The Conquest of Happiness by Bertrand Russell
Sounds weird to read about happiness in the middle of such a dramatic summer, but then, we all need a distraction sometimes. Reading is my way to better cope with the situation and with internal emotion.
In The Conquest of Happiness, Bertrand Russell spends more time in discussing the causes of unhappiness, rather than the causes of happiness. He acknowledges that some of the many causes of unhappiness depend upon external circumstances, the social and political system, for example, which creates the conditions for war, economic exploitation, and unequal access to high-quality education, among other things. There are few things that we can do about these, therefore mainly focus on the causes of unhappiness that are the result of one’s own psychology. Some people are born with certain advantages; and yet we all, potentially, have the possibility of attaining happiness.
With all the things that happen, the release of the IPCC report, along with the subsequent wall-to-wall media coverage, it’s hard not to despair and become at least somewhat more cynical. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing; becoming more cynical means that you stop accepting things on face value and start approaching things with more skepticism.
In a way, reading The Conquest of Happiness made me feel more confident about myself and more optimist about the world. It’s a deeply human and compassionate book. Happiness, writes Russell, “is an achievement, rather than a gift of the gods, and in this achievement effort, both inward and outward, must play a great part.” Life is a series of detached incidents without directed movement and without unity. Consistent purpose is not enough to make life happy, but “it is an almost indispensable condition of a happy life.”
Conclusion: The happy person is someone who has affections, wide interests, pursues life with zest, is free from suffering, is a citizen of the universe, and doesn’t give a damn either about what others think.