A sage from our subcontinent says: “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.” Does it seem intriguingly ambiguous? Of course it is.

Some among us especially the powerful men conceive happiness as something extraneous, something outside us that has to be grabbed and possessed. It’s not natural or instinctive to them. That’s why they associate it with things they consider bigger and higher which are invariably material and grandiose. And things material and grandiose are inseparably linked with these men’s acquisitive and possessive nature nurtured by prevalent socio-cultural and politico-economic institutions. They cannot experience things unless they possess them. The experience of things arising out of their being possessed makes it partial if not entirely phony. In order to conceal the hollowness of possession grand ideals or goals are used as subterfuge.

National glory, patriotism, invasions, conquests and apparent heroic acts can be subsumed under the category of subterfuge. They are displayed as inexhaustible sources of happiness by actors who are portrayed as larger than life. It means happiness is to be found in grand acts that may not be substantially grand but their scale make them appear so.

Poet Bertolt Brecht exposes such historical personages which in their grand gesture try to show us men at their apogee in a state of eternal happiness. “Timur, I hear, took the trouble to conquer the earth / I don’t understand him; with a bit of hard liquor you can forget the earth/ I’m not saying anything against Alexander / Only I have seen people who were remarkable –Highly deserving your admiration for the fact that they were alive at all / Great men generate too much sweat / In all this I see just a proof that they couldn’t stand on their own / And smoking / And drinking/ and the like/ And they must be too mean spirited to get contentment from sitting by a woman,” he says in one of his poems. So great men try to find a way to happiness and the way is inevitably through killings and dispossessing others thought to be lesser mortals. And who are lesser mortals? They are obviously ordinary people comprising mostly women, children and members of working classes found all over the globe.

Women though repressed, oppressed and discriminated against in almost all existing societies are happier than men. The secret of their happiness lies in their attitude; they don’t plan big. They are generally reconciled with the natural process as they take things as they are or happen.

They instinctively know small things are what matters because they are their constant companions. Thus they are not wasted in prosaic lives. What they are connected with, however small it might be, becomes a source of satisfaction generating a feeling of happiness.

They can be happy while shopping, putting on an attractive attire, taking care of a child, being with friends, cooking and even making bed. Being mothers or being with the concrete potential of becoming mothers they have instinctive fear of disorder.

Their desire to preserve is quite strong. That’s perhaps why they don’t disturb the arrangement of things unnecessarily. Their impulse to improve the state of the arrangement without rupturing it keep them grounded and happy with what is old and what comes up as new by way of natural change. Their umbilical connection with children is known to all. Their relationship with things small which are normal and ordinary, keep them away from falling in love with grandiosity which has been/ is a source of universal disturbance.

Children as all sensitive parents know are happy with the extraordinary and the ordinary in the same manner provided the latter is new. Children take the miraculous and the ordinary that they come in touch with for the first time with equal measure of curiosity and amazement.

Even the greatest poet with wild imagination is not a patch on a child’s sense of wonder which is his/her undying source of happiness. Children find happiness in connecting and interacting with things, not necessarily possessing them. Even when they possess their favourite thing, they forget it the moment they see something new. The reason is that they have not as yet become habituated to experiencing things purely as possessions.

If possessions alone determine human happiness members of working classes can never ever be happy because they possess bare minimum and thus live under the ever lengthening shadow of deprivation. Deprivation has a relative dimension.

That’s why deprivation suffered by working classes varies from time to time and society to society. Working people can be happy with what they have; nothing, literally and metaphorically.

The secret of their happiness lies in their strong community instinct and the spirit of camaraderie. Have you ever been to the gatherings of drivers or kitchen maids of your area’s households? If not, eavesdrop on them. You shall find them happier than the affluent people they work for. No grand plans and no grand illusions! They intuitively realise that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way which means it is rooted in one’s orientation. And an attitude resulting from it is what finds satisfaction in non-possessive relationship with things under the umbrella of interconnections network.

“The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity,” explains Erich Fromm in his remarkable small book ‘The Art of Loving’. He elaborates it further with a vivid example from everyday life; a man who loves rose plucks it and tucks it in the front pocket of his jacket. But what actually happens; his love for the flower becomes its death. This is how possession works. Sadly, human beings driven by societal institutions skewed towards the powerful hanker more after possessions than happiness.

They are conditioned to believe that happiness springs from acquisitions, not from the relationships that one can form with things ensuring the growth and development of all concerned. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2024