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What
Should I Do?
Selfishness, Happiness And Benefiting Others
by
David Edwards and Media Lens
Dissident Voice
September
23, 2003
Magic Keys
With
the world awash with poverty, injustice, environmental crises, imposed
confusion and toxic propaganda, we at Media Lens nevertheless regularly receive
emails from people asking: “What should I do?”
It’s
an interesting question - one that we have ourselves asked many times in the
past - because it is often a kind of polite euphemism for other, rather more
bashful, questions, such as: ‘How can I find the motivation to sacrifice my own
free time, energy, money, and perhaps even career prospects, to take action and
get involved in some kind of dissident activity, without feeling it’s all a
futile drop in the ocean?’
Noam
Chomsky, in his usual no-nonsense manner, discussed the issue in conversation
with David Barsamian of Alternative Radio:
David Barsamian: “Often at the talks you
give, there is a question that’s always asked, and that is, ‘What should I do?’
This is what you hear in American audiences.”
Noam Chomsky: “You’re right, it’s
American audiences. You never hear it in the Third World.”
DB: “Why not?”
NC: “Because when you go to Turkey or
Colombia or Brazil or somewhere else, they don’t ask you, ‘What should I do?’
They tell you what they’re doing. It’s only in highly privileged cultures that
people ask, ‘What should I do?’ We have every option open to us. None of the
problems that are faced by intellectuals in Turkey or campesinos in Brazil or
anything like that. We can do anything. But what people here are trained to
believe is, we have to have something we can do that will be easy, that will
work very fast, and then we can go back to our ordinary lives. And it doesn’t
work that way.
“You want to do something, you’re going
to have to be dedicated, committed, at it day after day. You know exactly what
it is: it’s educational programs, it’s organizing, it’s activism. That’s the
way things change. You want something that’s going to be a magic key that will
enable you to go back to watching television tomorrow? It’s not there.”
(Chomsky, ‘Collateral Damage, an Interview with David Barsamian’, Z Magazine,
July/August, 2003)
In
Chomsky’s interview, as in so many progressive analyses, the discussion ends
there. The remedy, then, would appear to be for us to pull ourselves up by our
moral bootstraps: Be less selfish! Just do it!
But
the problem is precisely that our fingers tugging at our moral bootstraps are
enfeebled by the deep conviction that we have to do everything in our power to
make ourselves as happy as possible in the short time we are alive. This
seems particularly to be the case given that, at present, we are not doing a
very great job of it.
Ours,
after all, is a notoriously unhappy society. In 2001, the Observer reported
that despite the highest British income levels ever, researchers had found that
most people interviewed were profoundly unhappy: 55 per cent said they had felt
depressed in the previous year. (Ben Summerskill, ‘Retail therapy makes you
depressed’, The Observer, May 6, 2001) In 2002, it was reported that around
one-third of British people suffer from serious depression at any one time. A
25-year-old today is between three and ten times more likely to suffer a major
depression than one in 1950. It seems that young people with the highest living
standards since records began are deeply miserable during “the best years of
their lives”. Two-thirds of Britons aged between 15 and 35 feel depressed or
unhappy.
The
hamster-wheel repetition of our commute to work, the endless drudgery of our
jobs, the perpetual burden of marital and parental responsibilities, the
self-doubts, irretrievable losses, depressions, illnesses and frustration, all
mean that many of us feel we are doing all we can to keep our heads above
water, never mind helping anyone else. Even as we are asking “What should I
do?” we are lamenting with Shantideva from the 8th century: “Alas, our sorrows
fall in endless streams!”
How
can it be sensible or reasonable for us to give up our spare time, money or
energy to help others when our lives are already crowded with so much
difficulty?
If
there is to be a helpful response to the question: “What should I do?” it must
lie in a credible answer to another question: Is there a response that
satisfies both our need for happiness and the needs of the world around us?
We
believe that people devote themselves to a self-centred life in pursuit of
several perceived sources of happiness: pleasure, comfort, praise and status.
