The Pursuit of Happiness

An 18th century Philosophical Concept?

There is no unalienable right more intensely personal or highly variable than the pursuit of happiness.

The pursuit of happiness has to be regarded as more than an 18th Century philosophical concept. We have to put it into our ecological and systems thinking and we have to start measuring the welfare of our society by the state of happiness of the natives. Our society, and society in general through history, has often failed to provide the environment that induces a state of happiness or encourages the pursuit of happiness among its members. If we find substantial numbers of the citizen-sovereigns are being deprived of their happiness by acts of government or by the failure of the government to act, then we should judge our government accordingly. I am not talking about punishing criminals and thereby making them unhappy. I am talking about the homeless, the destitute, the abused, the malnourished and the abandoned, the unemployed and underemployed, the uneducated, and the undereducated (those who would like more education but can't afford it), and those who are objects of racism, discrimination, and bigotry.

Self-Esteem

Let's start with self-esteem. What do we as a society have to do to build self-esteem in all our citizens? What would it take to go the next step and build esteem for our communities and neighborhoods, and then our nation? Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence said that we should give our consent to govern to governments that promote our safety and our happiness.

Happiness is...

The pursuit of happiness is a socio-psychological process. It is also a set of physiological and biochemical states—all in an environmental-ecological setting. The pursuit of happiness is the allegorical "blue bird of happiness" which, after having been pursued all over the world, was found to be in the pursuer's own backyard. It is the slogan "Tune in, turn on, and drop out," of the drug culture of the 1960s. "One man's meat is another man's poison," is another way of describing the pursuit of happiness. The emotional range of happiness runs from contentment, to joy, to ecstasy. People who are pursuing happiness may be most uncomfortable and in peril of their lives. The processes of accomplishing the goal that will bring happiness may be exhilarating, satisfying, drudging, dangerous, demanding, unhealthy, or lethal. (Perhaps here is the proper place to note one important distinction between happiness and pleasure. Whereas happiness often occurs as a result of the pursuit of something entirely different, it often does not result purely from the pursuit of pleasure. Persons that can't stand "happiness" but are highly content with "pleasure" are neurotic.

There are pleasure centers of the brain that have compelling and exacting control over our body and our behavior. External chemical or physical stimulation of these may give pleasure, but possibly at a cost to the healthy integration of the complex systems of the body. Such stimulation may produce actual physical damage to the nervous system and the organs it serves. (Mice hooked up electronically to the pleasure centers of their brains will stimulate themselves until they die—suicidal feedback.) Hedonism is not the pursuit of happiness but the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake. Happiness may be produced by hard work, I associate hedonism with dilettantism and wine, the other gender, and the smirk that goes with the bawdy song. The pursuit of happiness may involve physical, mental, sexual, physiological, biochemical, ecological and social phenomena. Happiness is a physiological, social and ecological state of mind. Happiness is intensely idiocentric. Happy is healthy, unhappy is unhealthy. Jefferson could not have proclaimed a more universal desire than that people should have the right to pursue happiness.

Decision Systems

Long before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, long before man evolved as a separate species on the face of the Earth, vertebrate animal life evolved physiological-ecological systems that optimize. In the biological decision system, optimizing decisions are those that favor the survival of the individual or the perpetuation of the species. We say that the processes and conditions that favor growth and development are healthy—providing the growth and development are integrated, coordinated, and ontogenetically correct. Conversely, if the growth becomes disintegrated, uncoordinated, or ontogenetically incorrect, we say that it un-healthy—to the extent of being cancerous or teratogenic (producing a malformed fetus or genetic monster.)

Irritability

in the early days of biology a definition of life included the characteristic "irritability." It had been observed that, when the living organism was disturbed it reacted. If it was jabbed with a needle it recoiled; when placed in an unfavorable environment, it moved away if it could. Living organisms are continually reacting to their environments, usually trying to find conditions that are not "irritating." We had observed that living organisms, including humans, often react to environmental-social-psychological stimuli without conscious thought. The living organisms had evolved information feedback response mechanisms, that are cybernetic in and correctional in nature, and many of the resulting actions are linked. (Response to one stimulus leading to a second stimulus which lead to further response, for example, eating one peanut or one potato chip.)

