Edition #101: Recalibrating Happiness

Plus, we might be living in a simulation, the irresistible allure of snacking cakes, and things I'm actually aging like.

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A Note From the Editor

Picture this: It is the dead of winter in New York. The snowfall, when it finally comes, blankets the city in a thick, fluffy layer of whimsy. Children are sledding, huskies are living out their primal dreams. But the snow only lasts a day and then it melts. Everything is soupy and filthy and wet. It is so cold and you aren’t going anywhere anytime soon because you have to save money, at least for now. You’re mostly confined to your small apartment and groceries have gotten exorbitantly expensive and there are some days, many days, you spend entirely alone. When you see a friend for dinner and she hugs you, your body wilts at the sensation of the embrace—it feels like you haven’t been held by someone who loves you in a long time. The other day, a kitten-sized rat scurried in your path and you didn’t even flinch. The pair of pigeons that land outside your kitchen window have become like old friends, you look forward to their daily visit. Despite all this, when you email an old coworker to touch base and they ask you how you’re doing, you reply, honestly, “I’m so much happier than I was.”

Being happy in such a drab, dreary state might sound impossible, but I meant it. I did feel happier, and I do. Happy, by formal definition, is an adjective with two basic meanings: 1. feeling or showing pleasure or contentment and 2. fortunate and convenient. It is a linguistically simple term, and yet it has become so incredibly complicated. For all of our differences, the one thing we seem to agree on is that happiness is the ultimate pursuit. When asked what we want most in life, “to be happy” will likely show up somewhere in the answer. But happiness is wholly subjective and difficult to articulate. Though it means something different to everyone, happiness is treated as a fixed universal destination of which we are to aspire to land. It is packaged and marketed and held just out of reach so that we are always grabbing for it with slippery fingers, without knowing exactly what we are trying to hold.

When someone asked me at the end of 2020 what happiness meant to me, I’m not sure I had ever considered the question—which feels absurd, seeing as I’ve been conditioned to strive for happiness my whole life. Until that point, happiness was an elusive, glowing orb. The idea of it felt warm and better than whatever I was experiencing, but I wasn’t quite sure what that feeling actually was. The question was posed while I was crawling through the muds of a mild depression. One good thing, probably the only good thing, about experiencing depression is that you have a much greater appreciation for what it feels like to not be depressed, similar to the way you can’t appreciate your health until you spend a few days in bed with a fever. From this downtrodden state, I defined happiness as lightness or a lack of mental weight. If I could wake up in the morning without commotion in my mind and bees in my stomach, that is what happiness would feel like. A baseline level of neutrality.

I’ve learned that to maintain or enhance this state, I must stay centered. I do this by slowing way, way down. From this point of neutrality, I'm able to taste every flavor of the day on my tongue—the joy of seeing a child waddle-walk through the park looking like a small human marshmallow, the melancholy of seeing a homeless man sleeping on the subway to stay warm. I experience it all, and sometimes the "bad'' feelings outweigh the good, but it doesn't matter so much to me because I recognize that life needs to have both. Happiness, then, is being able to live and process what is happening around me and to me without those happenings derailing me, without letting those feelings slip into my bloodstream, convincing me they are the essence of who I am. It need not be a constant state of bursting joy, and this truth relieves pressure. I feel lighter now, knowing I am generally happy even on the days when I cry and feel empty or pissed off or lonely.

America is said to be at record low levels of happiness. Aside from the glaringly obvious reasons—lack of security, political volatility, gross inequality—there seem to be a few subtleties bubbling below the surface. For one, happiness is a stalwart of capitalism. Think about the multi-billion dollar wellness industry, intended to boost our happiness, and the equally massive liquor industry, intended to numb our unhappiness. Whether we recognize it or not, half of our mindless purchases are made in hopes that whatever we’re buying will bring us one step closer to happiness. I’ll be happier with better clothes, when I look prettier, when I am thinner, etc. Because happiness is such a massive economic driver, there isn’t much happening in the mainstream discourse to encourage individuals to define their own happiness in a meaningful way. Instead, happiness is leveraged to manipulate people, customers, leaving us in a perpetual state of wanting.

