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-realization, 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 true; seemingly irreconcilable, but mysteriously, wonderfully… not.
Happiness is, of course, a complex thing— as varied as the complexity of self and society— but occasionally, we see people or peoples with highly distinct visions of Happiness. For instance, here in the predominantly Buddhist Bhutan, we could expect that Happiness would accord with Buddhist pessimism, and have the form of an acquiescence— whether in the lifelong disentanglement from desire and suffering to the “spontaneous acquiescence” of daily peacefulness. In the American and European traditions, Happiness is based on our picture of Desire: we are happy when our desires are fulfilled. Of course, with desires being as slippery as they are, we never find true happiness until we fatigue and slip into a sloppier form of acquiescence, or adopt subtler pictures of Desire and Happiness (or we win enough of our ends, in comparison with others, to seem to be riding high on top).
Both conceptions, we instinctually feel, are lacking something: the pessimist conception does not get as enjoy “fruits of struggle and agon,” while the European conception is not only futile but unaware of its futility.
But there’s probably a working synthesis out there somewhere; an approach that takes the Buddhist insights into desire-dynamics and combines them with the sportsmanship of the Westerner. This is the working synthesis I’ve been shooting for, along with many others, I’m sure.
The isolation of Bhutan raises an interesting point, about the comparative and sociological nature of human happiness. Bhutan not only came into greater contact with other conceptions of happiness, it came into closer contact with others, period. The Bhutanese sense of acquiescence could probably withstand comparisons to nearby Asian peoples, but in alongside so many other glittering possibilities, doubt was inevitable.
Here’s a twist though: it seems to me that the Buddhist acquiescence is actually better suited to the ego-calculus of the larger world, to metropolitan life, and so on. In the isolation of Bhutan, it seems easier to attain the highest height, to say “I have done, seen, known, and lived it all.” To complete the delusion.
In the United States, we might get this sensation in spurts, but we know better. We turn our heads and are quickly humbled. Our status is forever in question. So why, then, would we break our necks with our current most popular vision of Happiness? Why can we not let go, if the implicit end of all our wishes is sociologically impossible? How and why did we get saddled with Agon? Perhaps the conceptions did come from times when the tables were turned: the Chinese understood the real numbers working in the world and the Indian understood the sense of the great crowd. And maybe Western conceptions were further sharpened with exploration, where Man was compared only himself. Who knows? Point is, we can see that, sociologically, the Western conception of Happiness might run aground. The ego-calculus cannot hold unless of course, we fracture into enough little communities— little places somewhat like Bhutan or online-gaming communities— and size our selves and accomplishments accordingly.
The only other route is to mend our conception of Happiness itself.
Thanks for the comment, B. I like the twist you identified: that Buddhist acquiescence is better suited to the ego-calculus of the larger world. The way you describe it, it might even be the other way around: that egoistic, competitive desires are more easily achieved in the isolated, contained lands of Bhutan- where you can potentially reach the height and breadth of them in a lifetime, big fish small pond style. And then the Buddhist acquiescence could be more of a survival/defense mechanism for coping with the rat race in the West.
A few more thoughts.
I think the “acquiescence” you’re talking about, and the “satisfaction” I was talking about (regardless of its actual Buddhist manifestation), could instead be characterized as a contemporaneous and affirmative acceptance of the current stage of one’s own personal and temporal life scheme- whether it’s a satisfactory stage, a planned stage or an against-your-will stage. And far from pessimistic acquiescence, our satisfaction and acceptance can be the very height of optimism: being okay with who/what/where you are now, but still shooting for the moon and knowing you can get there. Our hopes and dreams and our five year plans must fully appreciate and anticipate (and tolerate) all the minutes (and hours, and days and years…) leading up to their realization. One’s Present can never compete with their ever bright and pregnant Future; much less their shoulda done, coulda been Past.
Plus, the formulation of happiness as acquiescence also implies a passive acceptance of outside forces as the creators and shapers of one’s life. But if in fact one does not have the power, the freedom or the will to shape one’s own existence, I think it is fine for us to say that they cannot or should not be happy. If they are happy despite these things, then we can regret or disparage it as mere acquiescence.
Hey Brandon and Annelies,
It’s been a long time since I commented on a blog with you guys. (A whole lifetime, in fact!) But it’s been a slightly shorter time since I spoke with either one of you.
Brandon- hope all is well up in Phillie. Word on the street is you’re the kingpin of good times up there. Perhaps I’ll see for myself some time soon…
Annelies- nice blog. Like the photo and the skinny column. And the title. Really A+ all around. If your blog were a girl I’d be nervous asking her out on a date.
As for the post:
Great topic! I just did a Bhutanese banner for the Tibetan Himalayan Digital Library. It had a Thunder Dragon! (Though I didn’t know said dragon’s full title at the time.)
I think it’s important to note that the Bhutanese Buddhism is predominantly Mayahana with a Tibetan lineage– so heavy on compassion, virtue, and interpersonal relationships. The Theravada Buddhists (in Sri Lanka, Thailand, etc.) take a more individualistic stance, which is closer to our American ideal of personal development.
That being said, Buddhism is Buddhism, and it does come with a healthy dose of desire renunciation. This does not mean that a “happy” buddhist has no desires, only that he or she has renounced desires that do not lead to a very stable form of happiness. A good analogy is an alcoholic who realizes that drinking alcohol leads to temporary gains and long-term losses. He or she then stops drinking and does something else to pass the time. Or consider an obsessive collector of Angel Statuettes who realizes that the Golf Playing Angel, the Biplane Angel, and the Angel Who Stubbed Her Toe are not really filling the void in said collector’s heart. The angels aren’t hurting his or her liver, and aren’t even really putting a dent in the family bank account, but they are wasting precious time.
If you set up an argument between acceptance and desire then desire will be the champ. Without desire, why would any Buddhist want enlightenment? This is why renunciation is a better framework for understanding the problem in Bhutan. The Bhutanese are not skilled at renouncing the wonders of the modern age. We, having years of experience, have well-honed clicking instincts that stop us from One ClickTM ordering the newest Angel Statuettes to complete our collection. We know how to renounce that desire, having followed it to its conclusion, finding no real satisfaction. The Bhutanese have no such defenses, and are ordering Angel Statuettes from Amazon.com willie nillie! Hence the temporary dip in national happiness, I’d suspect.