Carpe Diem
“…one day my ashes will return to earthly slumber, spread far and wide across the desert and the sea
until then i will live each day in awe and wonder, look forward to each sunrise…”
–Stavesacre
It is a fact that people do not live forever. There is something about the finitude of life that demands respect for the opportunities we and people that we encounter. To some, this finitude may seem troubling–to others, it may seem insignificant–but to me, it seems all the more precious for its scarcity, like a rare metal that holds its value precisely because it is in limited supply.
In general, I’ve observed two attitudes in respect to living life: the first is passivity, where an individual waits for life to bring people, experiences, or success his way. The second is active engagement, where the individual takes life by the reigns and molds it like an artist at his craft–making something beautiful within the limits of his own experience.
This attitude toward life is reminiscent of a familiar phrase, well articulated in the film
Dead Poet’s Society.
“Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? — Carpe — hear it? — Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.”
Although the movie possesses some radical existential overtones, the message is not lost to its shortcomings.
The assumptions necessary to live the active, “aggressive” life are: 1) that the individual is not only capable, but morally right in living life to the fullest extent possible; 2) in situations beyond the individual’s control, they sill possess the ability to react to their circumstances in the manner of their choosing; and 3) that no person can live life for anyone else–each individual must expect his happiness to be the result of his own efforts, and must never live at the expense of others.
I have learned that life, happiness, and fulfillment are NOT granted to men and women automatically. They cannot be gained as a free hand-out from an unknown benefactor, or won as a lottery in which the individual’s investment is minute. These things CAN be achieved, but ONLY in proportion to the work exerted to achieve them. Any attempt to harvest a field without first sowing it would be nonsense.
I believe that most people sincerely wish to get the most out of their lives, but they are either misinformed about the true nature of happiness, or they exercise the wrong methods of achieving it. Some think the greatest happiness comes from overindulgence, some think it comes from the praise of others, some think it comes from the acquisition of material goods, and some think it comes from never having to exert themselves. All of these are flawed because they fail to take into account “human nature”, or “objective human attributes”.
In the first case, the law of diminishing returns will eventually destroy an individual who exercises excessive gratification, because their mind will continue to crave the effects of a particular pleasure while their body will continue to become immune to its effects. In the second case, praise may be a very good thing if it is received in response to exerted effort–i.e., if it is earned by some degree of action on the part of the recipient, else it is most likely false praise or flattery. It also lacks a degree of self-sufficiency, because the recipient is always at the mercy of the whims of others to measure his self-worth. The third case involves a backward view of material goods in which a person believes that the “things” he desires will give him some sort of “status”–as if the “thing” makes the man, and not vice versa. Finally, in the case of slothfulness, it is a well-known fact that real pride can only accompany accomplishments of significance. Genuine self-esteem only comes through genuine self-improvement, which includes self-discipline, hard work, and a healthy enjoyment of what is earned.
To some degree, these errors crouch in the subconscious of most individuals. The desire to have something for nothing is very strong, but the truth is that such an arrangement actually damages our humanity by reducing us to passivity, and thereby depriving us of our means of survival and self-definition. It gives men the excuses of “fate”, “destiny”, “luck”, “predestination”, “behaviorism”, and a host of other philosophical reductionistic ideas that turn men into machines instead of willing, active agents.
Every day that I live I feel more attached to this world and the experiences that is has to offer. If one does not live for happiness (as defined here), the only other option is to live for misery — and who is motivated by that?
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There is, I think, a kind of perfect human happiness which is possible to attain even in our ruined state. The ancient philosophers outlined the human virtues of justice, temperance, fortitude and prudence; if one would keep solidly to these virtues he would live a very happy and satisfied life.
Professor Keating encourages his students to sieze the day. This is a wise saying, for man is grass, shooting up in the morning and withering overnight. However, the desire to make the most of a moment, to squeeze every bit of life out of each hour, can only make sense in view of a timeless perspective. As Chesterton once put it,
“There is the tragedy that is founded on the worthlessness of life; and there is the deeper tragedy that is founded on the worth of it. The one sort of sadness says that life is so short that it can hardly matter; the other that life is so short that it will matter for ever.”
If life is ultimately meaningless, then, as Sartre quipped, man is a useless passion. The animals find their meaning in their finite lives, in hunting and mating and prowling. We search for our meaning outside of this physical life, as every philosophy and religion proves.
Happiness is not an end unto itself because it serves a higher purpose. A good life should be sought after, but it is not its own objective. If God is dead, then the virtues may make for a satisfied life, but they cannot have any moral force. You cannot say to the rapist or adulterer that he ought not to do the things he does (though you may stop him for your own protection). Indeed, one wonders how it could possibly matter how one acts in this life, aside from the temporary pleasure one might possess for a life “well-lived”.