As an aside: In the last few decades human technology has been able to incorporate some of this information feedback and control, resulting in robotics. — Robotics is only the most recent of this kind of technology, of course. Things like thermostats being quite common. An even more basic system is the one underlying all biologic systems: the genes. One ends up asking the question whether our genes live for us or whether we live for our genes because of their nature. From "our" prospective, we are not aware of our genes. However, they control our very existence, and in so doing (most importantly from their standpoint) the processes that ensure their own perpetuity.

Surviving and Thriving

All living organisms have conditions under which they survive and thrive. We say certain conditions are optimum for the species. We can talk about physical conditions, amount of sunlight, heat, water, composition of the atmosphere, nutritional requirements et al, or we can talk about habitat, territory, space, etc. These all add up to the conditions under which organisms survive and thrive.

Biodiversity in the aggregate is caused by the spectrum of ecological conditions under which each individual species exists. The wider the range of ecological spectrums, the greater the biodiversity the area gives rise to. The controlling concept of biodiversity is that different organisms can exist under widely differing circumstances; that is to say, various organisms can survive and thrive under a great variety of circumstances. Human beings, for example, seem to do best under desert conditions. If we compare the conditions of our homes with the conditions of the desert we will find that the temperatures and humidities we prefer are like those of the desert. Wherever humans go they try to duplicate these conditions in their habitations and immediate environment.

Comfort, Well-being, and Security

Happy is healthful—healthful is feeling good-feeling good is happy. An endorphin high is healthy. A cocaine high is unhealthy. Unhappy is unhealthy.

As regards the higher animals, we can discuss their requirements to survive and thrive. Survival — is the ability to find food and water to sustain themselves, the ability to reproduce etc. Thriving has to do with the animal's ability to increase its numbers, to regulate thriftily its growth, to maintain its health—freedom from disease (including malnutrition) and parasites, and its ability to hold the territory it occupies. After these "survival and thrival" requirements have been met, it is logical to talk about comfort, well-being, and security.

When we were in grade school, we learned that, to survive, humans required food, clothing and shelter. Food, clothing and shelter are the physical attributes of survival. Comfort, well-being and security are the mental or psychological attributes. Food-clothing-and-shelter and comfort-well-being-and-security do not have to be at hand constantly but they must be readily accessible. The animal analog of food, clothing, and shelter is habitat and territory. The mental attributes of comfort, well-being and security are homologies, that is to say the conditions are equivalent, in humans and other higher animals.

Smile, Darn You Smile

Jack Wiley writing in the Smithsonian magazine (June 1985) told of research on smiling. Smiling improves the flow of blood to the brain. An improved flow of blood to the brain makes the brain work better and gives a feeling of well-being. The induced emotions of well-being or mirth have salubrious effects on health. For one thing, smiling and laughing reduce or eliminate stress-induced pain. I have no wish to practice medicine in the pages of We the People but I have had personal experiences of smiling, including forced grins that made me look ludicrous, relieving stress-induced chest pain. And, of course, there is the case of Norman Cousins who cured himself of a serious illness by watching comedy movies—mostly Marx Brothers films. Cousins, Norman, The Anatomy of an Illness. His cure seemed so miraculous that he ended up teaching on a medical faculty.

Happiness is Idiosyncratic and Idiocentric

The pursuit of happiness has its genetic, biological, and ecological, roots in the physiological-psychological response of the organism to itself and to the environment, including the social environment. The factors involved with the state of happiness are those that affect all organisms and, therefore, can be described as a state of animalness. Since the pursuit of happiness is a desirable universal condition of humankind, and since the pursuit of happiness is fiercely personal, its pursuit, by definition, is meaningful only in an individualistically, idiocentric sense. No one is happy on command. As Abraham Lincoln said, "People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." Conditions of birth, training, and experience make the conditions for contentment, joy, pleasure, e.g. happiness, different in us all. Socialization and the accomplishment of group goals may bring happiness to a group, but each must feel happy individually. The success of the group can heighten happiness but it must be felt individualistically. That is a tautology. The variety of experiences that fit the bill for happiness is myriad although there is a central tendency toward a certain few categories, starting with the building of ego and self-esteem and moving on to the bodily pleasures of eating, drinking, physical exercise, and sex, and to inter-personal success and the carrying out of new experience.

