The Pursuit Of Happiness

Let me start this with a quote:

"I've lived too long, I'm in the ruck.
I've drunk too deeply of the cup.
I cannot spend, I cannot fuck.
I'm down and out, I'm buggered up."
-- Pushkin according to Churchill

I am not altogether sure that doing what one loves (and what one might even be good at) does necessarily lead to happiness. Bernard Moitessier, for one doesn't strike me as a happy person. Passionate, definitely, driven, for sure, but the fact is that his wife finally left him, because she just couldn't take it (him) anymore. Do you think Albert Einstein was a happy man? Somehow I don't think so. Many others come to mind who share their fate as far as happiness is concerned.

While I certainly believe that it helps to strive for a goal, I also think that happiness is somehow unrelated to what we do and how we do it. Maybe its roots are genetic and have much more to do with brain-chemistry than anything else. Who knows? Or perhaps it all has to do with acceptance instead of trying to achieve something. Somehow I get the feeling that an old-style farmer, who has toiled away all his life and finally sits and looks over the land he has worked for so long, enjoys much more happiness than the man who has piled success on success? (Notice the numerous maybes and perhapses? Might only be resignation, after all. ;-)

There was another question that Moitessier asked himself more than once: "What is worse? Not being able to realize your dreams or having realized your dreams already?" It took me a little while to get what he was driving at. Much, much easier to work towards a goal than to continue living happily after actually having achieved that goal. While building your boat, you are full of illusions, you dream of perfect sailing days and how wonderful things will be once you have reached the South Seas. Of course you know that there will be problems, but they somehow always manage to fade into the background and blue skies seem far more common than a simple look at the weather charts would warrant.

In fact this illusion is so powerful that very few people manage to keep going once that fanciful bubble has been popped by harsh reality. "Sailing around the world means repairing your boat in the most beautiful spots on earth." This is not just a cute saying, but captures the reality of the average circumnavigator pretty well.

My hope is to slowly get over the top of the hill to finally enjoy a bit of downhill sailing. Hopefully we can manage that. As to happiness, we'll just have to wait and see.