Thursday, June 30, 2005
Pursuit of Happiness
With the ominous spectacle of our biggest national holiday lurking in the shadows of our miserably failed state, I found myself asking this morning, "How can one say anything that hasn't been said about our Independence Day?
What new view can possibly be concocted that isn't trite or contrived?"
But maybe that isn't the task at hand today. Maybe we don't require something new. Maybe that's the lost point of this commemoration of courage and sacrifice for an at least ostensibly noble purpose. Maybe that's why all peoples tell the stories of their ancestors who struggled to learn the lessons that would guide them in things like the pursuit of happiness.
So it is that I came to settle on that little, oft-repeated phrase that follows life and liberty, in order to focus our thinking about what we might want to become independent from, as we simultaneously celebrate the emancipation of our forebearers. And as I reflect on what happiness I have known in my life, it has been the company of good friends, or the discovery of new places and ideas, or the sharing of good fortune and joy.
But more than any of these, it is the happiness of being part of a community--however defined--working together for its common good. For it is only this deeper sense of reciprocity and cooperation as part of living our communal values that can make us happy, even as we endure otherwise bewildering, depressing circumstances.
And so, with all due respect to the once-principled experiment of our republic, I would assert it is once again time to declare our independence from tyranny--albeit, of a different sort--and redefine the conditions under which we in the present can again pursue the kind of happiness we would bestow on our heirs.
What new view can possibly be concocted that isn't trite or contrived?"
But maybe that isn't the task at hand today. Maybe we don't require something new. Maybe that's the lost point of this commemoration of courage and sacrifice for an at least ostensibly noble purpose. Maybe that's why all peoples tell the stories of their ancestors who struggled to learn the lessons that would guide them in things like the pursuit of happiness.
So it is that I came to settle on that little, oft-repeated phrase that follows life and liberty, in order to focus our thinking about what we might want to become independent from, as we simultaneously celebrate the emancipation of our forebearers. And as I reflect on what happiness I have known in my life, it has been the company of good friends, or the discovery of new places and ideas, or the sharing of good fortune and joy.
But more than any of these, it is the happiness of being part of a community--however defined--working together for its common good. For it is only this deeper sense of reciprocity and cooperation as part of living our communal values that can make us happy, even as we endure otherwise bewildering, depressing circumstances.
And so, with all due respect to the once-principled experiment of our republic, I would assert it is once again time to declare our independence from tyranny--albeit, of a different sort--and redefine the conditions under which we in the present can again pursue the kind of happiness we would bestow on our heirs.
