Gross National Happiness, Pt. 1
The annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in DC is featuring Texas, NASA, and Bhutan this year. Even more intriguing to me than the fact that NASA has been included as a folklife specimen, was the focus on Bhutan. I’ve read a couple of articles on the country recently that really peaked my interest. Isolated from the rest of the world for decades, Bhutan has recently begun to open its blinds to the lights of Bollywood, the world wide web, and you guessed it- the It Girl of the new millennium- popular democracy. (Natural light they have in fact had in abundance all along, as they are, in the Himalayas, quite close to the sun and pretty free as of yet from shadow-mongering high rises.)
Besides its recent elections, which have continued the reign of the popular 29-year-old King and added to his ranks a new and apparently very loyal Parliament, Bhutan’s growth indicators have also been in the news. Officially, the government is dedicated to, among other things, the growth of Gross National Happiness. The country is famed, to the extent a relatively unknown country can be, for the happiness of its people. This seems fitting for a Buddhist kingdom with a pseudonym that sounds like a theme park attraction- Land of the Thunder Dragon!- but it probably would not be corroborated by the country’s thousands of Hindu refugees in neighboring India. (Oh, if only we were still simple beasts, allowed to wallow in our own homogeny!)
Most thought-prompting, though, was an interview I heard with a Bhutanese man I think was a kind of Buddhist radio talk show host. He described the recent exposure of Bhutan to capitalism and the like, but also the accompanying decrease in individual happiness it brought with it. Now, cursed with the fruit of knowledge and faced with increasingly more choices, the Bhutanese have joined the modern throngs of dissatisfied more-wanters. Happiness, he explained, was very simple. It is to be satisfied with one’s life.

Having been unhappy in my life, and more importantly having been happy, I immediately agreed with this sentiment. But just as immediately, the phrasing of it disappointed my American pursuit of happiness instincts. I’ve always appreciated the drive that comes from a sort of perpetual dissatisfaction, of never being done. But was the active pursuit of more and better at odds with happiness itself? Well, it would depend on what your more and better refer to. If you’re only trying to keep up with the Joneses, then yes, it probably is at odds with finding some real piece of happiness. But if we’re talking about pursuing true goals of self-actualization and hopes&dreams-realiz
ation, then the answer must be no, No, NO!
So how do we reconcile our now twin aims of quiet, daily satisfaction and avid, undying, do-on’t stop be-lie-evin’ pursuit of happiness? As I find is usually the case, you can have it both ways. You take your means and you make them your ends. You draw up your list, but you count your blessings. Because like all good life axioms, they are both are true; seemingly irreconcilable, but mysteriously, wonderfully… not.



