Meditation #6 is from the middle section, Noon, in this free serialization of my book, A Million Different Things: Meditations of The World’s Happiest Man, and concerns itself with happiness, what it is, what we know about it and how to get more. A full index for the articles so far can be found at: Gift of A Million Different Things
David Stone, Writer
Check out great prices on mountains of Available Nonfiction at My Nonfiction Showcase.
Fiction? Got that too: Dave’s Fiction Warehouse
Meditation #6, Happiness
Its not what we think. The truth, I mean.
We take for granted that everyone wants to be happy. They dont, no matter how much ground we give up in the definition. Happy is a hopelessly squishy term to begin with, but lets try to define it. Happy means contented and able to enjoy ourselves easily. Its that vibe we have when were in a groove. Now that Ive employed a few more squishy terms, Ill leave it that, for each of us, we know it when we feel it.
Whatever it is is momentary. Whatever causes us to feel happy must be dense enough to persist or we glide immediately to something else. My motivation might be the warmth of the sun on an early spring day, the penetration of deep blue sky through robust green leaves, my wifes mellow smile, the opening chords of Mozarts g Minor Symphony, and many more. I have a million happiness influencers, and each can fly away after a few seconds.
As I get used to the sun on my skin, for example, the exhilarating contrast lessens. A commitment to being happy requires that I look always for the things, many of them new, that start the chemistry swimming in my brain and beyond. When its really good, I can feel happiness down to my toes and extend it across the universe. A master seeks to sustain the buzz.
As unique individuals, we all have our own personal hot buttons. Some we learn through experience but not enough to keep us rolling.
To be routinely happy, we must also be inventive, insightful and observant. Invention powers every cell in our bodies. We are born to manipulate nature. Without going too much farther, lets first acknowledge that some are more inventive than others and many influences, including childhood reinforcement and cultural values, come into play. Nevertheless, happiness is heavily dependent on the acceptance and development of individual inventiveness.
Don’t miss: The best in cat art, fine art, Valentine’s Day cards and gifts: Deborah Julian Photography
Insight is an even tougher nut because it has two components that are difficult to manage. First is the willingness to honestly look, and second is the voluntary acceptance of what we see. There are people we meet every day who are delighted by terrible things. If no one ever thrilled at slaughter and mayhem, wed never have another war, let alone the faux violence so effective in selling us movies and television shows.
Many gravitate toward violence, most never openly admitting their passion for it. The same is true for more moderate, but quirky components in human nature. Some people, it seems, can get a sexual turn on from almost anything. Since sex is one of our most enjoyable activities, this seems like a treasure of evolutionary success. We can get hot over somebodys shoes. Great. Yet, telling ourselves the truth about it isnt easy or direct. Insight requires navigating some tricky landscapes on the road to wisdom, and at least openly, most of us are not brave enough to march easily into a universe so foreign.
Finally, observation. On the whole, we think we take in the stuff of our worlds competently. We see realities around us, milling, passing or standing still. We take them in. So much happens automatically, while we daydream or use our cell phones, that were often on the borderline of not observing much at all. Multitasking and, generally, doing takes away from our ability to watch. We really dont know much about the world around us because we are too involved to see and absorb.
Indifference or neutrality takes over as the default reaction to passive disengagement. This characteristic has become worse, epidemic really, as we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by the mass media. Our inclination toward action has been perilously augmented by the injection of vicarious involvement. We are now ballplayers and action heros even as we sit in our comfy chairs.
Our decrease in awareness can help explain why, in the earliest days of a practice in meditation, we often feel like weve been reborn. Weve so lost the benefits of reflection that getting them back is like quitting a mind-numbing drug. That drug is mindless action and reaction.
When I was in my early teens, a teacher whod taken an interest in me because I wanted to write devoted a few lunch hours to informal counseling. I clearly remember Mrs. Blochbergers using Hemingways The Old Man and The Sea to teach me symbolism, but another lesson that stuck was her wistful idea that the world would be better if everyone took fifteen minutes every day to ask themselves, Where am I going? Ive never been great with symbolism, but I took to that practice like others take to chocolate cake.
An interesting thing to try might be a practice of pausing regularly to ask ourselves, not simply about direction, but about what we want, which is the thing that flavors directions. Dont take too much for granted, and be honest with yourself. Nobody else is in the room. Getting the details of why may be as important as any speculations about where.
Initially, I think the answers might be simple. Leonard Cohen, a favorite poet, in an early poem, has made me laugh with is clarity: Let me have her, he once wrote. Each of us knows the truth somewhere in ourselves, and my suggestion is that, from persistently asking, we can pull up more truths. What do we really wantafter the smoke has cleared? We might surprise ourselves. No, take the might out. We will surprise ourselves. Its guaranteed, if we make a vow to pay attention to our own voices whispering inside us.
Once comfortable, Id add a complementary question. What am I seeing out there? Forget the defaults and automatic conclusions. Take a look and go one step further. Listen for the silent information coming in from everything around us. Others are telling us things they will never put into words. There may not even be words available to describe the signals we are receiving.
David Stone, Writer
