Happy Is as Happy Does
Acta Non Verba
You worry about your own game. There's plenty there to keep you busy. —Herb Brooks
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Above: A portrait of the artist writer as a young man boy.
Happiness is a funny, fickle thing.
It leaps and bounds and jumps and scuttles and hides and seeks and peeks and surprises.
It resembles a rabbit: wonderful to behold, but hard to catch.
It is similar to sleep: the more you try for it, the less likely it is to come.
It’s like a Chinese finger trap: release comes from pushing together, not pulling apart.
It’s easy to recognize, but hard to define—as Justice Potter Stewart famously uttered, “[You] know it when [you] see it.”
Like good writing, it is more showing than telling. A wide grin and booming laugh say a lot more than a litany of “I’m happys.” In fact, the more you say you are something, the less likely it is to be true (e.g. those that anoint themselves innovative or funny or trustworthy). Acta non verba.
Though perceived externally, it is an inside job. It’s less about the smile and more so the soul. It is assurance of one’s goodness by doing right by yourself, your loved ones, your world.
Above all, happiness is a byproduct, not a destination or end all be all.
It is not a target at which to aim, but an outcome which to savor.
How can one find it?
The opening of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina proves apt: "All happy [people] are alike; each unhappy [person] is unhappy in its own way."
You really don’t need all that much. Below are a few indispensable things from my own personal experience:
A person to love
A faith to guide
A family to cherish
An environment to inspire awe
A cause to champion
A hobby to pursue
A community to foster
The solace in knowing that you have led a life worth living
By opening yourself up to these things you leave yourself vulnerable to hurt and loss, but the joy of love is far more powerful than the pain of regret.
As Voltaire wrote in Candide, we all must cultivate our garden. It is simple and straightforward, as told by Luke Combs in “Does To Me”
So say I'm a middle of the road
Not much to show
Underachieving, average Joe
But I'm a hell of a lover
A damn good brother
And I wear this heart on my sleeve
And that might not mean much to you
But it does to me
Just as I did at the beginning of this piece, retrieve a picture of yourself as a child, give it a long, hard look, and heed Lt. Col. Frank Slade’s stirring call to arms in Scent of a Woman:
You hold this boy's/girl’s future in your hands…It's a valuable future. Believe me.
Don't destroy it! Protect it. Embrace it.
It's gonna make ya proud one day — I promise you.
Do the work required to be a person deserving of happiness.
The (wo)man in the mirror is as good a place to start as any.
Per my about page, White Noise is a work of experimentation. I view it as a sort of thinking aloud, a stress testing of my nascent ideas. Through it, I hope to sharpen my opinions against the whetstone of other people’s feedback, commentary, and input.
If you want to discuss any of the ideas or musings mentioned above or have any books, papers, or links that you think would be interesting to share on a future edition of White Noise, please reach out to me by replying to this email or following me on Twitter X.
With sincere gratitude,
Tom
I feel like I've seen a reference to that Candide line somewhere else recently...