The Geiger Counter

It’s far better, for you and all those around you, to be happy than to be “good” in the hollow, performative sense. A good person who is miserable all the time will spread suffering and misery from person to person as they travel through life. A happy person of any political or ideological persuasion will usually radiate enough joy and kindness to leave the world in a better state than they found it. 

Happy people are always the first to help you back to your feet when you fall down, but they are also less likely to knock you over in the first place.

Anger is the modern god. It is the newest, shiniest golden idol before which the masses bow. People see that the world has suffering in it, and they mistakenly believe that if they shout at the top of their lungs that they are displeased with the world’s imperfection, it will make them moral or virtuous. In fact, all they are ever doing is adding to the net suffering in the world, making it a little gloomier for everyone else, including those they think they are helping. 

I went to a strawberry picking event a couple years ago – “Surely this is a nonpartisan activity,” I foolishly thought - and saw two different people with the word “angry” printed on their shirts, just in case their scowls or numerous bumper stickers didn’t get the point across. They were plucking ripe, juicy berries, filled with summer’s sweet blood, with their loved ones, and yet they felt the need to let everyone around them know they were generally displeased. The world was not good enough for them. What a strange way to spend the very limited time you are allotted here with your loved ones. 

I went to a carnival this summer and saw a large group of people all wearing the exact same shirt proclaiming that they were “not sheep.” All I could think was that wearing the exact same shirt as all your friends while touting your individuality is exactly the sort of thing sheep would do. It was peak irony, bowing before the god of anger. 

The most popular yard sign in the region where I live is a series of aggressive political assertions, printed in a list and set out so that strangers can – nay, must - read them as they pass by. It’s a sign people buy and put in their yard so that they can argue with everyone who passes, even when they aren’t home. It’s like putting out candy in a bowl while you are away on Halloween, except instead of sweets it’s combative slogans you didn’t actually think up yourself. It is a great way to “talk” about politics without ever having to hear a perspective different than your own. It’s perfect if you want to state your beliefs but never want to have to answer in-depth questions about them. It’s kind of like wearing a slogan on a shirt at a carnival. 

If my political, philosophical or theological ideologies can ever be summed up in a tidy list of one-liners on a small sign, or if they fit on a t-shirt or bumper sticker, I’ll know the time has arrived to rethink - and perhaps add some heft and nuance to - my beliefs.  

Whenever I see political yard signs, I can’t help but think that the people who put them out are arguing with strangers and quarreling with the wind. 

Mark Twain once instructed us: “Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.” I would add that, perhaps we also shouldn’t waste our lives bickering with people who aren’t even there. I admit, I did once try to purchase a yard sign that stated: “My political beliefs are so interesting I thought you’d want to read about them while your dog goes to the bathroom on my lawn.”

There is an old story about an angry man who journeyed to see the Buddha. When he arrived, he told the Buddha that he had a fairly good life, but he also had many problems. He listed them off, the various injustices and issues that plagued him, and asked the wise teacher to help. 

“Everyone has problems,” replied the Buddha. “I can’t change that.”

The man was displeased with the answer. 

“I thought you were supposed to be wise?!” he said. “You haven’t helped me at all!”

“Maybe I have,” explained the Buddha. “You see, everyone in the world has 83 problems, including you. But what I told you can prevent you from having the 84th problem.”

“Yeah? And which problem is that?” asked the irritated man.

“Your 84th problem is that you don’t want to have any problems,” said the Buddha. “What I told you can solve that, and once you solve your 84th problem, many of the others will take care of themselves.”

There are about 350 million people in the country where I live, and nearly all of them have announced, quite loudly and frequently on social media, that they are, and will remain, miserable until all of their problems are solved. There will be no peace until everything everyone says on Twitter agrees with them completely. They fail to understand that many problems are actually blessings, many blessings (even wealth) are actually curses, and we are usually far too bewildered to know the difference until we look back on our lives as they near their end. Yes, we all suffer, and yes, we all have much to be thankful for. These two things are true, and they are not mutually exclusive. 

One of the greatest books I’ve ever read is “The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco. In it, a brilliant monk named William of Baskerville investigates a series of murders in a monastery. In the end, it turns out the killings were committed by a monk who believes that laughter is a sin. He plots to conceal a forbidden book, a treatise by Aristotle on the topic of comedy. In the murderer’s mind, laughter has the power to disrupt the stability of society, religion and even truth itself, and therefore should be avoided at all costs. He is willing to kill innocent people just to keep joy and happiness out of the world. He believes that being unhappy is a virtue and joy is a sin. He would fit right in, in the year 2022, in America. 

This summer with my daughter has been different than the seven that came before it. It’s been filled with many of the same adventures – fishing, swimming, playing in the sun – but now Hadley is old enough to notice the world, and people, around her. Now, for the first time, her feelings are impacted by the moods of the people she interacts with. Most of the people she talks to are wealthy and healthy, and have unlimited access to art and entertainment, but they are willfully morose, and they are very proud of it. I do not think they are bad, or even wrong, but I do think there is no better way to waste a life. 

I sincerely doubt the vast majority of the lessons I’ve taught my child will stick. She’ll grow up and find her own ways of thinking and living. But I do hope this lesson is one she chooses to keep: That the world will never be perfect, so those who can only be happy in a perfect world will NEVER be happy. Those who suffer needlessly cause the people around them to suffer, too, which is why the world is so messed up, to begin with. The only reliable way to make the world a better place, is to acknowledge and accept whichever grab bag of problems you receive from the cosmos (it’s probably around 83) and to try, at least, to avoid having the 84th problem, which is the worst one of all, and the most popular one in the world today. 

Do not argue with strangers. Don’t quarrel with the wind. Don’t wait for the world to be perfect to have a little fun. Your friends and neighbors will have better lives, if you heed this advice. 

When my daughter was alive but not yet born, living within her mother, we sat down one night, my wife and I, and her, to watch some TV. We viewed an episode of Doctor Who in which The Doctor and his companion, along with Vincent Van Gogh – who was dismissed by most in his life as “crazy” - fight a dangerous, invisible alien that is terrorizing rural France. It’s a hilarious story full of campy fun. But near the end, they transport the struggling painter, who would only become popular after his suicide in 1890, to a modern-day museum, so he can briefly glimpse the impact his art has on the world after he dies. There, more than a century in the future, Van Gogh listens as a scholar gives this assessment of the great painter’s work: “He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world. No one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world’s greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived.”

My wife is not a crier. In fact, I’m often stunned by her stoicism, surprised by the things that don’t make her cry. But that night, with our daughter suspended inside her like a living time machine floating through the darkness of space, she wept. I looked over and saw tears streaming down her face at a story about a painter who felt and sensed immense pain but decided to give the world nearly infinite beauty, before he departed.