4-7-07 Pursuit of Happiness

In the 1967 court case of Loving vs Virginia, a comment was made upon "the pursuit of happiness" by Chief Justice Earl Warren. This case overturned a lower court's ruling on the illegality of a mixed race marriage. Warren's comment was, "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." Thus, we find that the most noteworthy mention, possibly the only mention of the pursuit of happiness in a Supreme Court ruling, has appended to it the word "orderly."

An "orderly" pursuit of happiness, apparently, is how the judicial system would view such activity in terms of whether it's a basic right or not. In addition, it's the "pursuit" of happiness, not happiness itself, which is considered a basic right. In other words, your "rights" aren't being violated if someone makes you UNhappy...

Right around the same point in time as the above mentioned court case, Bob Dylan was booed by many in his audience for playing his music with electric instruments for the first time. Afterwards, a reporter asked him, "Are you happy with your performance?"

"Happy?" he replied. "Anybody can be happy..."

Indeed, anyone can be happy. It's the pursuit of happiness that may be difficult. This simple phrase has an implicit assumption that happiness is something that must be attained, that one does not (at the moment) actually have. I don't subscribe to that viewpoint, however. I'm with Bob on this. You're either happy or you're not. It's been said that a far eastern holy man could be perfectly happy while living in abject poverty, spending most of his waking hours sitting in a pig sty.

Happiness is a state of mind. One either musters up that (or any other) state of mind at will, or ends up believing that something else outside of them is what causes the way they feel at any given moment.

Consequently, I think that the signers of the Declaration of Independance made a poor choice when they okay'd this wording, and the inclusion of the pursuit of happiness in the opening text. Originally, the three unalienable rights that were going to be mentioned in the Declaration of Independance were life, liberty, and property. But they thought better of that, and it was changed. But it should have been changed to something a bit less ephemeral, I think.

Personally, I feel it should have been changed to the pursuit of comfort. Feeling comfy is, to be honest about it, the real pursuit we're all involved in most of the time. I tend to think of it as the pursuit of "comfy-ness" because this really hits the nail on the head. Happiness is one thing, but comfy-ness is a lot more than just a state of mind.

For instance, take a look at what drives people within political situations. Someone says something, and somebody else is inevitably "uncomfortable" with that. They don't take issue with anything because they're unhappy with it, they take issue because they're not comfortable with it.

When I come home from work, the very first thing I want to do is "get comfy". This means getting out of my work clothes, washing the stain of work off my body, and getting into the clothes that I feel more comfortable in. I pursue this moment daily, and look forward to that moment when I can attain maximum comfy-ness.

Back in the days of my youth, when I was dating and looked forward to those moments when my date was ready, willing, and able, it was the ultimate goal of such dates to have her say the magic words after we had arrived at her place or mine... "You don't mind if I get into something more comfortable, do you?"

When a modest person is asked how they are doing in life, and the implied question is leaning toward how much money they have, the standard response is that they're "comfortable" whether actually rich or poor.

There's a whole science and technology dedicated to providing relief from discomfort. The word "disease" is made up of two parts: "Dis-" a prefix that means "the opposite of", and "ease" meaning (in this sense) a state of normalcy and comfort. When anyone feels pain or discomfort, this technology seeks to give the specific complaint a name. And by giving it a name, the technology is then empowered to produce a specific remedy. This entire enterprise is wholly predicated upon the pursuit of comfy-ness.

Someone once said that we have two options in life. One is suffering and the other is boredom. If this is so, then I choose boredom. But I don't believe that life has to be so mundanely described. Instead I believe that we live our lives doing whatever is necessary to avoid pain and to, instead, feel comfy. We also seek to please ourselves with various apetites and experiences, but in the end the overwhelming majority of our time can be satisfactorily fulfilled by simply being comfy.

All my life I have been engaged in this pursuit of comfy-ness on a daily, and sometimes even an hourly basis. Comfy-ness is an immediately attainable goal. It is not dependant upon money, position, or power to find a position to stand, sit, or lay down in that's comfy. The ability to feel comfortable with people around one is simply a matter of either remaining in their presence or going somewhere else. And the fact is that attaining some level of comfy-ness is usually a prerequisite for the pursuit of just about anything else.

But let's not pretend that happiness needs to be "pursued" anymore. If you're not happy, then at least make it look like you are, so that you don't make everyone around you uncomfortable. Otherwise, you're impeding their pursuit of comfy-ness.