The Essence Of Happiness

This blog has nothing to do with the course. No one will probably read this. Call me a nerd, writing a blog entry at 5:51 a.m, on one of the last days of summer vacations. But i can't go to sleep and I need to figure this out.

One of the books we had for summer reading was Fahrenheit 451 (great book by the way). It was full of meaning, full of amazing topics to write about. This time I'm going to focus on happiness, something we're always looking for.

I once read a quote that said- "you can't have a rainbow without some rain." This is the lesson the protagonist, Guy Montag learns throughout the book. His mind changes drastically thanks to Clarisse, a young different girl, a breath of fresh air. Before he met her, he didn't live. It's as if his mind was put to sleep. "people talked too much, and had no time to think" p.63. I'm honestly scared becuase this doesn't only occur in the book. It happens often. It's easy fall into the tendency of fashion and style.

Montag finds his way to happiness. Clarisse is happy already. Her happiness lies on the details of life. Many people forget to see the little things. They see the big picture and miss the essence. Clarisse mentions everything is abstract. No wonder people forget to look at details. This is what happened to Montag and what happens to most of us. We're so busy living life, we actually forget how to live it. We live in an abstract world.

Ironic, because most of the books i've read lately, most of the questions in my mind are about the why's not the how's. When it comes to happiness, its the opposite.

Why be happy? An odd, stupid question...

How to be happy? Thats what many wonder.

I can't say I'm happy right now, but i guess i've known happiness. I came up with some sort of list of the essentials of happiness, everything based on the book.

The first is individuality, uniqueness, originality, however you want to call it. The book states "nobody's different from anybody else" p. 31. Happiness is excitement. You can't be excited about people who are all the same. Different is exciting.

The second thing I believe is important is love. On page 22, Clarisse asks Montag if he is in love. She does it by putting a dandelion on his lower chin. She tells him that if his chin turns yellow it means he's in love. The color on his chin remains the same, but Clarisses' does turn yellow. Later, Montag asks his wife how they met, and neither of them can remember. Mildred (his wife) doesn't seem to care, but living with a person you don't remember how you met does disturb Montag.

The last and most essential of all, is pain, anger, whatever you think is the opposite of happiness. In the book, we learn that when a character felt angry, he took his beetle, and drove as fast as he could, killing animals, being carefree, forgetting about the anger. We see a change in Montag when Mildred advices he go out on the beetle and let his anger out. Instead, he responds- "i want to hold on to this funny thing". He also realizes he lacks something. "We have everything to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing" p. 82 As I said before, you need rain for a rainbow; you need sadness/anger/pain for happiness to occur.

All of this leads me to the first thing on my list, being different. Happiness is not only about being a different person, but also about having different feelings. When you can compare something terrible to something amazing, you can feel happiness.

The books represent this different feeling. There is fear instilled in the people when it comes to books. The reason why the system doesn't want people to read books, is that they don't want them to care. After reading some books, Montag questions himself- "is it because we're having too much fun at home, we've forgotten the world?" p. 73. I ask myself the same question. The problems we have in our world are too painful to turn into something happy. There are two options. Either trying to solve them (apparently, no one knows how), or ignore them, which is the road the people of Fahrenheit 451 took and the road we're taking.

It's a shame because its like a spanish refrain says- "tapar el sol con un dedo". Like hiding pain, instead of converting it into genuine happiness.

The Lack Of Forgiveness

We have all experienced disappointment. Sometimes people do things that hurt us, and we aren’t able to forgive them. When someone can’t forgive, revenge starts accumulating. You can have revenge many ways. Sometimes people take revenge in their hands and actually make a whole big plan to have revenge. This is very common in movies, it has become very cliché. Other times people leave revenge in faith’s hands, just as Hoskuld and Hrut did in Njal’s Saga. When Gunnar reclaims the money from the two brothers, Hoskuld says “bad things will only be your reward for this” (pag.42). Gunnar doesn’t seem worried and says “things will go as they must.” “It will be avenged against him, but the vengeance and the credit, for it will not be ours. It’s likely in fact, the he will return for our friendship.” (page. 43)
Its funny because in a way, Unn received her vengeance. Her land was taken from the brothers and now it was taken from them. So what the book is showing us is that vengeance is a cycle, a cycle created because we aren’t able to forgive and forget.

