“Turn your attention to other things” and be happy: Bertrand Russell

We begin Bertrand Russell‘s Conquest of Happiness in SOL today. Woody Allen’s Dr. Flicker must have read Russell.

The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the unvierse painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.

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Nobody really worries much about what is going to happen
millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out — at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation — it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things.

The younger Russell was much like Allen’s “Alvy,” burdened by the weight of the world and compelled to lighten it by seeking certainty. Several good biographies attest to this (Monk, Clark), as does the breezier recent graphic novel Logicomix.

Older Russell was disabused of that quest, and– to judge by our book, as I read it– was a much happier man.  He was much more attuned to present satisfactions, much less hostage to future attainments. Now he enjoys life, he writes as an older and wiser egg. He’s learned to pursue what he most desires, and he’s “successfully dismissed certain objects of desire – such as the acquisition of indubitable knowledge”…  but mostly he credits “a diminishing preoccupation with myself.” He learned “to center my attention upon external objects,” not as sources of ultimate happiness in the future but as objects of interest and action in the present.

The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

And, in life’s brevity resides its capacity for beauty.

…if I lived forever the joys of life would inevitably in the end lose their savor.

But Russell had wise words for future generations, including you & me:

My purpose is to suggest a cure for the ordinary day-to-day unhappiness from which most people in civilized countries suffer, and which is all the more unbearable because, having no obvious external cause, it appears inescapable. I believe this unhappiness to be very largely due to mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, mistaken habits of life, leading to the destruction of that natural zest and appetite for possible things upon which all happiness ultimately depends.

With due respect to Lord Russell, there were a few obvious external causes of discontent in 1930 and there are today. Have you been watching Ken Burns’ “Prohibition“? Russell comes off as a supporter of the 18th amendment here, denying that drink can be a “pathway to joy” –  but as a Brit, of course, he wasn’t tempted to demonize it as a road to hell, either.

His  main point, though, is that we resort to external excuses for what is after all an inner turmoil of spirit. This is one way in which, ironically, Russell tilts more toward Matthieu Ricard than to Barbara Ehrenreich. “Changes in the social system to promote happiness” are necessary, but hardly sufficient. Happiness is a relatively-selfless state of mind. You can’t ignore your own heart’s desires, but to be interested only in oneself “is not admirable.” Megalomaniacs and narcissists aggrandize themselves, they don’t make themselves (or their associates) happy.

“I was not born happy.” No, he was born under a cloud of scandal. He was also born with a silver spoon. A mostly-irrelevant material and social advantage, do we think? But it’s hard to read much of Russell, especially in his playful “Why I am Not a Christian” mood, without gaining the impression that his personal genetic “set-point” for happiness must’ve been pretty high to begin with. The tone of A Free Man’s Worship (YouT)is more elegiac, but it seems to come from a place of ingrained deep-seated contentment with the world.

Finally, this is not a very prevalent contemporary attitude, but I think Russell was dead on:

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

That’s not the most welcome news, in this cacophony of a 21st century,  but it may be what we need most to hear. So, later this afternoon I’m turning my attention to a nice quiet ballgame. Go Cards!

Tags: Bertrand Russell, Ken Burns, logicomix, Woody Allen