By Lida Prypchan
An article about depression appeared in a fashion magazine at the end of which the author talked about “how to be happy again.” In order to regain one’s happiness, besides sticking to a good diet and avoiding the use of stimulants, he recommended “a short, brisk walk, or swimming fifty meters in a pool to improve your appreciation of life.” How can the issue of happiness – something considered by philosophers to be non-existent – be resolved in a magazine just by a little fifty meter swim: Isn’t this a rather superficial view?
As Benavente said, “There is no such thing as happiness in life…only happy moments.”Searching for something that is non-existent, such as happiness, is just as absurd as wanting to find a country where all the inhabitants are content with the political regime. It’s just as utopian to think that we will never be sad, as it is to feel, after an unfortunate experience, that we’ll never be happy again. Reasons for feeling either sad or happy vary in each individual according to his likes and dislikes, his outlook on life, his age, his problems and his needs. For an Oriental, a happy moment can be something that a Westerner wouldn’t even conceive of, and vice versa.
In spite of the fact that there’s no such thing as happiness, happy persons do exist. All that’s needed to be one of them is not to analyze anything. It’s precisely those people whose brains are not acquainted with the word “analysis” that are the happy people. This can be better explained with a quote about happiness:” The only happy people are idiots, those who have no problems and those who do have problems but aren’t aware of them.” And the world is so full of these people! It’s the people who have questions about why they’re here and what life is who have the problem. These are precisely the people who know the joy of discovery, who experience the grandeur of life or the greatest disappointment in it – but only after looking back and analyzing it.
If all we human beings were happy people without problems, then literature would never have come into existence. The French author Simone de Beauvoir writes about this in The Woman Destroyed: “There is no story to be told about happy people. The story of a person without problems, without doubts, without questions, full of happiness, could never be narrated, simply because such a person exists but does not live.”
What is certain is that we all experience happy moments in some form or other and devote our lives to whatever makes us feel better. Some find great satisfaction in saving other people’s lives, or dedicating their lives to art or religion, and many make great sacrifices in the hope of fulfilling an ultimate wish. As an example of these latter ones, there is a story of a young saint who decided to renounce all desire until he was fit to travel from Poland to Rome to see His Holiness the Pope. After many years of sacrifice he felt that his heart was free of all personal desire. So he walked for miles and miles, across plains and over hills, until he found himself at the gates of the Eternal City, his lifelong desire. Now that he was about to enter the city, he thought things over and said to himself, “Since I have denied myself so many pleasures, will I not crown my piety by denying myself entrance into Rome and the chance to contemplate the face of the Holy Father?” So he turned back, a martyr to self-denial, and retraced his steps to the village where he’d begun his journey. History adds that when he found himself at home again, his mind became unhinged and he remained a raving lunatic for the rest of his days.
