Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Clap along if you feel like that's what you want to do
-Happy Pharrell Williams
I've had this post on the topic of happiness bouncing around my head for almost a year, since I saw a You Tube video by Peter Kreeft speaking on subject. As sometimes happens, time passes and new topics become more urgent and posts like this get put on hold. But, for what ever reason, the time seems right to finally get down to tackling the subject.
Dr. Kreeft makes the observation that in Christian thought, borrowing and building upon the Ancients, blessedness is what matters most as opposed to happiness. He sets up happiness as being analogous with contentment; a passing, subjective reality, where as blessedness implies some objective state that persists in spite of the mood we are in at a given moment. Lou Gehrig, the baseball player whose untimely death was caused by a disease that would later bear his name, called himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. He was able to do this because he saw the many blessings he had received in his life, even though it would be hard to imagine that he was very content with his plight at the moment the words were spoken.
We place a great importance on happiness, the pursuit of which is among the basic rights enumerated by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence. As Dr. Kreeft implies, this is not a trivial or unimportant thing. The Baltimore Catechism famously states that we were made by God to be happy. But not necessarily to be happy here and now. St. Bernadette was told by the Blessed Mother that she could not promise the Seer of Lourdes happiness in this life, only in the next. Even so, we would all agree I think, as does Dr. Kreeft, that happiness, even if only thought of as freedom from physical, psychological or emotional discomfort is not a meaningless or unimportant thing. But is happiness, defined as a subjective state of contentment, really the purpose of our life here, and the thing that will bring us the greatest sense of fulfillment in the long run?
If you don't believe that we tend to reduce happiness to subjective, passing emotions or material security, we only have to look to the recent hit single Happy by Pharrell Williams. I'm not here to hate on Pherrell or anything like that; it's an infectiously catchy, beat driven number that makes the most of a rather minimalist, almost a cappella arrangement. Plus he gives a soulful vocal performance some have compared to the late Curtis Mayfield. More than the words, the video brings home this notion of happiness being a subjective state of mind. The four minute version is made up of quick cuts taken from, what bills itself as, the first twenty-four hour long form music video. For the most part we see clips of individuals dancing through the streets of Los Angeles along to the song, cheerfully oblivious to the world around them. Some dance really well, others have two left feet and clap awkwardly out of rhythm. But you know what; they're all happy because they know what happiness means to them, or so the song goes. And as it also states, happiness is the truth, so how can they be wrong?
I did not watch anywhere near one hour, let alone the entire 24 hours, of the long version, which focuses on individuals dancing along in "real time," so maybe I missed something. As I wrote, most people hop, skip and jump along solo; sometimes they are in pairs. But each is in his or her own universe. Some time is spent on a school bus, but rather than having a group dance, each person dances one at a time to the song in its entirety while the others sit indifferently in their seats. One young man is shown dancing along the streets in the wee hours, and actually tries to get a bystander to join in, but only gets an annoyed, "who cares" shrug.
There are numerous celebrity cameos in the video, but the one that really hit me was Magic Johnson's. He's smiling and up beat, which is par for the course for the hoops legend. In the course of his appearance he makes clear what happiness means to him; his big house, his NBA titles, along with the hardware that comes along with them (if you're not a sports fan, I mean trophies and championship rings). He points to them, along with his cars and swimming pool as he dances around his estate singing (OK, lip syncing) about how happy he is. Again, I'm not knocking the Magic Man; he earned everything he has, and is involved with numerous charities. But I am critiquing the video, and the message is clear; happiness is not just a subjective state of mind, but linked to our material possessions.
The Christian message is that while happiness is important, it's not everything. Jesus in the Beatitudes turns on its head any notion of true happiness as connected with material or worldly values (this is Dr. Kreefts main point). What I would add is that true, deep, lasting happiness can not be linked to the material or to mood because these things either pass, are lost, break, or become out dated and obsolete. The desire for them can make us blind to the needs of others, oblivious to the world around us, and the reason we have been blessed in certain ways to begin with.
We heard the reading about Lazarus and the Rich Man the other day at Mass. There is no doubt in my mind that the Rich Man, who ate sumptuously everyday, died as he had lived; a happy man. Yet he found himself in Hell because he lived to satisfy his appetites as opposed to seeking first the Kingdom of God, and righteousness. He had been truly blessed in his life, but was so caught up his own contentment he couldn't even see the starving man on his doorstep.