We will propose, here, however, that not only do these goals not deliver
happiness, but that they are themselves the direct cause of many of our
problems. This realisation can progressively lead to a response that is as
beneficial to us personally, as it is to the world around us. The answer to the
question of how best to look after “number one” is not at all what we might expect.
The
Pitfalls Of Personal Happiness How Pleasure Chews and Grinds
One
section of Aryadeva’s classic 3rd century work on philosophy, Four Hundred
Stanzas, is entitled, remarkably: “Abandoning Belief In Pleasure”.
Aryadeva
argued that the idea of positive pleasure free from suffering is an illusion
what we label ‘pleasurable’ is actually a moment of relief from one discomfort
before the arising of another discomfort has become noticeable. Aryadeva gave
an example as a template for understanding all ‘pleasurable’ experiences:
“When
the discomfort of carrying a load on the right shoulder for a long time becomes
intense and one moves it on to the left one, it is merely that a slight pain
which is beginning stops the intense pain already produced, not that there is
no discomfort at all. How can there be pleasure while a new and different pain
is beginning or while intense pain is stopping?” (Aryadeva and Gyel-tsap, Yogic
Deeds of Bodhisattvas, Snow Lion, 1994, p.93)
What
we experience as ‘pleasure’ in eating, drinking, sitting after standing, coming
in from the cold, winning money and applause, and so on, involves relief from
one discomfort as another begins (itself soon becoming uncomfortable). Although
we are merely caught between one decreasing and one increasing form of
suffering, we label the feeling ‘pleasurable’, and believe the label. Aryadeva
presents a vivid analogy:
“When
a rich man, vomiting into a gold pot, sees his servant vomit into a clay one,
though vomiting is equally unpleasant for both, he thinks how prosperous he is.
Like the rich man who feels delighted, one mistakes for real pleasure the
feeling of satisfaction when pain has been alleviated and becomes less acute;
but there is no real pleasure.” (p.92)
That
this is the case becomes clear when we continue the ‘pleasurable’ action, for
example of eating, which soon becomes uncomfortable: “With the intensification
of pleasure, its opposite is seen to occur.” (p.88)
Perhaps
this ‘pleasurable’ cycling between constantly diminishing and increasing
discomforts explains why, as the French philosopher Montaigne observed,
“Pleasure chews and grinds us." And as for a pleasurable activity
relentlessly pursued, Aryadeva paints a grim picture:
“It
is like King Asoka’s prison called ‘Pleasant Abode’ where one could first
choose one’s favourite form of behaviour, but since no other could then be
adopted, this eventually became painful.” (p.89)
And
it does indeed seem that when individuals fill their lives with all the
pleasures money can buy, they find themselves, oddly, no closer to happiness.
Researchers surveying Illinois state lottery winners and British pool winners
found that the initial happiness at winning eventually wore off and the winner
returned to their usual range of happiness. Likewise, a recent sample of 49
super-rich people found that 37% were less happy than the national average
(See: Howard Cutler and The Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness, Hodder
& Stoughton, 1998, p.10) In another study, there was no difference between
the happiness level of 22 lottery winners and comparison samples of average
people or paraplegics.
In
his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, psychiatrist Victor Frankl discussed this
remarkable relativity of happiness and suffering based on his experience as a
survivor of the Nazi death camps. Frankl explains how, after a train journey
under appalling conditions, he and his fellow prisoners expected to arrive at
Auschwitz to face imminent death. When they did arrive, however, they found
that they were in fact at a much smaller camp where they were not in imminent
danger of being killed. Disinterred from their train, the prisoners were forced
to endure a murderous all-night punishment parade in freezing conditions. The results were remarkable:
“All
through the night and late into the next morning, we had to stand outside,
frozen and soaked to the skin after the strain of our long journey. And yet we
were all very pleased! There was no chimney in this camp and Auschwitz was a
long way off.” (Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning, Pocket Books, 1985, pp.65-66)
Whether
rich or poor, no matter how comfortable or distressing our condition, we apply
the label ‘pleasure’ to an experience that involves a mere decrease in
suffering. No matter how much we try, ‘pleasure’ of this kind must involve
discomfort and its temporary reduction; it must grind us with its inherent
suffering. This is why Buddhist sages have argued that a life spent in pursuit
of pleasure is like sitting on a pin every move you makes leads to suffering.
