By Kevin Woodcock
Generally speaking, we in the modern and postmodern eras have a problem with happiness. Our philosophers, poets, and novelists tend to keep any sense of fulfillment at arm's length, suspicious that giving in to happiness or settling into a sense of fulfillment—or even meaning—is only falling for one of the bits of the world that remains to be disabused.
For instance, in his On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche’s conception of society is completely void of hope and happiness. In this same line, Gustave Flaubert famously claimed that in order to be happy you have to be stupid. Charles Taylor cites the ubiquitous malaise that runs through the veins of our society. And Max Weber went so far as to say that we can never expect to find any sort of meaning in our lives as everything we do is only an endless progression of expiration, of discovering the problems with our previously held beliefs, pushing them off to the side and then moving on.
One might ask—How in God’s name did these thinkers persevere with such morose perspectives on life? Indeed, how do we get out of bed in the morning knowing that we can never find meaning in our lives?
I will admit, at times I find myself sympathizing with these modes of thought. As a citizen of late capitalism, I bear witness to the fabrication of happiness for marketing purposes which has become inextricably tied to commodity culture. I would also have to agree with the likes of Descartes and Weber that we will forever be searching for truths, but this is where I feel I must part with these individuals. While these things maybe true, I do not necessarily concede that they preclude happiness. On the contrary, I believe happiness is possible even in a society as inauthentic and misguided as our own.
I'd like to touch on two thinkers whose ideas allow us a way out of the postmodern rationalist trap. The first is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German naturalist, poet, playwright, novelist—truly one of the last actual Renaissance men. The second is still with us, the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.
Goethe & Organicism
Goethe's botanical writings are actually of primary interest in the discussion of happiness. Remarkably, Goethe produced over 8,000 drawings detailing the growth of plants with a focus on capturing the way their development assimilated their surroundings, embodying the very world in which they lived. Essentially, his theories coincided with organicism, which stresses the subject’s process of organization as opposed to, say, only focusing on its composition. For instance, a plant is the seed, water, soil, light, air, and so on, but it's also the continual organizing of external things. It is the light that just barely ekes through the window that makes the plant bend toward it, and it is the cold winter that makes it drop its leaves. All of these aspects are assimilated by the plant. One could say the plant is in a constant state of “becoming,” always subsuming what it engages with.
In his novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Goethe applied this theory to human life. The protagonist, Wilhelm Meister, begins the novel as a fiery youth convinced that his drive and love of theater will propel him to become a master playwright. As the story unfolds, Wilhelm stumbles over and over again until he begins to assimilate the lessons of life. In doing so, he “grows,” so to speak. By the end of the novel, Wilhelm looks back on his forays into failed endeavors (he eventually quits the theater), and the lesson is that those experiences were anything but meaningless. Those experiences made him into the strong and able individual who we finally see at the end of the novel.
Without a doubt, Wilhelm was allowed to be happy. He was not happy all the time, but this organic development granted him genuinely happy moments. His journey was not defined by an ambition to expose the world, but by growth and experiences brought about by his own volition. It is true that he received guidance, but for the most part his passions and inclinations dictated his actions while the world continually fine-tuned those passions. For Wilhelm at least, Max Weber was wrong: all the character's experiences and previous false suppositions about the world were anything but meaningless. In fact, it was those very missteps that led him to where he was by the end of the novel. Therefore—at least in the world according to Goethe—everything has meaning; happiness can be genuine and legitimate until it's proven incorrect, and even when that happens, the happiness was still real in its time.
For Goethe, engagement with the world should start on the inside and then move to the external. What does this actually mean? I sum it up in this way: Follow your own inclinations and, following them, then allow yourself to be molded by the world. Like Goethe’s plants that start with a seed and then grow and begin to bend toward sources of light, people too should allow themselves to follow their own will, and then remain receptive to the world’s vicissitudes and adjust accordingly. In living this way, meaning and beliefs can be preserved while room is also made for happiness. There's no need to buckle under the crippling skepticism of the philosophers mentioned earlier. There need be no presupposition that happiness or meaning is out of reach. On the contrary, the goal isn't uncovering truth, just growth.
The Dalai Lama & Mindset
Who or what is doing the growing and how might we encourage such growth? In a highly popular text, The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, psychiatrist Howard Cutler converses with the Dalai Lama on aspects of Tibetan Buddhism that can be applied to Western ideals pertaining to happiness.
In one notable passage, Cutler and the Dalai Lama expound on how one’s mindset is paramount to happiness. In one example, they discuss the lives of two individuals. One wins the lottery, becomes rich and is initially elated, but then the happiness subsides, and the person returns to her normal state. Another individual is diagnosed with HIV, but the long-term effect is one largely of positive change as things in life take on greater meaning. The lesson in all of this, the two authors argue, is that happiness is profoundly determined by one’s mindset rather than external factors. The Dalai Lama goes on to say that wealth and health are crucial to an extent, but they will only make us happy if our mind is in the right state to receive them. In a way, this is quite similar to Goethe’s organicism. For both, the mindset, the inner state, remains the primary driver of things, rather than the external conditions of the world, as is the case for, say, Nietzsche or Flaubert.
The primary objective in Buddhism is to reveal the inner Buddha who resides in every living being. In order to do so, one must gradually become enlightened, which leads to greater happiness, compassion, and presence of mind. Again, this seems strikingly similar to Goethe’s organicism. Unlike in most Western traditions, the self is what grows in the world as opposed to what must completely conform to the state of the world.
To think about this in terms of meaning, if we allow ourselves to grow according to what we think is right, enlightened, or holy, it is quite easy to find meaning in things. If, on the other hand, we see that knowledge is ever changing and assume that because of this we can never allow ourselves to see meaning in things, we preclude ourselves from ever having profound meaning or, consequently, happiness.
A Subtle Subjective Shift
In presenting the ideas of Goethe and the Dalai Lama, I’m aware of many counterarguments that I do not have room to acknowledge in this essay. My aim was simply to show what happens if we shift the way we engage with the world from a perspective that largely focuses on our distrust of things to one that is focused on the continual growth of ourselves. The subtle shift from focusing on the external nature of the world to examining the way our inner nature engages with the world creates more meaning and is surely an option to keep in mind as we search for happiness.
Kevin Woodcock is completing his MA in Liberal Studies at Duke University. His interests are postmodern literature, economics, philosophy, and classical music.
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