I've received far more than the usual amount of e-mails in response to Eric Wilson's Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy (Faith Focus, October 19). Thank you for your insightful comments.
Why did this touch a nerve? Is there an explanation as to why 4,000 books were published last year on happiness, up from 50 in 2000? (Newsweek, October 5, 2009). Or why, according to the General Social Survey (economists Betty Stevenson and Justin Wolfers of Wharton), despite three decades of economic growth, women and men are no happier; or why women (happier than men in 1972) are no happier than men today?
Thomas Jefferson promised us the "pursuit of happiness." Perhaps that is what it is meant to be - a pursuit. Perhaps those who make happiness their goal find it illusive, while those who seek "to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul and your neighbor as yourself" find fulfillment, even happiness, as the byproduct of living a meaningful life.
Until your next e-mail, I remain sincerely, |
God whispers to us in our pleasures,
speaks to us in our conscience,
but shouts in our pains;
it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
- C.S. Lewis |
