Desire vs. Happiness, from "Why Freedom"
Author: Jason Junge

Freedom entails responsibility; not just the responsibility of the consequences of our actions, but also the responsibility to use that freedom wisely. Fleeting and comfortable happiness is a seductive temptress that tries to get us to take the easy way toward deriving value from our time, but we have seen that much more can be derived from breadth and depth of experience. As much as we all want to be happy and as much emphasis as society puts on happiness, it is a losing proposition. As Csikszentmihalyi notes, the human ego naturally tends toward a general state of misery, focusing on negative probabilities for the sake of contingency planning, and focusing on negative traits for the sake of betterment. As animals we are better suited for survival if we semi-neurotically focus on what things are wrong and what might go wrong. We basically live with an “itch,” as Schopenhauer coined it, to better our environment and ourselves. Our neurosis creates that by first focusing on the negatives, and then creating the desire, need, or itch to improve upon them. As soon as that itch is scratched and our desires have been fulfilled, we feel a slight exhilaration or sense of happiness as a reward, only to then start the cycle over again by falling back into our neurosis.


The state of neurosis, along with the state of desire, is far longer in duration than the state of happiness. Coupled with the pain of work that may be involved, many philosophers label the natural human state as one of misery. Given the evanescent properties of happiness, we can understand why focusing on it is so futile. Focusing on happiness is also clearly not in our interest given the amount of work and desiring involved.

As existentialists put it, human nature involves constantly projecting the self and its state of affairs into a better state. Our nature is thus to be unhappy with our current selves to imagine a brighter future, and then to strive towards it. We seek to annihilate, or destroy, our current selves in order to get as far away from the nothingness from which we were originally born and to which we will return. In other words, we are constantly fighting to be and feel alive to spite our deaths.

We therefore do not strive to better ourselves because we feel misery, but instead feel misery because we seek to better ourselves. We suffer from an inherent miserable state of affairs, and that perpetual state is the gap between the projected self and the current self, from that which could be and that which is. It is our perpetual “itch.” For example, the poor in the U.S. are levels of magnitude richer then the poor in China, yet we will find that on average U.S. suicide, criminal, and depression rates among the poor are much higher. Being poor is not necessarily miserable; in fact stoics, monks, and priests would rather be poor in order to seek a simpler life. Rather, being poor among rich, or being an "educated" poor, brings about greater desire and concomitant suffering. When a poor man can see or read about a better world he can imagine one, and then of course want it. This is not to say that the poor in China do not also suffer from the human itch, but it is less severe in light of their environment.


On the other hand we are kidding ourselves if we think we can change our internal programming and stop our neurotic, desirous nature. We can stop wanting about as much as we can stop breathing. We might be able to curb it, as monks are purported to do, but we cannot stop it. What we can do is derive utility, happiness, and fulfillment from work and desire themselves, rather than just their results. Instead of waiting to be happy from the attainment of something, we can derive pleasure from the mere fascination of wanting. This is the "stop and smell the roses" cliché. For example, we might see a painting, like it, and want it. We could focus on the fact of not having it and be miserable, or simply enjoy wanting it by admiring the characteristics that make us want to have it. The painting must be beautiful in some sense in order for us to want it, and therefore we should be able to get some satisfaction out of just admiring it. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, this is stopping to admire the paintings.

Similarly, instead of working toward a goal, and therefore being miserable because of the work we have to do, we could work for the sake of working and be fulfilled by it. In our example of the painting, if we no longer concentrate on having to have the painting, we no longer have to work to acquire it. This does not mean we should not have goals; in fact, we should always have them. The point being that the work we do to achieve goals should not be undertaken only for their sake, but also work’s own sake. It is not bad to want a painting and work to obtain it. But given the value of time, why sacrifice a certain portion of it to make another portion better, if the sacrifice is not necessary? Sacrifice makes us prisoners of our own goals.

Freedom is derived from the ability to want without having-to-have, from working for work's sake instead of working for something, from man's ability to project himself into the future out of choice rather than out of merely being. To existentialists, the human condition entails consciously using freedom toward living a life of intensity, and ultimately fulfillment. It is about submerging one's subjective self within the midst of the world to manipulate it and be manipulated by it, rather than being an objectivized stone to be thrust by the currents. This manipulation of the world involves an understanding of the self and its environment, as well as the attainment of freedom to do so. If one is merely a victim of instincts and circumstances, then one has not used his freedom to live, and has instead become an object in the world, rather than a subject in the midst of the world.






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Jason Junge is a scientist, economist, and philosopher hailing from MIT and Northwestern. He's often heard on radio on seen at LibertyForAll.Net, writing on topics of freedom and self-fulfillment.

For more info on Jason or "Why Freedom; The Meaning and Practice of Freedom," please visit www.WhyFreedom.com

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