A Change, For A Change

Women’s role in Njal’s Saga surprised me. I am use to reading about well educated and respectful women, women who aren’t able to express their opinion and who are seen as inferior. On the contrary, women in this text are seen as strong human beings, just like men. One of the strongest of theses is Njal’s wife. One of the first times wee see her strict and strong attitude is in passage 36, when Atli comes looking for work and she decides to hire him. The reason why she hired him also surprised me. “I’ll give you a chance, provided you do whatever I ask you to- even if I send you to kill someone.” (page. 61) she assumes a somewhat violent role, while Njal even though has violent advice, does not assume a violent role.
The same violence is seen in Gunnar's wife, who kills Njal's servants and isn’t stopped by her husband. Both wives have control over their husbands. Even though Gunnar, and specially Njal may not always agree with what they do, they don’t question their power. Njal feels Gunnars wife will bring misery, and is worried about the arrangement while Gunnar is pretty confident nothing will change. “You will always make amends for her” (pag.54) Njal assures to Gunnar.
Women’s role in history changes with the culture. The background of this text made the women strong and fierce, just as the background of Shakespeare’s texts made women quiet and inferior. I see some of the traits of women in Njal’s saga in Colombian women. Iceland was a very violent place and women were either outspoken or stepped on. The same happens in Colombia. Most women have to assume the “ruler role” in which they have to make the big family decisions. They too have to either be outspoken or stepped upon.

The Tao Of Love

Let’s start from the beginning. Chapter one of the Tao Te Ching says
“Ever desire less, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.”
After reading the whole text, we can deduce that the Tao Te Ching doesn’t want to teach us anything, it only wants us to be true to ourselves, it works as a path to finding our own truth. When you want to learn, you focus too much on that specific thing. You are so focused on wanting to find the mystery, that you don’t see it. The same happens in love. (I’m talking about the type of passionate love you feel towards another human being.) Sometimes you’re so desperately in love with someone that you don’t see anyone else. You’re stuck in that love, trying to find your way out of it and you forget to look at other people, other possible loves. There’s a popular quotation that says ¨everything is blind to the eyes of love¨. So, basically, if you want to see the mystery, you’re blind. If you’re in love, you’re also blind. The way out of both of these is to not focus on learning, and not focus on loving but to focus simply on not focusing, just letting things happen.
I believe the most important thing you have to keep in mind when you’re in any kind of relationship is to have trust. When you enter a love relationship full of doubts, your partner will also start to lack trust. For example:
A woman is talking on the phone with her boyfriend.
Woman: Hi honey how was your day?
Man: hi, where are you?
Woman: In a restaurant.
Man: Why aren’t you in your house?
Woman: After work, some friends and I decided to go grab a bite, so I’ll be home late, I just wanted you to know just in case you went by my house.
Man: hmmm… with your friends? There’s something that doesn’t fit in.
The woman will sense the lack of trust and the next time, she’ll decide not to tell him where she’s going. After all,
¨He who does not trust enoughwill not be trusted.¨ (chap 23)
It may be hard to trust someone after you have been hurt. One thing I’ve learned is that making love the ONLY thing in your life is a big mistake. Love, especially at this age comes and goes. Breaking up is tough, but it’s even tougher when that your life was based on that relationship. You have to remember there are other things in life and that eventually, you’ll be able to move on.
¨High winds do not last all morning.Heavy rain does not last all day.¨ (chap. 23)
It’s not the last love, you will eventually snap out of it, just like the sun will eventually come out, a new love will eventually appear.
Even though Chapter forty-four is talking about not attaching to material things, it also fit in with love. It says,
¨He who is attached to things will suffer much.¨
In the love perspective, it would be:
¨He who is attached to one love only will suffer much.¨
As I said before, when you make love your number one priority, after it ends, you don’t have anything to rely on, therefore you keep thinking about love and make yourself more miserable.
People say that ¨everything is fair in love and war.¨
The Tao says:
¨A brave and passionate man will kill or be killed.
A brave and calm man will always preserve life.¨ (chap. 73)
When you start to manipulate a love situation, you are taking the risk of killing or being killed. Either way you are basically lying to yourself. If you want to be in a love relationship, it should be an honest one. Why on earth would you want to lie to the person you love? I think people manipulate situations when they’re scared. If you think that in order for a relationship to work you have to manipulate it, then maybe it’s not worth living. Just like chapter ten says,
¨Bearing, yet not possessing¨
Loving someone doesn’t mean taking complete control over his/her life. That would be too greedy. You should give the person you love some space to live and enjoy his/her life, trust him to be truthful and have your own life to live and enjoy.
Even though people say love doesn’t have limits, I think it does. In chapter forty-four it says:
¨ He who knows when to stop, does not find himself in trouble.¨
Love is a process. You can’t expect twelve year olds doing the same things twenty year olds are doing. Love has to be according to age and mature ness. You have to follow the process keeping in mind that what you will do can affect the rest of your life. I think the relationships that don’t work are because the two people in the relationship have different priorities. When you are with someone you should make sure both of you feel the same, both of you want the same and both of you accept the other just the way he/she is.
The Tao Te Ching talks about many aspects of life. It doesn’t teach. It opens the door to the lesson that has always been within us. Just like the Tao, the answer to love will always been inside us. From here derives the saying ¨follow your heart¨. Being true to yourself and following your instinct is the key to living. Love doesn’t have a specific meaning, it leaves a great space for interpretation, just like the Tao. Yet, both are two of the most controversial mysteries that man has ever known.