A Google search of “how to be happy” yields 4.7 billion results, whereas “what is happiness” garners less than half as many answers. Looking for shortcuts to happiness is like feeling sick and taking a bunch of different medicine without first going to the doctor to get a diagnosis, and this approach is reflective of the way we go about life in a capitalist state: Medication instead of excavation. The former is easier, albeit emptier, while the ladder requires a degree of stillness and deep reflection. It is useful to periodically remember that the current order of things relies on us being ceaselessly distracted and fast-moving, so fast we do not have time to define our own values or our own happiness. Unhappy people tend to spend more money, after all.

Every year, Gallup surveys people from all over the world to gather data for their annual World Happiness Report. America has never cracked the top ten, whereas Nordic countries like Denmark and Finland always end up in spot number one. These annual polls do not result in Americans studying the cultural norms and philosophy of the Nordic people, but instead, they result in us buying warm socks and more candles in an attempt to simulate Danish hygge. If this isn’t a clear indication of the errors in our approach, I don’t know what is.

Maybe instead of seeking happiness hacks, we should work to understand what happiness means to us. There is liberation in creating your own definition, in staking your claim outside of the commercialized framework of what we are told is supposed to make us happy. Doing so has caused a radical shift in my life and my school of thought, and despite the cold and the rats and the stillness, for now, I am happy. 

Cheers, my dears, and as always, thanks for reading. If you enjoyed today’s edition, please consider becoming a paid subscriber, and/or sharing this newsletter with someone you love.

How do you define happiness, or do you? I’d love to hear your take.

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Three Pieces of Content Worth Consuming

1. We Might Be in a Stimulation. How Much Should That Worry Us? In the past two weeks, I've seen numerous headlines, about the Metaverse, the rise of AR, and the whole gambit. I also recently watched The Matrix for the first time, so this headline felt impossible to ignore. A jarring, albeit not so surprising piece about reality—what it is, how reliable it is or isn’t, and what it might become. One point I found profound: Our physical and digital worlds are so intertwined at present that they have already begun to create a dissonance between what people consider reality based on what ideological corner of the internet they congregate in. The author argues that the rise of AR and VR will only heighten this disconnect, perhaps to the point where our “real world” won’t be considered real to some.

2. The Irresistible Allure of Snacking Cakes. It's difficult to express how much joy this article brought me, and how wholeheartedly I agree with its sentiment. When I was in France last year, I ate a pastry every morning. I never felt guilty about it because it became a sanctioned part of my diet, and every day it brought me genuine pleasure. Plus, I love baking, so framing the baking and consumption of cake as a snack is an A-plus idea in my book. I will most definitely be baking my way through this cookbook, starting with the strawberry-glazed passion fruit cake.

3. The Thing Is (A Poem). A beautiful poem on grief, fighting through life, and how we manage to get through it. The final line brought me to my knees. And if you want to read more poetry, consider signing up for the Poem of the Day newsletter.

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Perhaps You Should… Watch Attica

For all the years of required history classes in America’s public education system, I am constantly in awe of how much I don’t know. I had never heard of the Attica Prison riot until watching this documentary last week, and I am genuinely baffled by the fact that this is not taught in our school systems. An illuminating, and horrifying moment in America’s history and an important commentary on the inhumane treatment of prisoners, the deep-rooted racism that has run rampant in the White House long before the days of Trump, and the lengths those in power will go to conceal the truth. A must-watch.

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**Bonus Content** (Things I’m Actually Aging Like)

Felt too seen by this one.

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A Quote From A Book You Should Read:

“I'm not sure what we're running from. Nobody. Or the future. Fate. Growing up. Getting old. Picking up the pieces. As if running we won't have to get on with our lives.”

-Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk

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This newsletter is best served with a side of conversation, so drop your opinions, reflections, and thoughts in the comments below and let’s get to talking.

Or, share the most thought-provoking piece from today’s edition with someone you love, then call them up to discuss, debate, and percolate. As a wise woman once said, “Great minds discuss ideas.