Читать книгу Making Happy People: The nature of happiness and its origins in childhood - Paul Martin - Страница 9

During a visit to France many years ago, the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan asked Madame de Gaulle, wife of the French president, what she was most looking forward to when her hard-working husband retired. To Macmillan’s surprise and embarrassment, Madame de Gaulle replied, ‘A penis.’ Only later did it dawn on him that what she had actually said was ‘Happiness.’ Most of us recognise a penis when we see one, but we might feel less confident if asked to define happiness. Ask two parents what they mean by the word and you will get two different answers; ask two philosophers and you will probably get at least five.

Debating definitions is usually a tedious exercise beloved of pedants, but in this case it really does matter. After all, I have already suggested that happiness is the most important thing in life. On a practical level, implicit but faulty beliefs about the nature of happiness have a pervasive influence on almost every sphere of human activity, ranging from government economic policies to religion, from education to therapy, and from how we raise our children to how we conduct our daily lives. So, before burrowing into the causes of happiness and their practical implications, we should first decide what happiness is.

For a start, happiness is a distinct state in its own right, and not merely the absence of sadness or depression. You can be happy and sad at the same time, if you think about it. Imagine, for example, how you might feel (or felt) on your last day at school, or when your youngest child leaves home for college, or when you leave a job you have enjoyed for an even better one. Your feelings might be a complex mixture of pride, satisfaction, excitement, anxiety, sorrow and anticipation. Happiness is more than just the absence of unhappiness in much the same way that health is more than just the absence of disease.¹

Happiness also means more than just feeling good in the here and now. Like any other fundamental aspect of human nature, happiness is too complex to reduce to a single dimension or a simple formula. So, what is it? Rather than dance round the issue, I will set out a definition that is as simple as I can make it, but which should nonetheless be recognisable to most scientists and philosophers who make a professional study of the subject. In short, happiness is a mental state composed of three distinct elements:

• Pleasure: the presence of pleasant, positive moods or emotions such as pleasure, contentment, joy, elation, ecstasy or affection.²

• Absence of displeasure: the absence of unpleasant, negative moods or emotions such as sadness, anxiety, fear, anger, guilt, envy or shame.

• Satisfaction: judging, on reflection, that you are satisfied with your life in general and with at least some specific aspects of your life (for example, your personal relationships, career or physical abilities).

Thus happiness is a combination of experiencing pleasure, not experiencing displeasure and being satisfied with your life. The relative proportions of pleasure, absence of displeasure and satisfaction can vary enormously, although you need at least a little of all three to be truly happy. Happiness therefore comes in many shapes, colours and flavours, comprising different combinations of satisfaction, pleasure and displeasure. Furthermore, any one combination of the three can be attained in many different ways: each person has their own unique blend as a result of their own unique life history and experiences.

Some psychologists and philosophers argue that there is a fourth dimension to happiness, which they variously refer to as ‘meaning’, ‘purpose’ or ‘virtue’. This embodies the sense that for a life to be truly happy it must have some deeper purpose or meaning beyond pleasure or satisfaction. For some people, this fourth dimension means religion (a subject we shall return to in chapter 6). However, the concept that true happiness requires a deeper purpose or meaning goes back at least as far as the philosophers of ancient Greece, for whom it did not necessarily have religious connotations.³ This is complex philosophical territory. Suffice it (I hope) to say that my threefold definition of happiness, and especially the element of satisfaction, is meant to be interpreted in the broadest possible sense, to encompass this fourth dimension. Great satisfaction, and hence great happiness, clearly can be derived from believing that your life has some deeper purpose or meaning, whatever that is.

The more straightforward distinction between pleasure and the absence of displeasure also has deep roots running back to ancient Greece. The philosopher Epicurus, among others, argued that avoiding pain and displeasure is a crucial element of happiness.⁴ The seventeenth-century poet John Dryden captured the thought in these lines: ‘For all the happiness mankind can gain / Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain’. Early Buddhist teachings express a similar view when they advocate the avoidance of suffering, and depict the ultimate state of nirvana as one in which all suffering has ended.

