Is happiness a dirty word?
by digby
A friend of mine from Seattle sent me an email the other day to alert me to this controversial High School graduation speech by novelist David Guterson. Apparently, it caused quite a ruckus. My friend wrote:
It almost caused a riot…I tell you, this guy has balls if nothing else. People who were expecting another cotton candy speech about “the world is wonderful and everything is your oyster” got something else entirely.
I’ve never seen an audience so polarized. Also some political overtones – he mentioned global warming, which of course caused the wingnuts in the audience to go off their rockers and start screaming “Obama, Obama” at him as if that were akin to being the devil.
I called a friend who was also there to confirm that they were shouting “Obama!”, and that these were the passages that drove them absolutely nuts:
It is an economy that motors along on your dissatisfaction, that steams ahead only if it can convince you that something is missing in your life. It knows that you are insecure about your appearance, for example, and in advertising it does everything it can to make you feel even worse about it, because if you feel worse about it, you will buy expensive clothing or pay a doctor to change your face. So in our society, not only do you have to be unhappy on that existential level that is just part and parcel of being human, you also have to be unhappy in ways designed for you by others, and if you are a woman or gay or a person of color, your society will make it even harder for you by tilting the playing field so you have to walk uphill, and by confounding your inner life in ways white men don’t have to face. Add to this your natural anxiety about the future—your distress about what it means that we are developing smart drones and melting the polar ice cap—and happiness begins to feel, for a lot of us, impossible. So impossible that the rate of mental illness in America, of depression in particular, is higher that it has ever been.
Can you imagine, mentioning that society discriminates against women, gays and people of color, and then following that up with a mention of global warming?
Wingnut Armageddon! El DIablo Obama!
I certainly did. It was gloomy, but thrilling and hopeful as well. And I’d guess that all the 18 year olds who aren’t channeling Tracy Flick will be able to relate to exactly what he’s saying, in both mood and content.
And he gives some extremely good advice for this generation, which is like to get the exact opposite from most graybeards:
Cultivate those states of mind that actually produce happiness and cast out those that don’t. After a while you will find that you care much less about your own hopes and dreams and a lot more about other people.
You will move in the direction of self-less-ness, which is a good thing, because if there is no self, who is it that has to die some day? There will be no one there to die. There will be no self. Die now, so you won’t have to do it later.
Stop thinking about yourself every second of every day, which only produces boredom, dissatisfaction, fear, dread, anxiety, and hopelessness. Put yourself away and begin to find freedom. And you can find this freedom, which we might also call happiness.
Your life can open toward greater happiness and greater freedom, and it is entirely up to you to make that happen. Because in the end you have the power to do it no matter what the universe seems to be like and no matter the challenges of our place and time.
You really are in charge of your own happiness. Which is, I think, both exhilarating and terrifying. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone could do it for you? It’s such a daunting and important task, really the central task of life.
But I urge you to work, on your own, or with the right mentors, or preferably, in both ways, as honestly and fiercely as you can on this matter of your own happiness. Don’t settle for the answers all around you that are not really answers. Don’t settle for a life of quiet desperation.
And most of all, don’t settle for unhappiness. I want to tell you that happiness is possible, and that you don’t have to be despairing and afraid. But it’s up to you, to each of you, to seek out the wisdom that happiness requires. Not learning but wisdom, which is something else altogether.
I wish you a long life, the better to find and deepen that wisdom. And I wish you happiness.
I wish them happiness too. It’s the very best thing to wish for any young person.
I really hope at least some of those kids heard what he was saying and were able to dismiss the silly, predictable outbursts from frightened people who truly cannot bear the idea of all people being allowed the freedom to pursue their own happiness.
And the irony is that they consider themselves to be the only Real Americans.
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