What Happiness is Not

It is as important to discuss the negative aspects of happiness, i.e., to say what it is not, as well as to say what it is. The initial indication of happiness is a well integrated, well functioning organism in full command of its faculties, ready to defend itself, play, work, or be creative. It is the opposite pole to fear, despair, stress, anger, oppression, anguish, pain, and other similar conditions in which the organism is not able to act rationally and in its own best interest, except for bare survival, and even then may destroy or damage itself trying. Happiness has a feed-back loop where happiness feeds on happiness. Fear and anxiety have feed-back loops where they feed on each other. Happiness is healing, fear and anxiety are pathological. Both kinds of conditions have an underlying biochemistry and physiology and may induce permanent or semi-permanent states of being for the organism.

Addiction

When the mammalian brain sets up a demand loop for a certain substance we call it addiction. In the broadest sense, food and water are addictive since their absence produces rather dramatic changes in the brain chemistry and behavior of the individual affected. Survival time in the absence of water is relatively short and there is no recovery, all other things being equal. With food the matter is sightly different. Initial withdrawal of food is physiologically disturbing but starving people lose their appetite, and taking nourishment after prolonged starvation is fraught with danger. One of the most addicting substances in the human world is sugar (sucrose). Probably no substance gives greater instantaneous pleasure. Probably no substance is responsible for more suffering, disease, and death. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) and hyperglycemia (diabetes) are the common dysfunctions in sugar metabolism and can be responsible for a variety of debilitating physiological conditions, which in turn give rise to a wide range of mental states and the immediate emotions surrounding feelings of well-being or uneasiness. Alcohol acts very much like a sugar or, perhaps more correctly, sugar acts very much like an alcohol.

Endorphins

The human body makes its own opiates. They are called endorphins (endogenous morphine). These substances are made in the brain during severe shock, such as injury, but are the normal components of "feeling good." They arise under normal circumstances as a normal part of metabolism. They may arise as a part of the metabolism of the brain during the perception of grave threat or great pleasure. They are part of our survival mechanism. They are associated with the pleasure centers of the brain.

I was in an automobile accident, (the other guy's fault). I went into shock and my blood pressure skyrocketed. I was not injured in the sense of broken bones or torn skin, but I did suffer severe tendon pull in my elbow. An hour after the accident I was higher than a kite. It was very similar to a cocaine high. (I have had cocaine as the anaesthetic of choice for nasal polypectomies).

The Opiates

The opiates, injected, eaten, or smoked, operate in the same ways as do those produced internally, except that the chemistry is not a result of interlocked and interrelated biochemical reactions of metabolism. In the injection, ingestion, or inhalation of opiates the body's system is flooded with the chemical—quite a different situation, which in turn alters other aspects of the body's chemistry and subsequent behavior.

Do unto Others...

Humans are thoroughly socialized. Humans, as we understand the term, don't exist outside human society. The principal reason for this condition is that without other humans language is not acquired and without language, little in the way of other social skills can be acquired. A primary source of human happiness is satisfying social interaction—within the family, the peer group, work place, school associates, and the society at large. But in the jargon of the 1960s, happiness is the ability to do one's "thing." Two items in a recipe for happiness (1) "Know thyself, "speaks Socrates, and (2) "Do unto others..." speaks Jesus. Altruism-based happiness is a fundamental of species survival, and if you practice it, you will gain the comfort, well being, and security of knowing who you are. This knowledge will lead in turn to tranquility, felicity, and serenity.

Behavior by the Book

The need to regulate society for the common good produces rules of behavior or conduct that, while they may change from group to group or from society to society, are usually enforced with police action. The pursuit of happiness then is not an unrestrained right, but one that is limited by social rule and conduct. In a democracy, social rule and conduct are subject to change, just as the will of the people, as expressed by their law-givers, is subject to change. Unrestrained rights—not unalienable rights, may be limited when they infringe upon the rights of others, but some individuals may impose their own limitations based upon religion or ideology: observance of the sabbath for one instance, or dietary restrictions for another.

