I differ from many: I’m happy.
Americans, the polls say, are unprecedentedly unhappy. What about? This and that – inflation, immigrants, Communists, the national debt – bugaboos mostly, that don’t practically affect them. That’s how unhappiness works – we blame something, anything, we can locate; kick the cat. We tend not to excavate consciousness for a root cause – that’s why God made shrinks – and shrinks cost a boatload. We self-diagnose – and our diagnoses may be laughably off. Unflinching self-analysis might lead to disquieting revelations, like cleaning out a long-neglected attic. If you don’t want to know an answer, better not ask.
I’m not sure why so many Americans are unhappy, but maybe, if I dope out why I’m happy, I can discern a difference. By happy I do not mean jolly. I’m often grouchy, grim, fulminous, as Jane will attest. Nor do I mean satisfied with how things are. I’m not. I’m beginning to suspect, from our misbehavior, humans will prove an evolutionary mistake. Yes, our species spawned Mozart, Michelangelo, Jesus, but also Hitler, Trump.
By happy I mean glad to be alive, glad to bursting like a ripe berry, glad with thanks to whatever chance permitted this. I call that chance God. I wouldn’t omit a moment of life I love it so much, not even the bitterest, for without the bitter how can we know the sweet?
Prosperity is not what’s made me happy. While lucky never to have lacked life’s necessaries, I’ve known plenty of groaning rich folks and smiling mendicants. Poverty may grind souls to dust, no question, but affluence hardly assures joy. (“Enough is as Good as a feast.” – Malory)
Neither does attainment make me glad. Deeds may delight like today’s dinner, but memory fades and hunger still gnaws.
Love is crucial to contentment – of loved ones, friends, God, neighbors, dog. Love makes us feel welcome. Love alone, though, may not sate a seeking soul. Many the suicide who’s been fiercely loved.
The key to gladness, I’m guessing, is a sense of being meant. From boyhood I’ve believed I was born to better the world. This is madness, granted, but of the most satisfying, exhilarating sort, ejecting me from bed, boing, like Jack from his box, and keeping me pressing till fatigue insinuates doubt. My goals morphed – I would write sublime music, preach stirring sermons, build worthy companies, write to make others weep as I had wept – but in all my attempts pulsed a conviction of significance. I mattered! I could make a difference! I was not a cog! (Twice, so far, my star got smothered by clouds and I toppled into the lostness of depression. Nothing worse.)
Insignificance has made Americans glum. In the old days of communities, everybody counted, all played an essential role which merited respect. Even the coffee peddler at the train station had a name. Modernity has demoted mankind from participant to observer, producer to consumer. Robocalls pretend we’re human, but to the elites, politicians and plutocrats we’re just digits, insignificant, and we know it. Now, with AI, humans won’t be needed to write or calculate or think! Superfluity stings; it may craze. The spirit gathers into a shout: “I matter, dammit, I matter!”
No one matters in the end, not really. While I know that, I’ve never believed it. A dream of significance has kept me happily aloft. Bless you for reading.
“Make Americans Great Again” is a slogan that means nothing. “Make Americans Matter Again” is a salve that might solve something. Messiahs, benign or baleful, convince their followers they matter. Being is more than existing, it’s believing we belong.