I have tried to capture the formula for happiness in what was previously known as my Happiness Keys Document. (Now it is encapsulated in a compendium with the working title: Raederle’s Pocketbook of Self-Directed Wisdom.) This formulaic approach has aided me many times, but it fails to capture the subjective stream-of-consciousness that makes me feel like “myself” – which is, in my own estimation, a happy (or content) version of myself.
For example, just last night I was revisited by the realization of why reading a particular type of nonfiction feels beneficial and regulating to my wellbeing. Reading the heartfelt perspectives of highly intelligent individuals – who had something they burned to share – helps ground me in a will to live through my experience of relation, inspiration, and curiosity. It lends purpose to my life – not through that which I create – but through giving life itself purpose. Works of nonfiction – or philosophy loosely draped in fiction – remind me that there is a “great truth task” (as Dr. Bronner soap bottles tell us), and I am part of that task just by sensing, dreaming, and articulating.
This insight into the value of a certain kind of nonfiction was preceded by the insight that reading itself – even of fiction – helps order my mind through the parade of syntax, narrative, and reason. The simple fact that another being possesses the ability to create a linear stream of words which will carry me through a non-linear stream of symbols is deeply heartening. Their ability to render art in the form of story and concept is so beautiful to behold that it fills my heart with its own yearning to be, whilst simultaneously filling my mind with a desire to understand. My whole being is filled up with a need to create in response to the creations of others.
Perhaps for someone like myself, who requires the dual nourishment of symbology and beauty, my interpretive creations which are made in response to the creations of others, is the true conversation which I most dearly wish to engage in. This appears, for example, in my desire to lead workshops. The workshop itself is something I devise in response to the creations of luminaries who have inspired me, and the participants in the workshop are invited to reply with their own creations. Yet these “conversations” – the game of tag we can play with our creations – have hitherto left me unsatisfied. Creation is an outpouring, and I crave an equitable replenishment from liberated beings, yet I’m surrounded by those held in the shackles of institutionalized thought. The few who have not been shackled are weighed down by the seemingly insurmountable fatigue of constantly being rebuked and condemned by tamed perceptions and judgments.
Returning to the earlier subject: the simple truth of my wishing to formulate my happiness points to a, perhaps troubling, truth about my beliefs: I feel it is superior to be happy. Furthermore, I identify with my happy (or at least content) self in a way that I do not with my unhappy self. My other subjective experiences resent this, and hate having this value (of happiness being superior) thrust at me in any way – particularly if I am unhappy at the time.
Statements which assume happiness is superior include, “When you’re feeling more like yourself,” and, “Happiness is a choice,” and, “When you come around,” and “Things will be more clear by the light of day.” Our culture assumes we will be more sober and sound when we are free from unhappy feelings. Yet I disavow myself of this assumption! The greatest thoughts are not wholly conceived from frameworks of opioid optimism, nor from pits of pessimism. Great wisdom comes from interweaving the cumulative lessons of grief, fear, joy, and satisfaction.
I’m not leading myself down the rabbit-hole which my Dzogchen-minded friend took me on some months ago: that technically, there is nothing objectively superior about health, and that I’ve simply chosen to enshrine it. After having rejected the path his insight led me down, I said to him, “I need a guiding star.” His insight had served as an intellectual distraction, yet what I had truly wanted was helpful guidance.
Even though it is not my aim to wander back down the path of questioning “rightness” along lines of total objectivity, it is useful to note that I’ve enshrined happiness in the same way that I’ve enshrined health – to the point of conflating them with one another. Just because they share a pedestal doesn’t mean they are necessarily related, yet, I believe them to be. And as my journaling revealed to me yesterday, I must second-guess myself far less often. I wish to be as decisive as I was at twenty-nine, if not as I was at nineteen, and that requires a great-deal of self-trust.
Self-trust may be one of the more ephemeral core elements of my formula for happiness. While reading aids me in creating the subjective internal experience I crave, it isn’t the reading in and of itself which I need. It is the camaraderie with another creative, inquisitive being that gives me a greater sense of confidence and self-trust. Those are some of the actual experiences which I need.
Yet when I’m not experiencing confidence and self-trust, it is too easy to fall into a paradox: how can I trust my own notions of these abstract concepts when I’m experiencing a lack of trust in my own perceptions? This is why one’s ego fights so desperately to defend its own perspective: self doubt can lead to a literal sort of insanity, where no thought or feeling can be trusted. And perhaps this is why genius intellect is rare: only the individuals who can somehow question everything and doubt all conclusions – without doubting their own core perceiving self – can actually achieve nuanced understandings. And of those who can achieve the understandings themselves, only those who can question and doubt endlessly without doubting their ability to communicate can actually go forward and teach the subtle differentiations.
