The Big Picture

As I wrote last year on this date, “January second has always been an important day in my life; over the years, a number of life-changing events have happened on the date or very soon thereafter.  So over the last decade, it has gradually developed into a day when I think about the Big Picture.”  And this time around, what I’ve been thinking about is that oft-elusive condition called “happiness”; over the past four years, I’ve gradually come to the realization that I’m happier now than I’ve ever been for any extended period in my entire life.  That isn’t to say I’m in a continual state of bliss; I’ve only experienced that once in my life, for a few minutes, and psychedelic drugs were involved.  But even in that extended moment I realized, “This is what people mean by ‘bliss’!” and what I’m experiencing now is nothing like it.  It also doesn’t mean my life is trouble-free; it’s rare that I get through a day without some kind of hassle or irritation, generally involving A) bureaucracy; B) money; or C) people doing dumb or careless shit that causes me to have to go out of my way to put whatever-it-is back the way it’s supposed to be.  And it certainly doesn’t mean that I’ve succeeded in building an ivory tower to shut out the evil of the world; working on this blog is a daily labor, and if anything I’m more cynical now than I have ever been (and twice as cantankerous).

But having a realistic view of the world requires accepting that it and everything it contains is impermanent, and that even those rare individuals who make lasting contributions were usually enabled to do so by circumstances of place, time, and condition; furthermore, even their names and works are as impermanent as those of Ozymandias, and will be no more remembered in future eons than the kings of any pre-literate realm are remembered today, however important they believed themselves to be in their own times.  In the big picture, any order we manage to impose on the universe is as ephemeral as a sand castle, and will soon be obliterated by time and tide.  But, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer‘s Angel observed, “If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.”  Or, if you prefer Scripture to popular entertainment, “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”  In “Its Own Reward” I wrote, “I don’t do what I do for recognition or reward or even the belief that I can make the world a better place; I do it simply because it is right.”  And as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to understand that doing what’s right is not only enough, it’s the best any of us can reasonably hope for.  Power, wealth, and fame are ultimately ephemeral, and on his deathbed what the self-made king Charles Foster Kane most longed for was simple personal happiness.  Could I have been wealthier, more famous, and more influential had I worked harder and/or made different decisions?  Probably, but it would’ve required compromising my principles, and when all was said and done I couldn’t do that.  I have my own scriptural “vine and fig tree”, and the knowledge that I’ve lived my life by what I know to be right, and I am content and at peace.  And if that isn’t happiness, I’m not sure what would be.