In the Free World— At Principle Gallery, Alexandria
Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.
–George Orwell, Critical Essays (1946)
I wonder how our perception of the word happiness has changed over the ages, from the 4th century BC when Aristotle first described it as an activity of the soul that expresses virtue to the time of the American Revolution when the phrase Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was forever enshrined in the Declaration of Independence until now.
Is the definition of happiness from our Declaration stating that citizens should be free to live a life without oppression that would lead them to some sort of fulfillment the same as it is today? Is the fulfillment that brought happiness to the ordinary citizen then the same as today?
I don’t know.
It seems like the word happiness has become somewhat trivial these days, that it is happiness with a lower-case h rather than the capitalized Happiness.
Maybe there is a difference in those two, happiness and Happiness. Maybe the happiness we feel laughing at a joke with friends or playing with a pet is vastly different than the Happiness of going to bed without worries or fears?
I don’t know.
I do know that we are living in a time when moments of lower-case happiness are easier to find than that larger feeling of upper-case Happiness we are supposedly free to pursue. With American troops prowling the streets of American cities under false pretenses and growing legions of masked government agents on our streets who are free to whisk anyone away without due process or accountability, with a kakistocracy in place led by a maniacal billionaire that seeks to severely punish political opponents and strip away many of the rights we have come to expect, it is hard to see how anyone could find true Happiness at the present.
Maybe for now, we have to lean on that lower-case happiness to get us through to the time when Happiness can again be freely pursued by all.
Hoping you find some bits of happiness today. Here’s a song that always makes me happy. It’s Oh Happy Day from the Edwin Hawkins Singers from back in 1969. The fact that it is basically a religious song and I am not a religious person does lessen my happiness in hearing this song. Maybe that is because this is a song about Happiness and not happiness?
I don’t know…
Redtree Times 