AUGUST 3 — “It’s possible that the more we pursue happy and ‘balanced’ lives, the more bland and boring... we become.”—Mari Ruti
Happiness is over-rated.
But assume it’s not — what is happiness in the first place? I reckon Malaysians are more certain that they want “happy” than they are about what the word means.
Happy is like the Loch Ness monster. Absolute discovery is irrelevant; the thrill is in the looking, the telling, the video-ing and subsequent doubting. Even if you actually see Nessie, there’s no way to verify it’s her. Even if she comes out of the water, walks up the road and takes a shit on two cars? People’ll say it’s fake. Ditto, happiness : It really is up to you to search for and confirm it.
If you’re being skinned alive and you claim you’re happier than a hog in heat, who’s to say you’re lying? And if you’ve won a billion bucks and found a Genie who’ll obey all your wishes, but you still declare you’re gonna kill yourself — nobody can contradict you.
Happy is like IMDB. Bolehland’s most expensive scandal is a train wreck and a national tragedy — but you can’t tell that from the way people react. Most Malaysians seem thoroughly energised by talk of the “disappearance” of RM43 billion. Most Malaysians looked positively aroused last week going on and on about an ex-DPM, a new DPM, a new leaked video, and the police headquarters catching fire. Nett? They don’t look too unhappy at all.
So happiness cannot be absolutely defined by “that state in which one resembles a Manchester United fan two seconds after van Gaal’s boys have won the European Cup.’ In fact, often happiness looks like the opposite.
If you need proof, simply set things up to snap an auto-selfie when you’re having sex — you’ll look like you’re in the worst kind of pain possible (though not exactly the kind you’d like stopped).
As with the bedroom, so with the boardroom. Happy is like bosses grilling incompetent workers. No doubt they dislike inefficiency, but their eyes also proclaim I Ain’t Happy Unless I’m Pissed Off.
I knew a project manager who spent every waking working moment berating everyone on the project; everyone was an incompetent loser who deserved to have their module oblongatas confiscated. Some evenings you’d see him in a meeting room stabbing a red-hot branding iron at a poor sod dangling from the ceiling. And every week he’d threaten to quit the project (in Jakarta), move back home (to KL) and, just for fun, set fire to the office.
But guess what? No matter how ”unhappy” he appeared, he never quit. And when one project ended, he’d always come back for more. He could never retire from the work-life which he said he hated more than the stale popiah stuck on his shoe.
Happy is like a holiday in which the best parts are before it’s actually taken. And the worst parts? Right after the trip is done. People always look ecstatic on the way there, never on the way back.
Vacationers returning home look much less overjoyed than when the cab dropped them off at the Departure terminal two weeks ago. Therefore? Next time you plan a trip to Bali, avoid actually going. You’ll be “happier.”
Doesn’t this also remind you of siblings who, when apart, appear to miss each other but when together will tear at each other’s limbs? What could “happy” possibly mean here?
(At times like these, I totally envy Lisa Surihani. What makes her happy? “Marigold Peel Fresh.” I swear I must’ve drunk a hundred cartons of that MPF stuff the first time I saw her say that in a GSC cinema. But I got nada. My understanding of happiness [let alone my life] didn’t change. But maybe you’ll have better luck with those fruit sacs?)
Ripped off by happiness?
Happiness is ideological.
Today we like “happy” because it’s an identity, it’s a passport to social normality. We must have “happy” to go up the rank and file.
This is why our country’s top politicians are always smiling. Show me an MP who doesn’t smile 24/7 for the media, and I’ll show you a back-bencher. Some Datuk could be guilty of child cannibalism and if we see him looking serious and sad in court—he’s guilty! But if he smiles and says he feels like a room without a roof? We’re not that sure anymore. He could be a psychotic killer but something’s different.
We need to show that we and “happy” are pals because that’s what “successful” people talk about. We need to talk happy cool stuff because our pals may brand us as misfits otherwise. Let’s be happy! Let’s do what makes us happy! Life is ABOUT being happy! All this may actually make sense if it wasn’t complete hogwash.
The ultimate paradoxical scene in Starbucks is people smiling and laughing superficially when discussing what ‘authentic living’ is all about. Maybe they should first discuss why their behaviour changes the moment they enter such “coffee-and-connection” joints. It’s like, suddenly I’m cool and I’m real. This is why you’ll never see people weep in such places — it’s hardly legal.
The superficiality of the whole happiness gig tends to dismiss the very serious reasons why an entire community may be un-happy. This is most evident in organisations where happiness is seen as a pre-condition for promotion. I’m frustrated with the power-plays, the gross inequalities, the subtle discriminations, but — **grits teeth** — fine I need the money so I’ll smile and act like an enthusiastic “professional.”
Every second people strive to be “happy” could be a second lost at being real. When our over-riding priority is to outwardly manifest the properties Important Others consider “happy”, we risk losing life in all its a-happy grandeur. Honestly, we’d kill ourselves if we had nothing but happiness in us. In such a climate, something like anxiety can even be seen to be threatening because much less predictable and, hey hey hey, productive.
Never doubt it for a second: Happy must be profitable, Profit loves Happy. If your face isn’t pasted full of Smileys, you won’t look like Successful.
Have we in fact reached a point where we judge someone for every moment s/he isn’t behaving, uh, “positively”? Is this not one of the reasons why our communities are becoming more and more medicated? It’s like so many of us have shotguns pointed at our heads and megaphones blasting the same message into our ears, “BE HAPPY, DAMN YOU! GET YOURSELF ON THE HAPPINESS TRAIN RIGHT THIS MOMENTOR BY GOD YOU’RE GONNA BE STUFFED FULL OF PROZAC!!”
And if you disagree, if you find life utterly fulfilling in all its tension, pain and suffering—it must be because you’re pathological, right?
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