I'm going to end off here. This is the point at which I promise a part two that rarely comes. But I do have more to say, and it's linked to Mad Men, a show I write about a lot that will be coming back for a final season soon. Until then, keep on dancing, but try to find some partners.
Dr. Kreeft makes the observation that in Christian thought, borrowing and building upon the Ancients, blessedness is what matters most as opposed to happiness. He sets up happiness as being analogous with contentment; a passing, subjective reality, where as blessedness implies some objective state that persists in spite of the mood we are in at a given moment. Lou Gehrig, the baseball player whose untimely death was caused by a disease that would later bear his name, called himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. He was able to do this because he saw the many blessings he had received in his life, even though it would be hard to imagine that he was very content with his plight at the moment the words were spoken.
We place a great importance on happiness, the pursuit of which is among the basic rights enumerated by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence. As Dr. Kreeft implies, this is not a trivial or unimportant thing. The Baltimore Catechism famously states that we were made by God to be happy. But not necessarily to be happy here and now. St. Bernadette was told by the Blessed Mother that she could not promise the Seer of Lourdes happiness in this life, only in the next. Even so, we would all agree I think, as does Dr. Kreeft, that happiness, even if only thought of as freedom from physical, psychological or emotional discomfort is not a meaningless or unimportant thing. But is happiness, defined as a subjective state of contentment, really the purpose of our life here, and the thing that will bring us the greatest sense of fulfillment in the long run?
If you don't believe that we tend to reduce happiness to subjective, passing emotions or material security, we only have to look to the recent hit single Happy by Pharrell Williams. I'm not here to hate on Pherrell or anything like that; it's an infectiously catchy, beat driven number that makes the most of a rather minimalist, almost a cappella arrangement. Plus he gives a soulful vocal performance some have compared to the late Curtis Mayfield. More than the words, the video brings home this notion of happiness being a subjective state of mind. The four minute version is made up of quick cuts taken from, what bills itself as, the first twenty-four hour long form music video. For the most part we see clips of individuals dancing through the streets of Los Angeles along to the song, cheerfully oblivious to the world around them. Some dance really well, others have two left feet and clap awkwardly out of rhythm. But you know what; they're all happy because they know what happiness means to them, or so the song goes. And as it also states, happiness is the truth, so how can they be wrong?
I did not watch anywhere near one hour, let alone the entire 24 hours, of the long version, which focuses on individuals dancing along in "real time," so maybe I missed something. As I wrote, most people hop, skip and jump along solo; sometimes they are in pairs. But each is in his or her own universe. Some time is spent on a school bus, but rather than having a group dance, each person dances one at a time to the song in its entirety while the others sit indifferently in their seats. One young man is shown dancing along the streets in the wee hours, and actually tries to get a bystander to join in, but only gets an annoyed, "who cares" shrug.
There are numerous celebrity cameos in the video, but the one that really hit me was Magic Johnson's. He's smiling and up beat, which is par for the course for the hoops legend. In the course of his appearance he makes clear what happiness means to him; his big house, his NBA titles, along with the hardware that comes along with them (if you're not a sports fan, I mean trophies and championship rings). He points to them, along with his cars and swimming pool as he dances around his estate singing (OK, lip syncing) about how happy he is. Again, I'm not knocking the Magic Man; he earned everything he has, and is involved with numerous charities. But I am critiquing the video, and the message is clear; happiness is not just a subjective state of mind, but linked to our material possessions.
The Christian message is that while happiness is important, it's not everything. Jesus in the Beatitudes turns on its head any notion of true happiness as connected with material or worldly values (this is Dr. Kreefts main point). What I would add is that true, deep, lasting happiness can not be linked to the material or to mood because these things either pass, are lost, break, or become out dated and obsolete. The desire for them can make us blind to the needs of others, oblivious to the world around us, and the reason we have been blessed in certain ways to begin with.
We heard the reading about Lazarus and the Rich Man the other day at Mass. There is no doubt in my mind that the Rich Man, who ate sumptuously everyday, died as he had lived; a happy man. Yet he found himself in Hell because he lived to satisfy his appetites as opposed to seeking first the Kingdom of God, and righteousness. He had been truly blessed in his life, but was so caught up his own contentment he couldn't even see the starving man on his doorstep.
I'm going to end off here. This is the point at which I promise a part two that rarely comes. But I do have more to say, and it's linked to Mad Men, a show I write about a lot that will be coming back for a final season soon. Until then, keep on dancing, but try to find some partners.
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