The Search For Status Bogus
Celebrity
How
many writers, including dissident writers, are motivated by the desire ‘to be
someone’ to achieve praise, status and reputation, even fame? We at Media
Lens have received supportive emails from some of the writers we respect and
admire most, and also from many of our readers. What is so remarkable is the
capacity of the egotistical mind to quickly lose the initial sense of
satisfaction gained from this.
As
with other desires, the 'pleasure' experienced involves relief from an
uncomfortable situation - doubts and anxieties about our ability to do what we
are doing effectively, for example. But as these doubts are partially reduced,
positive comments - like food to a full stomach - rapidly lose their power to
give the original pleasure. This is not at all to say, by the way, that
supportive emails are irrelevant to us - they remain highly valued and
important to us, regardless of the titillation they may or may not give our
egos.
There
are other problems with the pursuit of praise and status. It is easy to reflect
on the fact that many writers, for example no matter how incompetent and
hateful their work receive positive comments from readers. Hitler, after all,
was adored by millions positive comments proved nothing at all about him, so
what do they prove about us? Shantideva writes:
“Why
should I be pleased when people praise me?
Others
there will be who scorn and criticise.
And
why despondent when I’m blamed,
Since
there’ll be others who think well of me?” (Shantideva, The Way of the
Bodhisattva, Shambhala, 1997, p.113)
Like
all desires, praise and fame seem to promise much, but the actual experience
surely comes fraught with unexpected dissatisfaction, disappointments and
difficulties.
The
comedian Charlie Chaplin said of his fame:
“I
wanted to enjoy it all without reservation, but I kept thinking the world had
gone crazy. If a few slapstick comedies could arouse such excitement, was there
not something bogus about all celebrity? I had always thought I would like the
public’s attention, and here it was paradoxically isolating me with a
depressing sense of loneliness.” (Quoted, David Giles, Illusions of
Immortality - A Psychology Of Fame And Celebrity, Macmillan Press, 2000,
p.91)
Who
would have guessed that achieving unprecedented success as a comedian would
leave someone like Chaplin, not delighted by his triumph, but in despair at the
superficiality of his fellow man? And who would believe that the adoration of
millions could result, not in endless delight, but in loneliness and
depression?
In
his book, Illusions of Immortality, David Giles describes some of the
adverse consequences of fame:
“Probably
the single most important cause of unhappiness reported by celebrities is the
effect of having to deal with so many people all the time. The loss of privacy
is one aspect of this... The more social interactions we have, the more we have
to compromise our ‘true’ selves eventually something snaps.” (Giles, p.92)
In
60 BC, Cicero complained that, despite the “droves of friends” surrounding him,
he was unable to find one with whom he could “fetch a private sigh”. Rousseau
wrote: “As soon as I had a name, I ceased to have friends.” (p.95)
Giles
comments:
“On
meeting each new acquaintance, the question becomes not so much, ‘Does this
person like me for who I am?’ but ‘Does this person like me for what I am?’”
(p.95)
We
might think the rich and powerful live contented and happy lives but
high-ranking politicians and business moguls are slaves to their positions.
Aryadeva examines the issue in discussion with an imaginary king:
“Assertion:
Pride is appropriate because a king is free to enjoy all objects.
“Answer:
It is not appropriate. What wrongly appears as a cause for superlative
happiness to you, king, is seen as a source of suffering by those with
discriminating wisdom and disciplined sense. Since you experience uninterrupted
suffering in the process of protecting large communities of people and must
live by working for others, it is not a cause only for happiness.” (p.119)
In
other words, status and power come with ten thousand Lilliputian ropes of
stressful responsibility and commitment, which take us very far from a sense of
individual freedom and perfect enjoyment.
