the path to happiness – can take note. Suggest a change of location to those hit by the moody blues. A move to the tundra, if the person happens to live in the tropics. If she is a tundra resident, obviously, you reverse the move.
Happiness is a slippery eel, escaping definitions with ease. Just when you think you have it pinned it down with a definition, it reveals another of its facets. Pop goes your definition like a fragile bubble.
Poets, philosophers, songwriters, filmmakers, mathematicians, physicists, Sufis and saints… Haven't they all strived to define happiness across the ages? Many realised that there is no magic formula for it. They were aware that no exclusive definition can tether it. So they traced some of the paths that lead to it and shared their arduous journeys along those alleyways with us.
Existentialists, thanks to their vocal discontent about life, have earned themselves the tag of grumpy philosophers. Jean Paul Sarte, that original rebel without a cause, has written reams on the troubles of humans "born into the mud." Left to fend for ourselves in an absurd, godless world, what chance do we have at stumbling on the oasis of happiness? Sartre famously said that life made him "nauseous" (no, he wasn't talking about global warming) and that he couldn't see the point of living, battered by "existential anguish."
But Sartre wasn't ruling out the possibility of happiness. He was simply raving against the threats to harmony and happiness that life presents before us. Awareness can arm us against the enemy. Knowing what you are fighting always gives you an edge.
Albert Camus (he of The Outsider fame) too ranted against the randomness of life and its fragility. But he did confess that he, like the rest of us mortals, is part of the eternal quest for happiness. In the man's own words: "When I do happen to look for what is most fundamental in me, what I find is a taste for happiness."
The mystic poets gave us their take on happiness. In their eyes, true joy lies in the union of the soul with god. The soul travels from darkness to light, transcends all that separates it from god, finally finding bliss when it merges in all encompassing godliness.
The Romantics looked to nature for the fount of true happiness. A field of daffodils in bloom, an idlyllic pastoral setting, a nightingale's song, a gust of breeze – the hues and fragrances of nature, its spontaneous rhythms – all spelt out joy to their tribe.
Hollywood studios have evolved their own prescriptions to ensure movie goers stay happy. Apparently if preview audiences burst into tears or leave the theatre with scowls o their brows, screenplay writers are called in at once to do a rewrite. A happy ending, the staple of every successful Bollywood film, occupies center stage in the Hollywood psyche too.
Ad-men promise us that shopping brings us happiness. Buy shampoos, soaps, perfumes, watches, televisions, playstations, cars, I-pods….Shop till you become a shiny, happy person, they holler at us.
Last month, I met a monk who came down to Delhi from the foothills of the Himalayas. He was in the city to give a lecture on "cultivating happiness as a skill." Not surprisingly, the lecture hall was filled with people. Eager seekers sat draped in pashminas, expensive pearl necklaces glinted in the dim-lit room. (Money can't buy you happiness?)
The soft-spoken monk made it clear that he had no magic wand to wave. He wasn't here to offer any quick-fix solutions. He wouldn't preach any gospel of salvation to his listeners.
He made a distinction between happiness and pleasure. Pleasure like a candle consumes itself. It is totally dependent on external factors – your surroundings, the weather, the time of day, your companions, your swiss bank account (or its lack), your car, your lovers, your pets, your job. Pleasure is influenced by a million things which lie outside your ken. It is a wavering flame that changes shape with every gust of wind in your life.
Happiness, on the other hand, is a steady state of mind. No matter how many peaks of ecstasy you hit, no matter how many black holes of defeat life flings in your orbit, you stay centered. Bitterness doesn't poison your soul, defeat doesn't fill you with malice towards others. "The measure of your happiness," said the monk in a comforting, sing-song tone, "lies in your equanimity."
As I drove back home after the monk's talk, I got stuck in an everyday Dilli traffic snarl. The driver behind me honked like a beast gone berserk. I checked the impulse to scream at him. I did not ask him in the rudest possible tone if he thought I was driving a flying saucer which could take off into the skies, making way for his gigantic Scorpio.
Calm, calm, calm. I muttered. He honked away for a few minutes. Then, silence.
One step closer to happiness, I was.
The wind blew through my hair. The birds were chirping, the sun raining down mellow warmth.
I zoomed away homeward.
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