I fear that I’ve wandered a bit from the topic, but I cannot deny the overwhelming sense that without the existence of a moral and personal God, all is vanity, even happiness. Christianity ruined the world for any kind of finite happiness, and it is no longer possible to be content as the Greek philosopher or pagan Celt was once content.
Most would say that being “happy” is a form of pleasure. Briefly, I make the case that pleasure in the broadest sense IS the prerequisite to happiness. One can not just positively, but they can also negatively experience a thing “with” pleasure or enjoyment (eg, imagine being tickled senselessly by the person you love). Therefore attaining a state of happiness may depend on a variety of experiences, and thus it is likely there are varying degrees of happiness that may be acheived. Furthermore, it is reasonable to think that the degree to which on sets out to acheive pleasure (and therefore happiness) determines, in a reciprocal way, the quality of happiness that results.
As scholar and psychologist Nathaniel Branden writes,
“Through the state of enjoyment, man experiences the value of life, the sense that life is worth living, worth struggling to maintain. In order to live, man must act to acheive values. Pleasure or enjoyment is at once an emotional payment for succesful action and an incentive to continue acting.”
In other words, “being happy” in this finite life is a matter of finding answers to what we value and what motivates us to live in THIS life. Simply put, happiness demands from us before it can share itself; in turn, we must realize happiness will require many sacrifices. Quite complicatedly, the idea lends itself to a compilation of what pleasure-ful things demand on ourselves. One cannot obtain such pleasure or happiness without undue loyalty and persistance. Moreover, one can obviously say the enjoyment one gets from things such as drunkenness (note: this does not rule out the “occasional beer”) is basically the result of acting in defiance of everyday life–it reduces one to a mere flimsy fantasy world in which we have no control over ourselves. More clearly, Branden writes that:
“For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality.”
Thus, humans realize a “demanding” happiness as a result of the underlying threads that exist and consistently tug at our opportunities for pleasure. In essence, the trials that life offers to us serve as our basic guiding outlines. Consequently, these outlines are the potential workings of what may lead, depending upon one’s own rational actions, to enjoyment of a greater or lesser happiness.
(Note: All quotes from Nathaniel Branden’s essay “The Psychology of Compromise.”)
~Brittany
Nick, I must say I’m somewhat ashamed of the way you ended this post. You who taught me at Pillar. You, the thinker. Why, why these argument fallacies? Why the false dilemma >> “After all, if you are not living for happiness, you are living for misery. And who wants to live for misery?” There are obviously more than two choices here; good grief, you sound like Sean Hannity! (i.e. “You’re either for Bush and the War in Iraq or you believe people should be thrown into saw mills by brutal tyrants.”)
If one seeks to “live for hapiness” one’s life will be a string of disappointment after disappointment. We can’t make ourselves happy by just closing our eyes and making it so. Nor can we make ourselves happy by simply vowing to “seize the day.” Marriage will not make us happy in the long term, no relationship can bring lasting happiness except the one we were created for first and foremost. When we live our lives the way we were created to live them, in fellowship with God, then the other stuff falls into place >> “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things [i.e. happiness] will be added to you.”
Eric, I resent being compared to Hannity, but it was kind of a funny image, so I suppose I’ll let you off this time.
You critiqued me for only presenting two choices, but what is your other alternative? You only criticize my methodology of finding happiness, but you present your own methodology of finding the same thing–so we both agree that happiness is worth seeking. At least, I think we do.
I do not believe in the double-meaning version of happiness, however–i.e., that to be happy you must be miserable, scourge yourself, drink dirty dishwater, forego sex, and sleep on cold concrete to earn greater brownie points with God. But at least the old monks were consistent–they really believed in being miserable! American Christianity preaches a “light” version of this doctrine, using subtle guilt to undermine the joys of life because we really ought not be enjoying ourselves–after all, this is NOT our home–and if we are enjoying ourselves, we must “give up” a specific pleasure because we are afriad it will diminish our “relationship” with God.
You state that:
“We can’t make ourselves happy by just closing our eyes and making it so. Nor can we make ourselves happy by simply vowing to ’seize the day.’
Certainly, happiness does not depend on “closing our eyes” and engaging in wishful thinking, or making vain vows to take the world by storm (which, incidentally, I see a lot of Christians doing…). Happiness is an achievement, it is not a passive experience. It must be earned; it requires labor. And it depends on us, not someone else.