The Tao Of Go

The game of Go is made up of logic and wisdom. Not like every, game, in Go you can't attack your opponent directly because that will get you in a bad situation in which your opponent will kill you. Just like in the Tao Te Ching, in order to say the waty around, you have to move by the sides. There are many moves which have meanings like "Ko" which means eternal. The game can be applied into our lives, its a kind of methaphor.

Leaders Lead, Humans Dominate (Why Are We Here)

I think what the Tao Te Ching is trying to teach us can be summarized in chapter twenty-three. It says:
“He who follows the Tao
Is one with the Tao.
He who is virtuous
Experiences virtue.
He who loses the way
Is lost.” (p. 25)

These three things, about being one with the Tao, having virtue as a value and following the “way” are all in the introduction. Basically, as I said before, the Tao Te Ching derives from these three things. They come up other times, for example, in Chapter Twenty-One, Virtue and Tao appear again. “The greatest Virtue is to follow Tao and Tao alone.” (p. 23) notice that Virtue is written with a capital “V” therefore, it is seen as a pronoun.
In conclusion, the message that is trying to be sent is that we should start to work WITH earth instead of AGAINST it. (When I say earth I refer to all living things apart from human beings.) We have confused the amount of power we think we have, as said in chapter 10, “Leading yet not dominating, this is the Primal Virtue” a value, we lack and desperately need.

So, why are we here?
To lead, not dominate.

We Use (Where Are We Going)

The first time I heard about the Tao Te Ching was in the drama show we did last year. In one of my scenes I said: “The Tao Te Ching says that in order to move one kilometer you have to give the first step…” I didn’t pay too much attention to the line. I was just worried about memorizing it. When we got the book I remembered about the play and went back to the line. I imagined the book would have similar lessons to the ones in Confucius, I actually found out they both have a very big lesson behind them, a lesson from which other lessons derive. They both talk a lot about virtue. “Te” actually means virtue, but not the meaning of virtue we’re accustomed to. “Te refers to nothing less than the quality of human action that allows the central, creative power of the universe to manifest through it.” (p.10 of introduction) What is so great about the Tao Te Ching is that its intention is to make the reader “live a direct relationship to all these forces” (forces refer to the cosmos forces.) At first I couldn’t understand what this meant. I had heard about this in movies like The Secret and What The Bleep Do We Know but not until I read “Tao Te Ching” did I understand what it meant. Living in “direct relationship” with the cosmos forces simply means to live WITH Earth instead of living IN it. We are using Earth, that’s what takers do. Everything that you use will be over, its like in chapter 3 were it says “If nothing is done, all will be well.” If we didn’t see Earth as material and instead saw it as a living thing, it would remain “un-mortal, un-born” just as described in chapter 7.
The “Tao Te Ching” is like a maze. Each chapter is a key which opens a new door to the Tao, the way. It starts out warning the reader. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” p.3 The first thing you wonder is what is “the Tao”? It is necessary to read the introduction before starting the book. Here it states that the “Tao” can’t be translated but it’s meaning is “way or path” referring to how humans are in relation to other living things. The path refers to the guidance we need. Coming back to the Tao not being the “eternal Tao”, the path won’t always be the same, the relationship between human beings and other living things is constantly changing. I think it’s actually a cycle. It like what Carlos Fuentes talked about in his story “Quien Invento La Polvora”, we started out learning how to make fire. Then we “evolved” and made all sorts of inventions. This evolution is starting to make everything go backwards and we’ll end up either where we started or no where at all.

Where are we going?
If, our ambition continues, back to the beginning