Dependent
Arising The Curious Nature Of Problems
The
difficulty that underlies the entire attempt to achieve personal happiness
through self-centred goals relates to the whole nature of what it is to have a
‘problem’.
A
problem does not exist in splendid isolation as a concrete fact in the real
world. Instead, problems arise in dependence on our definition of happiness.
If, for example, we have set our heart on a particular person or object,
anything that interferes with the attainment of that goal will obviously be
labelled ‘a problem’.
We
are not angry with a romantic rival simply because he or she exists, but
because he or she threatens to take away what we believe will make us happy
he or she is therefore ‘a problem’. In response, we may become irate,
frustrated, jealous, furiously angry and even violent. If, on the other hand,
we do not believe that a particular person is an important source of happiness,
then the person who might otherwise have been a rival is no longer an obstacle
- the problem has literally ceased to exist in the same way that a rainbow
disappears when a cloud obscures the sun.
The
point is that this is true of all problems. Belief in happiness through the
satisfaction of self-centred desires automatically creates conditions in which
thousands of problem ‘rainbows’ can arise. As we identify a must-have partner,
job, car, house, level of success, we thereby instantly generate vast numbers
of ‘problems’ in relation to them.
If
we realise that none of these things actually can give rise to lasting
happiness - that they tie us to an endlessly rotating wheel of suffering,
diminishing discomfort (pleasure), and arising discomfort - then our problems
begin to diminish in number and intensity.
To
the extent that we lose faith in the power of desired objects to provide
happiness, we dismantle the conditions that lead us to define certain events as
‘problems’. And just this, according to the world’s major spiritual traditions,
is a state of genuine peace and happiness.
How
can we test this remarkable claim? We might argue, after all, that a life
without desire would be a life of unrelenting boredom. But, on reflection, we
can realise that boredom is precisely what we feel when we are blocked from
satisfying a desire from talking to a prospective partner chatting to our
friends at the next table, from moving to a better job in some fantastic place.
Boredom is not a condition without desire; it is a condition in which desire is
both present and frustrated.
So
how can we experience a condition, perhaps only temporarily, in which our
normal focus on selfish concerns giving rise to ‘problems’ is temporarily
‘switched off’ or diverted in a way that tests the truth of the proposition
being made here?
The
answer is that we can ‘switch off’ our normal focus on our own problems and
happiness by focusing on the problems and happiness of someone else. Victor
Frankl described this brilliantly. In a situation of deep despair on a work
team in a frozen death camp, a casual comment from a fellow prisoner caused
Frankl to remember the face of his wife who was also imprisoned. He writes that
his mind imagined her face “with an uncanny acuteness”:
“Then
I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human
thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in
love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know
bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a
position of utter desolation... in such a position man can, through loving
contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.”
(Frankl, op.cit., p.57)
By
focusing concern away from our own welfare, a loving and compassionate mind has
the power to annihilate problems even in the most extreme conditions. Problems
exist in dependence on a self-centred focus, and so feelings of love or
compassion free the mind from problems.
Psychologists
often tell us that much modern depression results from people comparing
themselves to others who are better off. As Montesquieu wrote:
"If
we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than
other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier
than they are."
It
also makes sense, then, that deep reflection on the infinitely worse suffering
of others a standard practice in many cultures gives rise to a stable
feeling of contentment and well-being. Thus one Buddhist meditation recommends:
“On
seeing a wretched man, unlucky, unfortunate, in every way a fit object for
compassion, unsightly, reduced to utter misery with hands and feet cut off,
sitting in the shelter for the helpless with a pot placed before him, with a
mass of maggots oozing from his arms and legs, and moaning, compassion should
be felt for him in this way: ‘This being has indeed been reduced to misery; if
only he could be freed from his suffering!’”
Again,
our problems are not concrete realities - they literally shrink in our minds
when set alongside, even imaginatively, the far worse sufferings of others.
