Once upon a time (over 20 years ago), my wife and I went to Peru to see Machu Picchu and other sites within Peru. It is a beautiful country, full of many wonderful and friendly people. As part of our tour, we did quite a lot of walking and were often walking at greater than a mile altitude. One trip was to an elementary school high in the mountains. My wife, a schoolteacher, had brought our weight limit’s worth of supplies. Notebooks, crayons, and so forth. The school was basically just rooms with desks and decorated walls. I suspect that it was quite cold in the winter. But the teacher and children were glad to see us and our supplies. We did not intrude long upon their class time.
In order to get to the school, we had to walk along trails leading from mountain peak to mountain peak. Not difficult walks but certainly longer than most US suburban dwellers are used to. We had one 82-year-old woman from Maryland with us. We could barely keep up with her. At any rate, during our treks, we would occasionally walk by a private house, One such had a number of articles in the yard that we were mistaken in thinking that they were trash. A plastic milk jug, some sheets of plastic, some broken dolls. No, these were treasured play things. They were very happy to have them and likely had as much enjoyment from them as my children had from video games in their youth. (I am certain there are children in Peru, in the cities, who are glued to videogames just as my children are.)
It was a wonderful trip in many ways but what I most brought back was a love and respect for the wonderful people. From what we were used to, they had so little but from a more important basis, they had health, they had each other, and they had happiness in what they had.
One note in somewhat of an explanatory disclaimer. The people in this small house in the mountains, as well as the children in the school, did have access to community supplied healthcare as did others. This was certainly a factor in the reduction of their stress in “having enough”.
There exists a list (we seem to love lists, don’t we?) called “The World Happiness Report”. This report ranks the average happiness of citizens of different countries in the world (the Scandinavian countries seem to always do well). It says that the main three of its six criteria are income, social support, and freedom. Well, I certainly won’t try to disagree with them but we should recognize that they are trying to come up with a quantitative number. In order to do such, they have to have criteria that they can evaluate into a ranking number. In my opinion (and other opinions can have equal validity) the basis of happiness can be reduced to security and community. Another way of naming them would be the physical and spiritual sides of happiness.
Security as a basis of happiness
I use the two words, security and community, to simplify the definition of a basis for happiness. Note that there may be (completely reasonable and valid) reasons why a person might have these in their life and still not be happy.
What do you think of when you think of security? I think of lack of fear. To be not afraid of not having food to eat. To be not afraid that someone will snatch me, or a member of my family, off the street or break down my door in the middle of the night. To be not afraid that, if I get really sick, I will lose all my savings and become homeless.
Currently, in the US, any one of these may happen to someone and, for some people, perhaps more than one.
Community as a basis of happiness
What is community? For me, community requires at least two humans interacting with one another. A certain degree of community can come out of taking care of, and being taken care of by, a pet. That may be sufficient for some people but most need the ability to share with, and be reflected by, at least one other person.
Of course, communities may be positive, constructive, beneficial groups of people or those communities may be negative, destructive, and malicious. Some groups may be supportive within the group but highly negative with those outside of their group. I don’t think I am qualified to say whether happiness can occur within such a group. Happiness at the expense of the happiness of others? The thought makes me sad.
Does money come into the formula for happiness?
It all depends on the societal makeup. For most, satisfying the physical security requires some money. The money is a method of arranging for the true needs. In my opinion, the “safety net” of Scandinavian countries allows much physical security without explicit exchanges of money. Naturally, money as a resource is still needed but actual transfer has less importance.
But a strange thing has happened within much of the “modern” society and that is the concept of “needing” more than is necessary for physical security. Perhaps this occurs, in part, due to the generally stressful situation of a society in constant change. It can lead to a malaise, or even disease, where this desire for more, more, more prevents any capability of obtaining the spiritual/community portion of happiness. Too much creates fear of having less. Too much can start to denigrate the physical and community needs of others. Too much actually DECREASES happiness.
All in all, happiness requires balance
Physical security and spiritual community work together to give a balanced life and sense of happiness, not matter what words are used to describe it. As usual, this newsletter is not meant to give any “final answers” but a basis for discussion and investigation.
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