How happy are you?

While this question may evoke many possible answers, an effort is being made to measure & quantify happiness across the world.  The World Happiness Report is the outcome of such an effort and claims to be a landmark survey of the state of global happiness. The formal reporting started three years ago, in 2012, and the latest report was published in April 2015.   

The authorities involved in publishing the report have even made up an imaginary country called Dystopia to help them to have a benchmark. They explain the rationale behind naming the country - Since life would be very unpleasant in a country with the world’s lowest incomes, lowest life expectancy, lowest generosity, most corruption, least freedom and least social support, it is referred to as Dystopia, in contrast to Utopia. 

While the report gets wide attention to know how different countries have fared, does it really add value? Is it worth the effort to conduct the survey, consolidate, compile and publish reports? Well, happiness is just a state of mind. What makes you happy in a moment may not really mean anything the next immediate moment. Can this mental state be effectively captured by means of a survey?    

This debate is not new and in fact the authors try addressing this in Chapter 2 of the report "The geography of world happiness". They also mention why the word "happiness" was used in the title instead of "subjective well-being".  However the criticism and concerns continue to pour in. Anyway finally it all boils down to "How happy are you?". What say you?

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Pride comes before fall

We have heard this popular saying that suggests us not to be braggers. It indicates that if a person keeps boasting then eventually that person will face downfall. And that is a certainty. But what constitutes "pride"? Neuroscientists have painstakingly studied the details of different cognitive aspects of human brain and theorize that pride is one of the social emotions. This means it is a resultant of representation of mental states of other people with whom we interact. It is about how we perceive other’s admiration for us.

 

Now why is pride such a bad thing that it causes one’s journey down the hill? As one becomes obsessed with one’s own achievements and craves for acclaim from others a false sense of confidence creeps into the mind which plays its own tricks on the person’s behavior. The person becomes a slave of his emotions and goes to the extremes to strengthen the position by committing irrational actions. He fails to see faults in his deeds. In such a condition one would only want to hear that he alone is great and be surrounded by followers who would be interested in fueling his idée fixe. And this leads one far away from the absolute truth. The moment a person deviates from the truth, the downfall is inevitable. 

A stanza from Sri Adi Shankaracharya’s Bhaja Govindam says:

Do not boast of wealth, friends and youth. Each one of these will be destroyed within a fraction of time. Free yourself from the illusion of the world of Maya and attain the timeless Truth. 

Once we get involved in the clasp of Maya, we fail to observe the reality. Our pride makes us fallacious. We lose our mental faculties to reason and keep boasting our own abilities, achievements, and belongings. We don’t realize that it is just a matter of time when each of those that we would pride upon could just crumble. They would not be with us anymore! So it is important for us to be aware of the illusion, the Maya that surrounds us. Let us be humble always and remember that pride comes before fall.                

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Rendezvous with destiny

Destiny is explained in the dictionary as something that is to happen to a particular person or predetermined, usually inevitable course of events. It is also known as fate which is the force or agency that predetermines the fortune befalling a person. 

As the events are apparently inevitable, nobody has the power to manipulate these events. Now the obvious question would arise in a person’s rational mind: Who is behind the destiny and is there a basis for deciding on the seemingly fixed events in one’s life?

Action vs Destiny

Numerous theories exist. Lots of pages have been written on this topic in an attempt to explain this reasonably. While going through so much of information, I encountered another question. “Is everything predetermined or only some events are destined?” 

Pondering over this question, my brain’s logical faculty responded in the negative. Right now, right here I could perform an action, which if it is predetermined, will have no meaning on my action. Rather I cannot even call it my action. 

It is someone else’s action. And who could be this someone interested in nothing but slavery controlling everyone’s actions? It doesn’t make sense. 

Free Will

It is then I discovered the concept of free will. This free will is something that I can exercise to perform a deed. Nobody else but I have the control over it. The adage “Where there is a will there is a way” is so true. It need not be always in the form of a physical action; thinking can also be a form of free will. 

And we know actions in abstract form are thoughts. Now let us return to the original question. If free will is in my control why would some events be predetermined & who is responsible for this decision?      

Conscience

In my opinion, it is only fair & logical to relate our own self as the answer to this question. The particular individual who has the ability of exercising free will is the one who is also responsible for creating the destiny. Sounds absurd? At the outset, possibly yes. To explain this let us now focus on the term conscience. 

It is defined as a person’s moral sense of right and wrong. It would act as a guide to one’s behavior. The universe we live in is a closed loop system. 

When the free will exercised by an individual is in synchronization with the conscientiously right part, the feedback will positively boost the will. But when the free will is in opposition with the right part of conscience, a negative feedback will ensue. 

Let us take an analogy of a huntsman. With his limited application of free will, he hunts animals for his livelihood which results in positive feedback. However if he kills human beings or kills animals just for amusement when he intrinsically knows that it is not righteous, then he will receive negative feedback.

Let us stop blaming fate or destiny when things go wrong. We should not forget that we are creators of our destiny. The reins of life are in our control and let us resolve to guide ourselves in the righteous path.

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Pale Blue Dot

What is our purpose?

Ever since my intellect prompted me to think about life on earth, I've been wondering why we, human beings, have turned a blind eye towards our origins and purpose. We have made superb advancements in science and technology. We have built huge, powerful telescopes to look into the sky and understand the universe. We have even witnessed creation of planets. 

We have gathered information about a star's life cycle, solar system, asteroids & comets, moons of different planets, galaxies, black holes and the list goes on. Never before we did have access to so much information about Earth, our own home, and our surroundings. 
Armed with this information, now we know how puny our own planet is in comparison with other celestial bodies. But does each one of us realize this ? Perhaps not. And that's one of the reasons why earth is plagued today by hatred, corruption and other social evils. 

Image source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PaleBlueDot.jpg)

Carl Sagan & his work

This precisely is one of the topics articulated by Carl Sagan, a famous American astronomer & cosmologist. A few years ago, one of my friends introduced me to the great work done by Carl Sagan and one particular piece struck a chord with me - "A pale blue dot".  The Pale Blue Dot is the title of a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers. 

In this photograph, Earth's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight scattered by the camera's optics. In his book by the same title as the photograph, Sagan reflects that "Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot."..."To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known..."

Please go through this impressive short video that shows a glimpse of Sagan's work with a beautiful narration that would certainly captivate us. I believe it would help in appreciating the deeper meaning of seemingly just another photograph, prompting our minds to think in the right direction and enable us to lead a peaceful life thereby making Earth a better place.

Video source: Youtube (https://youtu.be/p86BPM1GV8M)

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