You Don't Have To Choose Between Happiness And Being Informed
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): I write about some dark, dark things in this space, and it's common to receive expressions of despair in response to the subjects I focus on. This is perfectly understandable. Not only is our world hurtling toward nuclear armageddon and environmental collapse while surging authoritarianism threatens our ability to even talk about these things with each other, but most people are completely oblivious to it all. Even relatively politically engaged people tend to believe society's biggest problems are things like sexism or drag shows, and they generally support one of the two mainstream political factions who are both driving us toward destruction.
Thank you, Caitlin, that's an excellent reminder that our world, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, is still an amazing, beautiful, mysterious, baffling place. And we are some of the most amazing, beautiful, mysterious, and baffling things in it. There's a lot of suffering we don't need to buy into.
No really, I'm not just being an edgelord... the way in which people are conditioned to put their happiness front and center, reflexively as well as intentionally, may actually be the root of most modern problems. Once you accept a lack of happiness as a natural state, you're a lot closer to living a healthy and authentic life.
Your desperate quest for happiness is a weakness that everyone from advertisers and politicians to self-help charlatans and cult leaders exploit to get you to serve their needs. You can beat them just by not believing the premise that happiness is your right and your ideal state.
And even the people who really care about you reinforce this trap, because they sincerely want you to be happy. It's very hard to convince someone who loves you that not being happy doesn't mean you're not perfectly OK as you are, especially when it becomes a semi-selfish feedback loop and their happiness depends upon yours.
We're propagandized from an early age to believe that a lack of happiness is an indication of something missing, something that we can buy or join or achieve. Look at all the kids who are perfectly fine until they start obsessing over the toys or clothes or approval or popularity that they don't have.
Once you start to mature a little, you may get enlightened as to a few routes out of this trap -- the classic "happiness comes from within" or "take the road less traveled by" theories. But most if not all of these also promise happiness at the end of the road, or sneakily redefine happiness in other words ("fulfillment" or "satisfaction" are common choices).
Would Lincoln have been better off if he was happier more often? Emily Dickinson? The list goes on and on. I'll even go out on a limb and say that we're seeing fewer truly original and impressive people precisely because fewer people are willing to believe that happiness is fundamentally optional, incidental, and fleeting.
If you want happiness all the time forever, it's fairly easy to do; get yourself a lifetime supply of serious drugs and make sure your lifetime is over before any ill effects kick in. I guarantee results. Insanity and idiocy can have the same effects, but it's a bit of a crap shoot; the happy fool may be enviable, but there's no foolproof route to get there, and you'd have to sacrifice most of your useful and valuable qualities to do so.
I'm personally a big fan of melancholy. Maybe it's a survival adaptation? Hard to say, because I've also come to realize that the urge to self-analyze until you come to A Truth is also a trap. I also believe in suffering and grief, and even hate and fear. All of those things are far more natural and essential to our existence than an abundance of happiness.
Indeed, you may have to struggle against the urge toward happiness in the same way that you have to struggle against the urge to hate and fear. Not to banish it completely, in some sort of emotionally neutered moksha nirvana sense, but to live a complete life with your potential and sensitivity intact.
But even that is a possible trap, because it's too easy to redefine "a complete life" as synonymous with a happy one. Self-denial and long-view results, the old "go through bitter waters to reach the sweet" trick. Don't hit yourself too hard because it feels good when you stop. Don't exercise because you think you'll be happier if only you had a leaner, stronger body.
Maybe just live as if happiness may or may not come (it will, just as pain and loss will, inevitably). Do what needs to be done, do what you think is right (in both the moral and practical sense), don't freak out and flail for a foothold when you don't feel happy. Take as much as you can from the seemingly less desirable emotional states and setbacks. And when someone or something seems to promise you happiness, maybe give it just as much scepticsm as you'd give someone or something that urges you to hate or fear.
Life is as happy as it is fair, and in both cases there are a lot of ways to make things worse for yourself and others by trying too hard to make it otherwise.
Thank you, thank you. An excellent antidote for those of us who feel the alienation that comes when we radically split from the fake world around us. I am so grateful to have a beautiful garden out back which is full of experiences of Being you remind us of. The question in the novel 1984 was “Do you want to be happy or free, politically and intellectually?” Your essay is a glorious reminder that choosing freedom need not be grim but joyous.
I woke up this morning feeling sad and disappointed by the state of the World and especially by what's going on in my home. A home I was once proud of as being related to the 1st Peoples. And btw We believe we come from there. We did not come over the Bering Straight via Africa. This is a made-up story by Invaders & Colonizers to justify taking over and commiting genocide. I had YouTube set on continuous play while I was washing my face. It morphed into a Frontline piece on Clarence & Ginny Thomas. Yikes! Then I checked my Twitter feed and I was once again trolled by Pro-Ukraine Nafo Nazis. Yikes again! Then I checked my email and found this article by Caitlin Johnson. No Yikes here! It certainly took me to a much better place. Thank you Caitlin. You saved my day from infinite despair.