Science is beginning to support the idea that compassion of this kind is indeed
a powerful antidote to personal unhappiness.
On
September 14, the New York Times reported from the University of Wisconsin,
where Richard Davidson, director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience,
is currently studying brain activity found in Buddhist monks meditating on
compassion. Davidson says:
“It’s
something they do every day, and they have special exercises where they
envision negative events, something that causes anger or irritability, and then
transform it and infuse it with an antidote, which is compassion. They say they
are able to do it just like that.” (Stephen S. Hall ‘Is Buddhism Good for Your
Health?’, The New York Times, September 14, 2003)
Davidson's
research has previously found that people who have high levels of brain
activity in the left prefrontal cortex of the brain simultaneously report
positive, happy states of mind, such as zeal, enthusiasm, joy, vigour and
mental buoyancy. On the other hand, Davidson found that high levels of activity
in a parallel site on the other side of the brain - in the right prefrontal
areas - correlate with reports of distressing emotions such as sadness, anxiety
and worry. Experiments on one monk, a “geshe”, generated remarkable results.
Davidson reports:
"Something
very interesting and exciting emerged from this. We recorded the brain activity
of the geshe and were able to compare his brain activity to the other
individuals who participated in experiments in my laboratory over the last
couple of years... The geshe had the most extreme positive value [indicating
happiness] out of the entire hundred and seventy-five that we had ever tested
at that point." (Daniel Goleman, Disturbing Emotions And How We Can
Overcome Them, Bloomsbury, 2003, p.339)
Davidson
describes the geshe as "an outlier" on the graph - his reading was
"three standard deviations to the left", far beyond the rest of the
bell curve for positive emotion and happiness.
In
the New York Times article describing these results, journalist Stephen Hall
comments that “the fact that the brain can learn, adapt and molecularly
restructure itself in response to experience and training suggests that
meditation may leave a biological residue in the brain”. Stephen Kosslyn, a
Harvard neuroscientist comments:
“This
fits into the whole neuroscience literature of expertise where taxi drivers are
studied for their spatial memory and concert musicians are studied for their
sense of pitch. If you do something, anything, even play Ping-Pong, for 20
years, eight hours a day, there’s going to be something in your brain that’s
different from someone who didn’t do that. It’s just got to be.”
Conclusion Motivation For
Dissent
Possible
options for all who ask “What should I do?” are clear. The first thing we can
do is reflect on our own experience of life in considering the possibility that
the self-centred pursuit of pleasurable experiences does not deliver on its
promises.
Forever
placing our needs, our problems, at the centre of our focus in this way ensures
that they always seem enormous. By focusing with compassion and love on the
(often far worse) problems of others, we can reduce our perception of the
importance and severity of our own problems, even in the most difficult
circumstances.
We
can consider, then, that compassionate thoughts and actions working to
relieve the suffering and increase the happiness of others can be a powerful
path, not an obstacle, to our own personal happiness; that these can act as an
antidote to the catastrophic problems caused precisely +by+ our single-minded
attempts to make just ourselves happy.
The
problem, then, is not that we already have too much on our plate to be
concerned about others, but that we have too much on our plate +because+ we are
not concerned about others. This need not be taken on anyone’s advice it is
something we can consider in relation to our experiences of everyday life. As
we reflect on these possibilities, and perhaps progressively erode our faith in
the delusive happiness of self-centred living, we may well find ourselves
naturally seeking out opportunities to benefit others.
Motivation
is not a problem for anyone who accepts the extraordinary truth contained in
Yeshe Aro’s ancient prescription for happiness:
“On
this depends my liberation: to assist others nothing else.”
David Edwards is the editor of Media Lens, and the author of Burning All
Illusions: A Guide to Personal and Political Freedom (South End
Press, 1996). Email: editor@medialens.org. Visit the Media
Lens website: http://www.MediaLens.org
Other Recent Articles by David Edwards
and Media Lens
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* Biting the
Hand That Feeds – Part 2
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Ask The BBC
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