Happiness Is A Warm Puppy!

Shakespeare lyrically calls happiness, “A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit”. And yet thinkers and philosophers have mulled on this ‘will-o’-the-wisp’ over millennia. Ananda or bliss, the Vedantic goal of happiness is to realise and manifest our own destiny.

Aristotle, a polymath , spelt out his theory of happiness in ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ nearly 2,500 years ago and it still holds water. Happiness according to him is “the meaning and purpose of Life, the whole aim and end of human existence”.

Not all can wrap their heads around philosophical concepts of happiness ,but most can relate to explications in simpler bite-sized definitions. ‘Happiness is a warm puppy’ is just that image that releases a cuddly burst of endorphins in our bodies.

In a fractured world tied up in knots, the simplicity of the line uttered by Lucy is heart-warming. It points the way to cut the Gordian knot of defining happiness through an unending prism of covetousness. A whole philosophy of mindfulness and gratitude is buried in this cheerfully terse line. Schulz, obviously, was ahead of the curve of the current drum beat of mindfulness from every platform by life-coaches and Gurus. Good grief! Life was simpler in yesteryears.

Thank you Charles M Schulz for the cornucopia, a delightful ‘cartoon-copia’ in fact, of memorable characters who’ve been bringing a smile to many a lip since mid-twentieth century--- age no bar! Snoopy , the world famous beagle, and Charlie Brown must be embedded in the minds of all comic-strip junkies.

‘Peanuts’ initially carried as a weekly panel ‘Li’l Folks’ in a local newspaper, was renamed ‘Peanuts’ in 1950 and ran till 2000 just before ‘Sparky Schulz’ declared his retirement and died soon after. The humorous strip certainly increased the happiness quotient of people around the world in print and on screen. It gave us the much used phrase ‘the security blanket’, still used, a 100 years after his birth.

The ‘World Happiness Report’ published annually by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, put out on March 20, International Happiness Day, finds Finland winning the top slot for the sixth time in a row. The Finns must be doing something right to be in this happy frame of mind and stay on top in the happiness sweepstakes consistently.

Member countries of the U.N. generate the data collected through a limited sampling by Gallup Poll to measure how happy or displeased the people are on a holistic spectrum of what defines happiness for them.

The Finns believe their happiness and contentment stems from leading sustainable lives. “When you know what is enough, you are happy”, says a professor from the University of Western Finland. He attributes this contentment to the spirit of ‘sisu’ a Finnish word that would roughly mean grim determination in the face of hardships. Despite long winters and rough terrain the people persevere in the spirit of sisu.

Closer home, Bhutan and Singapore score high on the World Happiness Report in Asia. Bhutan, interestingly, has a GNH (Gross National Happiness)index that is placed above the GDP. A melding of spirituality and materialistic progress to keep people on an even keel, the ‘golden mean’ of Aristotle and ‘the middle path’ of Buddhism.

The Thai phrase ‘mai pen rai’ meaning literally ‘don’t worry’ is a good slogan to adopt to have ‘sanuk’(fun). However, Thailand is way down on the happiness ladder at 15th place now.

Our Hindustan is straggling behind in 126th place out of 193 nations. Despite the brutal social inequities most Indians have a modicum of stoicism and karmic belief that makes them resigned to their kismet. Happiness peers through the Goan ‘susegad’ attitude or in the beautiful states of Mizoram and Kerala.

Confucius’s gnomic take on happiness seems quite intriguing: “Many seek happiness higher than man; others beneath him. But happiness is the same height as man”. Take it or leave it!

On World Laughter Day, May 7 fake it or feel it and as the Mumbai tapori would say, “kaiko tension lene ka yaar”!