Modern research has confirmed that pleasure and displeasure are distinct states, not just opposite ends of the same spectrum. Perhaps surprisingly, the amount of pleasure we experience is found to be relatively independent of how much displeasure we experience, at least when measured over reasonably long periods of time. You can have a lot, or a little, of one or both in your life. A heroin addict might have a life packed with intense pleasure and intense displeasure, whereas a routine-bound suburban drone might have little of either. Given a magic wand, you would probably choose to have a generous serving of pleasure, with occasional homeopathic doses of displeasure to heighten the contrast.

Pleasure and displeasure even have different brain mechanisms. A chemical messenger substance called dopamine is released by the brain in response to food, sex, drugs and other pleasurable stimuli, and for this reason dopamine is sometimes referred to as the brain’s ‘pleasure chemical’.⁵ Pleasure also stimulates the release in the brain of natural opiate substances called encephalins and endorphins. An imbalance in a different chemical messenger, called serotonin, plays a central role in unpleasant states such as anxiety and depression. Prozac and certain other antidepressant drugs work by inhibiting the re-uptake of serotonin in the brain and thereby boosting its level.

Pleasure and displeasure can become more closely intertwined in people suffering from severe depression. As well as experiencing intense displeasure, some depressives lose the capacity to feel pleasure – a condition known as anhedonia. They become unable to enjoy experiences that would normally raise their mood, which is one reason why it can be extremely difficult for them to emerge out of their depression.

Even more crucial to an understanding of happiness is the distinction between pleasure/displeasure and satisfaction. Pleasure and displeasure differ from satisfaction in two fundamental ways. First, pleasure and displeasure reflect how you feel, whereas satisfaction reflects how you think about your life.⁶ Satisfaction can come from achieving long-term goals, and it extends the concept of happiness to include the fulfilment of mental as well as physical appetites. ‘No man is happy’, wrote the Roman philosopher Marcus Aurelius, ‘who does not think himself so.’

The second big difference between pleasure/displeasure and satisfaction concerns time frames. Pleasure and displeasure are rooted in the present: they are about how you feel now. Satisfaction is rooted in the past, as you look back on your life. A Greek scholar called Solon, who lived around 600 BC, expressed this retrospective aspect of satisfaction in a strong (if not wildly overstated) form when he wrote that no man could be described as happy until he was dead. The distinction between pleasure/displeasure and satisfaction means you can be happy without having to be one of those smiley people who appear to be permanently bubbling over with bliss. Some of us are just not very jolly most of the time, but that does not necessarily mean we are unhappy. Happiness comes in many forms, not all of which are built on immediate delight.

Happiness, then, depends both on feeling (pleasure and displeasure) and thinking (satisfaction); it involves both the heart and the head. This has important practical implications. It means, for example, that you can be satisfied, and therefore happy, without necessarily experiencing much immediate pleasure. We all have to put up with occasional bouts of displeasure in order to achieve satisfaction, because most satisfying activities involve effort and some entail outright pain. Most of us would feel satisfied (and therefore happy) about, say, comforting a crying baby or a sick relative, even though the experience might not be particularly pleasant at the time. Our happiness would derive from a deeper sense of satisfaction at having done something good. Similarly, I am told that training hard for a competitive sport can be highly satisfying despite at times being painful.

The eminent American scientist Martin Seligman, who is one of the founders of positive psychology, has neatly encapsulated the three elements of happiness into what he calls the Pleasant Life and the Good Life. As its name implies, the Pleasant Life is one built primarily on pleasure and the absence of displeasure. This is the materialistic vision of hedonism, fuelled by lashings of raunchy sex, prolific shopping, exquisite food, recreational drugs, designer clothes, or whatever presses your button.⁷ The underlying attitude is characterised by an overriding concern for the self, a drive for immediate gratification of physical needs, and a belief that material possessions produce happiness. The outward sign of someone living the Pleasant Life is a big smile.

In contrast, Seligman’s Good Life is one built mainly upon satisfaction. Someone living the Good Life derives much of their happiness from engaging in worthwhile activities like work, parenting or study, and attaining goals that mean something to them. They may not always be grinning with joy, because they sometimes do things that are difficult or unpleasant, but they nonetheless feel good about the life they are living.⁸ If all is going really well, you could have a life that is both Pleasant and Good. A Good Life rich in satisfaction may also be a Pleasant Life. Someone who has a loving partner, close friends, an interesting job and a stimulating social life may have experiences that are both satisfying and pleasurable. There is no rule against having both.