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.