Finding Happiness

Happiness is elusive and mysterious. Do we actually ever truly feel happy? I assure you I am not trying to depress you, nor am I being cynical. It is not so much a question of what makes us feel happy, but rather of at what moment we actually feel happy, and if that moment actually exist.

What does it mean to feel happy anyway? Is it when we have a bounce in our step or a glow on our face? Does happiness equate to an excited or elated state of being? Is it chemical or biological? If that is the case, does it seem odd that we often have happy memories of times that were not necessarily happy moments? Sometimes difficult experiences lead to happy memories, and we MIGHT actually have proportionally more happy memories stemming from troubling times. There in lies the beauty of nostalgia—an ability to idealize the past. We have the luxury of reliving moments of our lives in ways different from the first time around. I think it is quite possible that we ONLY truly feel happy when we reflect on our past experiences.

The full extent of happiness is beyond the scope of this discussion, but I would like to emphasize a few aspects that relate to the past. Happiness is coming to terms with an experience—feeling settled or resolved. Happiness is surviving a traumatic event and living to tell about it. Happiness is correcting a wrong done by us, or to us. Happiness is reliving a version of a fond memory.

This topic specifically relates to the experience of a character from a novel called An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel is one of a few selected titles for the English 353 class at California State University, Chico. Ishiguro introduces the character Masuji Ono through a dialog that paints an endearing picture of this affable man living in post World War II Japan. Some of the questions raised are whether or not he is an honorable man, if his story is accurate, and what effect his artwork had on Japan during World War II.

Ultimately, I believe the story is about Masuji Ono pursuing happiness by reconciling his past—by exploring the dialog within his mind. Perhaps it is the author's intention to capture this internal dialog, but let us be clear that it is not a pure dialog. One of the hurdles of completely understanding Ono is that while his story is told through his narration, its timing is controlled by the author. The release of information is controlled in order to build the perspectives of those around Ono. Sometimes Ono only appears to be naive, or selective with certain past details.

A major component of Ono's quest in understanding his past, or a version of it, is maintaining an internal sense of honor. In fact, it appears maintaining honor is the goal of everyone around him. Some look to rebuild an old Japan, some look to adopt Western culture, some look for atonement, some even look for suicide. It appears that in the midst of a culture in flux, its people are desperately looking for the same thing, namely, happiness through honor.