Prompt: “unhappiness”
I’ve long been interested in the relationships between the words we have for feelings, and the actual feelings that we have. There’s a sort of strange loop thing going on, where each thing shapes the other. Is it possible to have feelings that you don’t have names for? I think yes… but I also think that, until you have a name to describe a feeling, the feeling exists in a sort of non-space. It’s sort of here-but-not-really-here. At the same time, I think we paint with the colors that we have – and sometimes we have complex, nuanced feelings and we force them into these narrow, simplistic boxes because that’s all we know.
When you’re a child, maybe you might merely think of things as “this feels good”, “this doesn’t feel good” or “this feels bad”. Over time, and reflection, and reading, you start being cognizant of more complex feelings. For example, is it possible to be happy and dissatisfied at the same time? I think so! It’s possible to have a whole set of mixed feelings that don’t seem to go along well together – but this is something that can be either encouraged or discouraged depending on the attitudes of your central consciousness HQ.
So… what is unhappiness? Is it different from the mere absence of happiness? What is happiness?
I’ve often thought that “the pursuit of happiness” is a bit of a silly, self-defeating idea – in my experience, happiness is something that’s realized rather than pursued. There’s that Thoreau quote about how it’s like a butterfly – the more you chase it, the more it will elude you – but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. It’s one of many nuanced things in life that require a sort of tangential, proxy approach.
I also think that “eternal happiness” or “constant happiness” are undesirable goals. What would it even mean, to be happy all the time? Or to never be sad, or unhappy? Particularly given the context of the world we live in? I think getting to that stage typically (maybe not always) requires a sort of denial, a sort of selectiveness. You have to block things out to be that happy all the time, and I think that makes for a rather stifling, narrow, hollow happiness.
I think if you have a reasonable amount of self-awareness and world-awareness, it’s impossible to be that stinking happy all the time. I think that’s undesirable. But even framing it as desirable or undesirable I think sort of misses the point. Ultimately, it is what it is, and we are what we are. Happiness is something that is realized.
Let’s get specific re: unhappiness. For all the talk about the complex and subjective nature of emotions, I think we all have some pretty clear ideas of the times in which we’ve been unhappy. I think it’s accurate to say that I’m currently experiencing a sort of local minima of unhappiness – ie I am less unhappy than I have been in years, and probably the least unhappy I have ever been ever since becoming a conscious being who lives in the world. (I’m excluding early childhood, because I think the absence of unhappiness in children is largely a function of not yet having to be a real part of the world.)
Why? Why am I less unhappy than I was a year ago? The main thing is that I’m currently in a feral free-agent state, ie I don’t have a 9-5 job with a daily commute. Those things are definitely causes of unhappiness for me, even if I love my job (which I did). I don’t currently have to worry about work deadlines and obligations and responsibilities. But I’m hesitant to say that all of those things are sources of unhappiness – I think there’s another layer to it.
I think I have some loaded, pre-existing assumptions about deadlines and obligations and responsibilities, and those are the things that cause me stress, anxiety, unhappiness. I think it’s definitely possible to live with deadlines and responsibilities and actually feel good about it. But getting to that state from where I am requires doing a bunch of work. And… I don’t think I had the capability to do that work and keep up with my actual work at the same time. Which isn’t to say that nobody can do it. I’m sure people have done it. But for me, I feel like finally having some extended, relatively-unbounded time and space to myself – for the first time in about 6 years – is a big source of anti-unhappiness for me.
I say anti-unhappiness rather than happiness because having free time and space doesn’t naturally or automatically make you happy. I think there are a more than a few rich, wealthy, retired people who are free to do whatever they please, who are still somehow unhappy, dissatisfied. And I believe them – I believe that their description of their unhappiness is genuine. What should they do? I’ve never been an unhappy billionaire, so I don’t know if my perspective is particularly relevant. I imagine the smart thing to do would be to serve others.
“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” – Rabindranath Tagore
I want to reflect on my most unhappy moments. I was very unhappy as a student in school. I just hated school, it felt stifling. I was always getting into trouble just for being myself. It was a miserable experience. I remember being unhappy when I felt like I had disappointed my parents and my community when I was asked to leave the GEP (I was actually told that I was a disappointment to my community – what a fucked up thing to say to a 13 year old). I remember being unhappy throughout junior college, feeling lost and confused and yet this constant sense that something was wrong, something was unjust. And I remember being unhappy around 23-25 years old, when I found my life to be in several ways better and greater than I had ever dared to dream of – I was married to the woman I love, had a great job with wonderful colleagues, a home of my own… and yet life just seemed so goddamn relentless, so many responsibilities, so many obligations, I felt trapped, like I was living this tiny loop inside this tiny box and I just kept wishing it would all go away.
Different people will have radically different experiences; I can only speak about my own. I don’t think unhappiness is something to be chased away with a stick. Rather, I think it’s something we have to sit with and make sense of. It’s trying to tell us something, if we’re willing to listen.