Happiness as a Crime Against Self

The worldwide financial basis of organized crime was established in the United States during the period of alcohol prohibition. Alcohol distribution and consumption eventually were legalized, but the money infusion into organized crime was great enough for the criminal managers to invest in other activities, all of which are handsomely supported by the United States middle class. The most important such activity now is the illegal use of drugs, especially the use of cocaine. Cocaine is not an illegal substance; however, its use in a non-medically prescribed situation is illegal. That is to say, cocaine is a legal drug but its use for recreational purposes is illegal. Billions of dollars are going to support various drug cartels and the agricultural economy of several Latin American countries depends upon the use of drugs. In return billions of dollars are being spent to combat the use of cocaine. So it adds up to quite a business economy.

Seven Come Eleven

Gambling, for the most part is illegal, in the United States as is prostitution. Las Vegas and Atlantic City have legalized casino gambling. Gambling on bingo is legal on Indian reservations and prostitution is legal in Nevada outside of Las Vegas and Reno, although it flourishes in those cities. Many states have lotteries, the proceeds from which support activities otherwise supported by taxes. Key West, Florida lost a lot of its appeal when Fidel Castro cleaned up Havana, which until then had flourishing casino gambling and prostitution and was only 90 miles away.

Sexual Explicitness

Pornography is a thorny problem since it is inextricably tied up in the First Amendment right to free speech. Sexually explicit writing was the first objective of the pornography controllers, but with the advent of obscenity definitions that take into account community standards, sexually explicit material is now widely available, mostly in the form of sex oriented magazines and films made for theater or TV viewing-so-called "adult entertainment." The production of pornography may be covered by the First Amendment. The uses of pornography certainly have to be covered by the unalienable right to privacy. Who could object to what is read or viewed voluntarily in the privacy of one's own home or hears voluntarily on one's own telephone? Reading "Playboy" and unfolding the centerfold on a crowded airplane is indeed intrusive on other persons' rights of privacy.

Save the Children

Pornography involving children is socially destructive and rightfully is the object of the wrath of society. Age considerations are an important component of several important activities of the society. Age limits for the use of alcohol, the operation of a motor vehicle or an airplane, and the use of cigarettes are prudent. The same can be said for the uses of pornography. Again, pornography like prostitution is supported for the most part by the American middle class male. The owner of the Mustang Ranch, a brothel near Las Vegas, Nevada, recently announced an establishment for women who wanted unencumbered sex.

Unsolved Problems

Gambling, prostitution, and drugs are largely unsolved ecological problems of our age. Gambling, it seems, is becoming more acceptable as lotteries proliferate and casino gambling is becoming established on the East Coast. Prostitution flourishes in all our large cities. Eighth Avenue in New York City is or was known as the Minnesota Strip since many of the young women were supposed to have come from Minnesota. Drugs have become a matter of international concern, with the recent Drug Summit in Colombia, South America, and with the increasing debate on the strategies for dealing with drug use. A fair number of influential people are calling for decriminalization and legalization as a way to stop the influx of megabucks into this criminal business with all its potential for mischief. How does all this relate to the pursuit of happiness?

Drugs and Sex

Crimes against self are motivated by the pursuit of pleasure (drugs and illicit sex) as opposed to the pursuit of happiness. Chemical euphoria is no substitute for the real physiologically induced state. At various times various substances have been the substance of choice to induce euphoria. Gin, the alcoholic beverage, was invented in the Netherlands as a medicinal. It didn't take long for large numbers of people to suffer from the illness that gin could cure. In the 1950's a miracle cure was advertised on television. It was called Hadacol and it could spark you right up. It was found to have as its active ingredient 20% alcohol. Needless to say, the ads were taken off the air. Drugs have come and gone as the substance of choice. They were very much in use in the 1920's and opium was advertised in the 1890 Scars Catalog. Cocoa leaves were chewed by the Peruvian peasant and tin miner long before cocaine became fashionable in Washington, New York, and San Francisco. Marijuana, peyote, and mushrooms have had extensive use as indigenous drugs before they and their counterparts found their way onto the streets and into the lives of middle class Americans. Whether this pleasure qualifies as happiness is a matter of social norms. Lots of money and time are spent and many people are engaged in the use of these substances to produce elation or euphoria.

I believe that pursuits of happiness that tend to improve the mental and physical health of the pursuer and increase the stability of the community in which the pursuer lives are the most desirable. That is to say, I believe that activities that tend to be ecologically beneficial to the individual and the community are desirable and those that tend to harm the individual and destabilize the community are not desirable.

