What makes you happy? Do you know why?

This question surprised me the other morning. The sun was not yet over the tree line. Heat was forecast, but it was still cool. Henry and I had slept like logs. (An odd formula: do logs wake? If not, can they have slept?) Henry was sniffing around for who knows what. Ditto his companion.

I was happy. Not ecstatic – meaning nuts – but plumply content, like a ripe berry. Why a berry should be happy at its consummate – and consumable – fruition I can’t say, but the simile felt right.

Curiously, I did not know my question’s answer. Since happiness is a human objective, arguably the foremost, you’d think anyone who pondered would know what prompted it. I know various things that make me happy – predictably, if not inevitably: certain music, a kind of picture, my grandkids, Henry licking me awake, dusk cribbage with Jane. The prospect of our daily tete-a-tete makes me smile. Feeling hungry feels good – not famished, but pleasantly eager. But what do these stimuli share? What makes my soul – and by probable extension, yours – rejoice to be alive?

Is anything more delectable, thought I, than a ripe question of which the flavor, when bitten, bursts onto the tongue? (Berries were on my mind this morning.) And herein, perhaps, lay a clue. Maybe it’s anticipation that delights, more than possession, the prospect of joys to come.

Is hope, then, happiness’ essential ingredient – and its absence misery’s? For sure, feeling hopeless I am glum – stuck in an airport, say, or at a funk-shun blabbing with bores. Depression whacked me – twice – when I lost the vision of my future, like the Magis’ steering star. Might we conclude that gloom arises from absence of imagination? That wherever we are disheartens if it leads nowhere?

This thesis contradicts materialists’ contention that it’s stuff we crave: “better things for better living.” It confounds the faith of well-meaning leaders who believe their job’s to make “things” better for people. It reinforces the role of preachers, coaches, and other charlatans, who focus attention on things to come. I do not want what I have, it turns out, but what I don’t. Yes, I’m grateful for my good fortune, I can inventory my luck, but that’s not where I get my jollies. I glow, gloat even, at the prospect of tomorrow. Writing, especially, makes me happy, because every commencement plunges me into a wild whirl of maybes. I have no idea where these sentences are taking me – hold on tight!

If this be true, the fundamental task of leadership – and friendship – is to supply hope. Show me the shining star winking behind the scudding clouds. Infuse me with the radiance of possibility. The Magi did not mind the hardships of their road – various reporters say so:

If this be true, the anodyne for our rancorous age is less stuff than hope, less livings than reasons to live, less food than food for thought. Hope shrinks grumbles to trifles en route.

Where do we find hope? Sleep deep, wake strong, dream aloud.