Once again returning to the initial topic: I’m unsure how to capture a subjective state of being in a formula. I could, perhaps, write a hypnotic script for entering a certain state of consciousness, but that prickles my conscience. Forcing myself out of one state into another reeks of heavy-handed control and force. Is it not violent to unilaterally decide that some particular state I’m in is inferior, and thus I should immediately and utterly convert myself to some superior state? Isn’t that the reason why we now possess the coined phrase “toxic positivity?”
It seems wrong to force the change upon myself, like an overbearing parent blathering about “knowing what’s best,” yet it also is the case that I often want out of whatever mental labyrinth in which I feel trapped. Whenever I feel the need to be “rescued” or “helped” is exactly when my “happiness formula” becomes relevant. Thus, there does seem to be a consensus of my inner counsel in the value of possessing an effective mood-shifting formula.
In fact, this goes back to the two penultimate goals which I’ve enshrined: health and happiness. These are logical things to revere above all else because all else which I value emerges from them.
For example, I value honesty and transparency. If I am not a healthy, happy person, I may not be able to “afford” the rigors of being transparent. It requires a great deal more energy to be authentic without being an ass than it does to simply obscure the truth with polite “white lies.”
To say that I am “allergic” to something simplifies a conversation, but it also eliminates the beautiful potentials created by true transparency: an enlightening conversation. The “innocent” lie of convenience becomes a wall between me and the other person, preventing true connection or mutual edification. Perhaps this person I’ve announced an “allergy” to has a complex relationship with their health too – or at least has a close friend who does – and has something useful to tell me; I would never discover what they know because I have planted myself in a field of convenience where little enlightenment ever blossoms.
My conclusion is that I’ve enshrined health and happiness rightfully. So it follows that every tool which substantially aids me in the endless process of pursuing H and H is worth possessing. So now I may also conclude that a formula for happiness – and for health – is a worthy goal of paramount importance.
Having established the “goodness” or “right-headedness” of working on perfecting a happiness formula, I can continue to contemplate how to create pathways to happiness which are more effective than the formula I have assembled over the years.
It seems safe to say that a concrete bulleted list denoting the keys to my happiness is rather limited in its effectiveness. It can point to literal gaps in my most effective self-regulation strategies (such as failure to read engaging books), but it doesn’t serve as a hypnotic induction for changing my state of consciousness. Yet, ironically, the reading of said engaging books actually does serve as said hypnotic induction.
The hypnotic induction is important, but it is the new state of being which is the goal. As my own formula states, one of the keys to my happiness is “having fulfilling time spent in a wide variety of my fragments” including “vulnerable, creative, guru, student, sexual, driven, spiritual, and playful.” In other words, part of what makes me happy is the visitation to many different subjective states. Each subjective state can feel like becoming a different persona possessing different values and goals, but as different as each state may feel, they are all parts of myself, and to “feel whole” requires visiting each state. Hence why my accumulated wisdom on my own personal happiness states I should have fulfilling time in a wide variety of my subjective states over the course of any given week.
Merely existing in one or two states over the course of five to seven days makes me quite miserable – which is why I find it anathema to commit to the intense specialization required to make a profitable career in modern times. Being a whole, happy, healthy person is directly at odds with this degree of specialization – for me, at least. Thus, I can toss the idea that I should ever attempt to contort myself into the sort of reliability which most entrepreneurs expect of themselves; an agent or marketer could do that with my work, but I can not. In order to maintain my own healthy engagement in life – a will to participate in the “great truth task” – I must allow, and strongly encourage, a cascading plethora of internal states.
Instead of berating myself for the transition from being an energetic extroverted socialite last week, to being a subdued introspecting writer this week, I can applaud myself for courageously accepting the ever-shifting landscape of what it means to support my health and happiness. And in this self-applause I continue to rebuild the self-trust I misplaced last year.
Further Reflections
What I wrote earlier points directly to why I value inspiration so highly. Inspiration is when we are on the path of “the great truth task.” One could say it is the penultimate indication of health because it is when we are doing what we are meant to be doing. Inspiration points the way, creating a hierarchy of priorities in any given moment with deep accuracy. This is why I feel very directed and purposeful when I am inspired – and conversely quite lost and directionless when inspiration is blocked.
Inspiration becomes blocked when one feels disempowered. One has to believe one is capable of achieving one’s desires. Furthermore, one must have a desire. This is why I reject the idea that we should ever pursue the elimination of desires. To yearn for something seems to be the pinnacle of aliveness. Since I am using health and happiness as my guiding stars – and the will to live that these entail – desire is another lauded experience. This returns me to self-trust, because we must trust that our own desire is actually valid and useful, and that our attempts to bring about what we desire will be fruitful – which is another way of saying that we must experience a degree of empowerment in order to trust ourselves.