Drugs

How the community deals with drugs is still very much an open question. The use of drugs may be deleterious to the user's health, but some are permitted and others prohibited. Tobacco, the great killer (300,000 deaths per year), is okay; alcohol (40,000 deaths per year) is okay; but cocaine and the opiates (about 8,000 death per year) are not, even though they don't kill many people. Drugs can be legalized without making them as available as tobacco or alcohol. They should be made legal in the context of medicine, and doctors should be able to prescribe them, and clinics should be readily available to minister to those addicted to them. While the legal use of drugs may signify a community failing, the illegal use of these same drugs is destructive of the society itself! The $150 billion a year available to the drug cartel represents assets that are orders of magnitude greater than society can bring to bear to stop the problem. It is sufficient money to bribe anyone, including the police, the judiciary, and heads of state. The legal use of drugs is always subject to change for the better; the continued promotion of the illegal drug use may signal the degradation of human society itself.

Does Happiness Promote Health?

How happiness relates to individual circumstance and to the community at large is not clearly understood, but we do have some clues. We know from Norman Cousins (Cousins, Norman Anatomy of an Illness, 1985?) and others that laughing, smiling, and fun are good for one's health and that fear, anger, anxiety, and cynicism lead to poor health, dysfunctions of the immune system, and heart conditions.

Dr. E. C. Stakman, the world renowned biologist from the University of Minnesota used to say, "We know a great deal about unhealthy plants. What do we know about healthy ones?" Dr. Stakman's question is good for people. What do we know about healthy people? What are the positive, active forces in ourselves and in nature that make us healthy? Is health the physiological manifestation of happiness? Does happiness promote health? Is happiness being of sound mind and body? The tentative answer is yes.

A Mass of Muscle

The human body is mostly muscle. The large skeletal muscles enable us to move, run, walk, lift, etc. The skeletal muscles are striated. Our blood vessels, our stomach and intestinal track are lined with smooth muscle. The heart is a combination of the two. Our musculature is strictly on a use-it-or-lose-it basis. Within reasonable limits, the more we use our striated muscles the stronger they become. Reasonable aerobic exercise also strengthens the heart muscles and increases our aerobic capacity, that is, the ability of our diaphragm to fill our lungs with larger quantities of oxygen-laden air, making our heart a more efficient organ—more oxygen per beat. The brain itself is not capable of feeling pain. When we feel good or when we feel bad it is our muscles that feel good or bad. The better our physical shape the clearer our minds. We think of physical training and exercise as way to strengthen our bodies but it works just as well to improve the functioning of our minds. Increased blood flow to the brain causes an increased suffusion of oxygen and nutrients to the brain and the brain works better. A scientist having trouble writing a paper got out and jogged a couple of miles, came back and finished the paper.

Our bodies were built (evolved) for strenuous exercise and our sense of well-being is dependent upon the regular use of our musculature. Bedridden persons quickly lose muscle tone and their muscles begin to atrophy. It is no wonder that sports and other forms of physical recreation are appealing to so many people since the rewards from participation in them are so immediate. Outdoor recreation of all kinds, walking, hiking, boating, swimming, hunting, etc., provide the immediate satisfaction of the use of the muscles, and in addition provide the mental stimulation of being in the out-of-doors and/or with nature. Physical activity is a complement to mental activity. A sound mind is a happy mind and a sound body is a happy body. Happiness is a physical as well as a mental state.

Another Job for the Medical Profession

We need the medical profession to evolve a subset of medicine to address the question "What is health?" We have to look at our work and play, our family and social life, and determine which interrelationships are conducive to health and therefore happiness, and which are detrimental. Work-induced mental stress that results in heart attack or stroke is bodily attack as surely as a physical beating. Abusing parents that raise abused children who in turn become spouse and child abusers are a great cost to themselves, their relatives, and society. What can we say about the ecological circumstances that are the prime producers of murderers? The medical profession owes us an explanation of the well human being and how comfort, well being and security contribute to that state of wellness. The factors of the environment—social, physical and biological—that induce happiness may be the most important ecological factors related to our survival and "thrival" as a species.

...Ted Sudia...

© Copyright 1990
Institute for domestic Tranquility