( 7 votes, average: 3.43 / 5 )
Loading ...I seek happiness everywhere. We all do. But do we often pause and wonder if it exists, and if it does, what it is? Or are we, in fact, on board a futile quest for the promised shores of an elusive and non-existent place?
The Neocrats may try to centre me a little from my hopeless left leaning, but let me pose this question: Is happiness more than a fantastical tale woven by the hypercapitalistic machinery to fuel the flame of our desire, and suck us in, day after day, deeper into its narrative?
Let me explain. This recent article from SciAm reports on news that has been proven time after time by research in the developed world, that we’re not very happy. And the more we persevere in our quest for what we think happiness to be, the more unhappy we become. Research shows that once we have at our disposal more than what we would all brand a meagre income that would only just satisfy the basic necessities of life, the more we get, the more unsatisfied we become.
In Australia, research showed that the unhappiest people are those that earn more than A$60,000. Clive Richardson from the Australia Institute branded our malady Deferred Happiness Syndrome. We defer everthing that’s important and fulfilling, such as personal and family time, artistic pursuit, community life and service to the community, in the pursuit of acquisition - so that one day we can retire and just maybe, have enough funds to do those things. Problem is, we often die or get sick in the process. Or we disown the people we want to spend time with, or lose the families we want to one day spend time with.
The prophets and sages have all alluded to these things, and to the meaningless of attachment to acquisition and wealth. Even Freud talked about the importance of balancing work and love. And we hear that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a dead ant than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. But now it’s hard science.
Friends, when shall we wake from our nightmare of consumption?
Bookmark: 
Mandel, I like your question, and I agree with the spirit of your post that over-consumption does not produce happiness. But I want to complicate things a little bit by raising some economic questions: At what point in the development of an economy does consumption become its driving force (as I understand it to be in the West now)? Before that point, what drives the economy? And what is the relationship between the drivers of an economy and the percentage of people involved in it who don’t struggle to meet their daily needs?
For answers to these questions, I turn to people who know things about this. I don’t. Please, friends, feel free to correct any poor asumptions that are built into my questions.