Holy Crap! I’m not saying this is plagiarism, but reading this was like coming across something a secret, undetected mind reading scribe extracted from my brain a few years ago. Feels good to know y’all are out there... Tough to find those who get this in everyday life here in North Carolina. Thank You So Much Caitlin! You’re keeping me very nearly sane!
Thank you, Caitlin. What a beautiful reminder that this physical experience is such a gift. When you appreciate it, you treat it with more reverence. You live with more sacred purpose.
That there is something rather than nothing is truly boggling, and which there currently is no real scientific explanation. I also believe there is more going on in reality than just the mechanical clock system that deterministic materialists insist we believe (many of the same people who tell us we must kill more Russians, and start a war with China.) I think the mystery of consciousness remains a clue to the meaning of it all - in the dark period we now are living through. But you're right, even in the midst of these darkest times - like living in a Francisco Goya painting - one can find light, even light connections with consciousness - for example, the death-bed visions of people who are about to die. So I think there is a strong basis for hope this isn't all some kind of existential joke and accident of existence. I live my life assuming it isn't. I could be wrong though.
To feel sane, you can of course also find solidarity with the few fellow humans out there who do also think like you. Appreciating the universe and nature are one thing, but you also for the best mental health need to find some peers and community. They are out there!
Thanks, it's good to remember that this false and phony paradigm we're living in is ephemeral, while we are surrounded by a natural beauty that transcends and outlasts Man's world, and we are capable of contemplating and sometimes tasting the eternal.
"It feels like what it probably felt like to be a lucid thinker back in much less enlightened times when civilization was dominated by religion and superstition."
The problem is that we live in an age of obscurantism and a real obscurantism, not the one invented by the propaganda of the Enlightenment, which, to be luminous, absolutely had to succeed the darkness. To associate religion and superstition is of an imbecility without name. Religion is the exact opposite of superstition. And as far as lucid thinkers are concerned, the "obscurantist" times saw the birth and expression of Saint Augustine, Thomas More, Blaise Pascal, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Montaigne or Descartes (to name but a few), who cannot be qualified as superstitious or obscure, even though they were all animated by a Catholic faith.
When I read Voltaire or Diderot, I have the impression of reading the first propagandists who use sophisms and lies to extinguish any critical spirit in his reader. And the patent liars who run the American empire and its lackey countries are indeed Voltaire's bastards, as John Saul brilliantly wrote.
Another excellent post, Caitlin. I feel this one could be/should be the central plot and theme to a movie that has no political or propagandist agenda attached to it, only hope and salvation from the nightmare we are all currently living.
Thank you, Caitlin, that's an excellent reminder that our world, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, is still an amazing, beautiful, mysterious, baffling place. And we are some of the most amazing, beautiful, mysterious, and baffling things in it. There's a lot of suffering we don't need to buy into.
Masterpiece! Beautiful sentiment to start the weekend. Doesn’t hurt to find humor in everything too. Sportsball is the bread and circuses of our clown world: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-root-for-pro-sportsball
Happiness is overrated.
No really, I'm not just being an edgelord... the way in which people are conditioned to put their happiness front and center, reflexively as well as intentionally, may actually be the root of most modern problems. Once you accept a lack of happiness as a natural state, you're a lot closer to living a healthy and authentic life.
Your desperate quest for happiness is a weakness that everyone from advertisers and politicians to self-help charlatans and cult leaders exploit to get you to serve their needs. You can beat them just by not believing the premise that happiness is your right and your ideal state.
And even the people who really care about you reinforce this trap, because they sincerely want you to be happy. It's very hard to convince someone who loves you that not being happy doesn't mean you're not perfectly OK as you are, especially when it becomes a semi-selfish feedback loop and their happiness depends upon yours.
We're propagandized from an early age to believe that a lack of happiness is an indication of something missing, something that we can buy or join or achieve. Look at all the kids who are perfectly fine until they start obsessing over the toys or clothes or approval or popularity that they don't have.
Once you start to mature a little, you may get enlightened as to a few routes out of this trap -- the classic "happiness comes from within" or "take the road less traveled by" theories. But most if not all of these also promise happiness at the end of the road, or sneakily redefine happiness in other words ("fulfillment" or "satisfaction" are common choices).
Would Lincoln have been better off if he was happier more often? Emily Dickinson? The list goes on and on. I'll even go out on a limb and say that we're seeing fewer truly original and impressive people precisely because fewer people are willing to believe that happiness is fundamentally optional, incidental, and fleeting.
If you want happiness all the time forever, it's fairly easy to do; get yourself a lifetime supply of serious drugs and make sure your lifetime is over before any ill effects kick in. I guarantee results. Insanity and idiocy can have the same effects, but it's a bit of a crap shoot; the happy fool may be enviable, but there's no foolproof route to get there, and you'd have to sacrifice most of your useful and valuable qualities to do so.
I'm personally a big fan of melancholy. Maybe it's a survival adaptation? Hard to say, because I've also come to realize that the urge to self-analyze until you come to A Truth is also a trap. I also believe in suffering and grief, and even hate and fear. All of those things are far more natural and essential to our existence than an abundance of happiness.
