Absence of Happiness is not Sadness
How to retain your sanity in an insane world
On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you?
Words from a survey. While these things are meant to set you on a path of introspection, they rarely accomplish that. Instead, they leave you feeling dissatisfied.
Every happiness survey seems designed to suck away your will to live. Do you have a big house? Do you have a fancy car? Are you in a fulfilling relationship? Studies all over proclaim that a certain percentage of people who have all these tend to live longer lives. Every word designed to showcase your inadequacy, your lack of effort, your lack of a knowledge, lack of a proactive life, the high life.
It’s easy to get sucked into all this, pursue the myriad temptations the world has to offer, sacrifice your own will to live, in pursuit of the perfect life. From the fag end of your life to the pinnacle of your existence. All in the pursuit of happiness. But why is it so elusive despite a history of definitions?
How do you define happiness?
There are thoughts, ideas, and notions throughout history defining happiness through to our time but this post is not about that. I’ll leave the definition and measurements to the intellectually well-endowed and instead look at happiness as a concept.
The beauty of concept is that there is no way to tell whether a concept is true or not. Many abstract ideas come together to form a concept. A concept evolves into a theory. A theory gets tested at which point it either gets validated or refuted. This is the way of science.
Philosophy, on the other hand, chooses to question the essence of things, identify the abstract, gut feel that has no reason but still exists. While science engages opposing ideas with a view to validate or invalidate theories, philosophy is capable of holding, assimilating, and crystallising opposing thoughts in perfect harmony. While science eventually deals with absolutes, philosophy almost always deals with concepts.
Happiness is a state of mind. A concept which is usually taken as an axiom. But for now, let us deal with happiness being a state of mind as a concept. The world polarises the concept of happiness and sadness. But there is a vast space in between, rich with a range of human emotions that can still empower, and propel us forward.
Lack of happiness does not signify sadness. States of mind are aplenty. When you are doing your daily commute, focusing on the road, making intricate calculations of when to maneuver, when to turn, when to change lanes, you are neither happy nor sad. When you eat your regular meals, you are neither happy nor sad.
Our cognitive biases have an evil tendency of highlighting our highs and lows in life, associate certain strands of memory, sound, and sensory perceptions to these moments. Our repository of thoughts and feelings develop a symbiotic relationship with these biases and creates a virtual lens with which we view the world. Our minds immediately start associating events with good or bad, happy or sad, high or low, replete with connecting memory strands that make you look away from whatever is happening in front of you. Hiding reality behind a thin veneer or false expectations, masking the truth via biases, and creating an unsurpassable but nonexistent bar in life.
Reality is not the way we perceive it
In fact, quantum physics tells us we can barely perceive a portion of the way things truly are. That our perception of the world is governed by our senses and what we see is not an indicator of how things really are. They are reflections with which, in our limited capabilities, we construct our surroundings.
All self-help, mindfulness, and meditation instruments help you in finding the midpoint. This midpoint is heralded as the ultimate state of enlightenment. From Buddha to Eckhart Tolle, to any modern guru, all extol the virtues of the present moment, of finding equilibrium, of nullifying the effects of time. Where happiness is merely being in the present moment.
The underlying message there is about equilibrium. Of a balanced state where you are neither happy nor sad. Where your emotions don’t hold away. Where your state of mind is not dependent on any projection of the future or memory of the past. An equilibrium where you are able to weigh every emotion, every feeling, every state of mind in a detached manner.
Philosophers through history have termed this the Witness state, where you become a silent witness to everything that’s happening within you and outside of you. A silent witness to your own thoughts and the antics of everyone else. A joyful serenade between the myriad reactions being elicited out of every external stimulus. Where you have struck the perfect balance between good and bad States of mind. A blank slate. A steady state that lets you juggle both good and bad states of mind dispassionately.
This is the aspirational state of many. An obstacle to every potential meditation practitioner. The end result of all that effort. A state of mind where emotions don’t hold sway.
I used to think why can’t people see such a simple truth. I used to believe the world was ignorant in not making such a simple connection. Not being smart enough to glean all this from a casual meditation. Until I fell into the trap myself.
The mind is a curious entity. It tricks you into making you feel superior to everyone else, even though you might be aware of its capricious nature. Until it takes you right up to the edge of your own pinnacle of success. And then it jerks the rug from under you, trips you sending you hurtling down like a snowflake which eventually snowballs taking in every little mistake and regret and then tumbling you down towards self-loathing. Where you question your very existence, the foundation upon which you believed your own lies, the plinth on which you built your fortress of despair, and the shaky foundation upon which stands your own misery.
Many years, many experiences, many obstacles, and many humbling experiences later, it suddenly occurred to me that I too have fallen into the same rut. Until one fine day I brought out my journal. Tried to pen down my thoughts. Saw how I was blaming, resenting, and pushing everything away.
The streets have taught me many things. I have been humbled, beaten, and I have experienced success and failures in unequal measures. I say unequal measure, because equal measures of experience is a myth.
Many years later, as I draw these various lines and curves I call words, I realise this state of mind once again. Get in touch with what I was. What I preached. What I lived. It is not easy.
Equilibriums will guide you home
It will take time to realise. But in the end, your state of equilibrium is what will keep you sane. Keep you going. Push you ahead. The world is a crazy place. A veritable madhouse that will suck the living joy out of you if you let it. That will lead you to believe your own superiority and best you down with the illusion of success. That will trip you to fall down to the deepest holes of despair and keep you there.
It is this equilibrium that will keep you going. Whatever happens, do not mistake your state of mind to be indicative of the rest of your day, month, year, or life. Keep going, find your equilibrium, take assistance where necessary, accept intervention where required. But get back to this state. Your anchor, the strong rope reaching down to the depths of the ocean that lets you brave the greatest storms, fight the toughest battles, and yet remain standing.
Happiness is a state of mind, as is sadness. States of mind are not permanent. Equilibriums can be a consistent reminder of this. Enough to allow you to go right up to the edge of your misery, and take the leap towards balance, towards a steady state of mind.