Indeed, you may have to struggle against the urge toward happiness in the same way that you have to struggle against the urge to hate and fear. Not to banish it completely, in some sort of emotionally neutered moksha nirvana sense, but to live a complete life with your potential and sensitivity intact.
But even that is a possible trap, because it's too easy to redefine "a complete life" as synonymous with a happy one. Self-denial and long-view results, the old "go through bitter waters to reach the sweet" trick. Don't hit yourself too hard because it feels good when you stop. Don't exercise because you think you'll be happier if only you had a leaner, stronger body.
Maybe just live as if happiness may or may not come (it will, just as pain and loss will, inevitably). Do what needs to be done, do what you think is right (in both the moral and practical sense), don't freak out and flail for a foothold when you don't feel happy. Take as much as you can from the seemingly less desirable emotional states and setbacks. And when someone or something seems to promise you happiness, maybe give it just as much scepticsm as you'd give someone or something that urges you to hate or fear.
Life is as happy as it is fair, and in both cases there are a lot of ways to make things worse for yourself and others by trying too hard to make it otherwise.
Thank you, thank you. An excellent antidote for those of us who feel the alienation that comes when we radically split from the fake world around us. I am so grateful to have a beautiful garden out back which is full of experiences of Being you remind us of. The question in the novel 1984 was “Do you want to be happy or free, politically and intellectually?” Your essay is a glorious reminder that choosing freedom need not be grim but joyous.
I woke up this morning feeling sad and disappointed by the state of the World and especially by what's going on in my home. A home I was once proud of as being related to the 1st Peoples. And btw We believe we come from there. We did not come over the Bering Straight via Africa. This is a made-up story by Invaders & Colonizers to justify taking over and commiting genocide. I had YouTube set on continuous play while I was washing my face. It morphed into a Frontline piece on Clarence & Ginny Thomas. Yikes! Then I checked my Twitter feed and I was once again trolled by Pro-Ukraine Nafo Nazis. Yikes again! Then I checked my email and found this article by Caitlin Johnson. No Yikes here! It certainly took me to a much better place. Thank you Caitlin. You saved my day from infinite despair.
Holy Crap! I’m not saying this is plagiarism, but reading this was like coming across something a secret, undetected mind reading scribe extracted from my brain a few years ago. Feels good to know y’all are out there... Tough to find those who get this in everyday life here in North Carolina. Thank You So Much Caitlin! You’re keeping me very nearly sane!
Thank you, Caitlin. What a beautiful reminder that this physical experience is such a gift. When you appreciate it, you treat it with more reverence. You live with more sacred purpose.
Do I live in a society where not being anxious/depressed to the point of distraction and apathy is viewed as revolutionary?
"looking for happiness in all the wrong places" , yup , that's for sure
I just love your ability to express so beautifully how we all think, Caitlin. Thank you.
That there is something rather than nothing is truly boggling, and which there currently is no real scientific explanation. I also believe there is more going on in reality than just the mechanical clock system that deterministic materialists insist we believe (many of the same people who tell us we must kill more Russians, and start a war with China.) I think the mystery of consciousness remains a clue to the meaning of it all - in the dark period we now are living through. But you're right, even in the midst of these darkest times - like living in a Francisco Goya painting - one can find light, even light connections with consciousness - for example, the death-bed visions of people who are about to die. So I think there is a strong basis for hope this isn't all some kind of existential joke and accident of existence. I live my life assuming it isn't. I could be wrong though.
To feel sane, you can of course also find solidarity with the few fellow humans out there who do also think like you. Appreciating the universe and nature are one thing, but you also for the best mental health need to find some peers and community. They are out there!
Thanks, it's good to remember that this false and phony paradigm we're living in is ephemeral, while we are surrounded by a natural beauty that transcends and outlasts Man's world, and we are capable of contemplating and sometimes tasting the eternal.
"It feels like what it probably felt like to be a lucid thinker back in much less enlightened times when civilization was dominated by religion and superstition."
The problem is that we live in an age of obscurantism and a real obscurantism, not the one invented by the propaganda of the Enlightenment, which, to be luminous, absolutely had to succeed the darkness. To associate religion and superstition is of an imbecility without name. Religion is the exact opposite of superstition. And as far as lucid thinkers are concerned, the "obscurantist" times saw the birth and expression of Saint Augustine, Thomas More, Blaise Pascal, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Montaigne or Descartes (to name but a few), who cannot be qualified as superstitious or obscure, even though they were all animated by a Catholic faith.
When I read Voltaire or Diderot, I have the impression of reading the first propagandists who use sophisms and lies to extinguish any critical spirit in his reader. And the patent liars who run the American empire and its lackey countries are indeed Voltaire's bastards, as John Saul brilliantly wrote.
Crack, it’s all the way in the air and.... it’s gone. Another home run of an article.
Another excellent post, Caitlin. I feel this one could be/should be the central plot and theme to a movie that has no political or propagandist agenda attached to it, only hope and salvation from the nightmare we are all currently living.