Happy: Why More or Less Everything is Absolutely Fine

Derren Brown

THINGS ARE NOT ALL AS GRASPABLE AND SAYABLE AS ON THE WHOLE WE ARE LED TO BELIEVE; MOST EVENTS ARE UNSAYABLE, OCCUR IN A SPACE THAT NO WORD HAS EVER PENETRATED From Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

There is no dress rehearsal for life. This is life; this is it, right now.

Key Takeaways 

• • We are, each of us, a product of the stories we tell ourselves.. The good news is that we can give ourselves permission to change our story. To act differently. To remind ourselves that we are not characters in a movie based on a true story, whose personalities are clearly defined and predictable. 

• ‘What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgements about these things.’ In other words, it is not events out there that cause our problems but rather our reactions to them: the stories we tell ourselves.

•  The groups with which we choose to identify will dictate whether we decide we’re doing well or falling short, and are thus a vital component of our feelings of well-being. it is not what we own that satisfies us but rather what we have in relation to what we feel is possible and attainable for ourselves. That is the tension that causes dissatisfaction.

• • The kind of self-image we may be best advised to seek, then, is not of ourselves as beautiful winners (as we are often told we should), but one wherein our strengths and weaknesses are realistically appraised with neither self-aggrandisement nor abnegation, and our share of inevitable failings looked upon with kindness and good humour.

• By contrast, a Considered Life is one in which we deeply engage with our own story. That means we need to identify what our story is and then know how to move it forward. If we don’t – if we swing between pain and boredom, or merely defy those who would dare to tell us what to do – we shut off important channels of development (and, therefore, life). Our authentic selves are not being honoured: they have allowed the toxic clutter and trauma of other peoples’ messed-up stories to confuse our own from an early age. We can pay attention to our anxieties, ask where they come from and of what difficult episodes in the past they remind us, and treat them as deep messages to enable us to reconsider our priorities.

• • A good relationship, like a good parent or a good death, need only be ‘good enough’, consisting of two people navigating each other’s inadequacies with kindness and sympathy

• Disturbance, then, can be a signal that we are moving in the right direction: namely, out of our comfort zone. To remain tranquil and comfortable would deny us our growth. To remain happy would stop us from flourishing

• Each moment you live passes and is gone, never to return. Life is too brief to not consider how to experience it at its best… When you reach the end of your life will you feel you lived a life worth living? 

Part One: Beginnings 1 Once Upon a Time

• A good magic trick forces the spectator to tell a story that arrives at an impossible conclusion, and the clearer the story is, the better.

We are, each of us, a product of the stories we tell ourselves. Some of our stories are brief and inconsequential, allowing us to get through our day and make sense of other people: Without them in place, we would see only a mess of details. If we were unable to form meaningful patterns, our lives would become overwhelmed.

• Other stories become deeply ingrained and in many ways define who we are. We tell ourselves tales about the future: ‘Oh, I’m an awkward misfit who looks terrible and always will.’
• Yet our entire past, which we feel (in many ways correctly) is responsible for how we behave today, is itself just a story we are telling ourselves in the here and now.
• Some of these stories are consciously constructed, but others operate without our knowledge, dictated by scripts handed to us by others when we were young. We can carry around the psychological legacy of our parents for our whole lives, whether bad or good.
• Many of these templates make it hard for us to feel happy: ‘You must achieve impressive things to be happy/loved.’ Or, ‘You must sacrifice your own happiness to make others feel better: that is the measure of your worth.’
• many people play out the same story:
• ‘What upsets people is not things themselves but their judgements about these things.’ In other words, it is not events out there that cause our problems but rather our reactions to them: the stories we tell ourselves.
• Perhaps the first mark of emotional maturity is to realise that there is an enormous gulf between the events of the world and what we do with them. Out There and In Here are two very different kingdoms, and other people are not accountable for how we feel.
• We are trapped inside our own heads. Our beliefs and understandings about the world are limited by that perspective. Schopenhauer wrote, ‘Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.’3 Of course, then, we mistake that story we’ve constructed of our lives as the truth.
• There is an infinite data source around you, but you are selecting, deleting, cloning and generalising from that source in order to provide a working model of your environment in which you can effectively function. You simply can’t take it all in at once, so you decide what might be important and largely make up the rest.
• The good news is that we can give ourselves permission to change our story. To act differently. To remind ourselves that we are not characters in a movie based on a true story, whose personalities are clearly defined and predictable. We, unlike them, can act out of character.
• Confirmation bias occurs when we notice things in the world that support our beliefs and pay less attention to things that contradict them. We operate under its influence whenever we notice the annoying habits of someone we dislike, more than her pleasant ones. Confirmation bias provides daily all the evidence we need to keep the storyline we’ve created for our life continuing in the same vein and looking like the truth.

3 Wanting

• We choose our lifestyles – our houses, our clothes, our watches – with other people in mind. One way or another, we project a style designed to make others admire or envy us.
• We all have some sort of image we like to project, and whether that image is trendy, tweedy or just a mess, there will be something we’re identifying with and choosing to show the world.
• The things we desire really do little other than fuel further desires and teach us what greed is.
• In the accumulation of material things, no deep satisfaction is to be found, other than fleeting pleasure and the temporary delight of impressing others. Both of these are short-lived (before we return to our default level of happiness), and ultimately controlled by other people or things.
• We choose whom to impress based on how impressive they seem to us, and if they fail to be convinced by our attempts, then we tend to feel anxious. This is neither a healthy nor a happy cycle.

‘reference group theory’: the idea that in forming our self-identity, we compare ourselves to those in our peer group. Our cognitions, perceptions, attitudes and conceptions of ourselves are all tied in with those to whom we liken or contrast ourselves.

• Driven as we are to form these self-evaluations, the groups with which we choose to identify will dictate whether we decide we’re doing well or falling short, and are thus a vital component of our feelings of well-being.
• ‘the great possessions of the rich do not worry the poor’, adding, ‘on the other hand, if the wealthy man’s possessions fail, he is not consoled by the many things he already possesses. Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.’
• it is not what we own that satisfies us but rather what we have in relation to what we feel is possible and attainable for ourselves. That is the tension that causes dissatisfaction.

Stoics 

• Epicurus saw human needs as divisible into three categories, and Schopenhauer clarifies Epicurus’s classifications: 
  • Natural and necessary needs – which cause pain if not satisfied. Essentially food and clothing, which are easy to satisfy. 
  • Natural but unnecessary needs – such as sexual satisfaction – which are more difficult to satisfy. 
  • Neither natural nor necessary needs – such as the latest gadget, other luxuries and personal fame – which are without end and difficult to satisfy.

• The places and things that insist most loudly that they will make us happy rarely do. Joy alone, says Schopenhauer, has declined to be present at the festival. It prefers to arrive quietly and alone elsewhere, unceremoniously and unannounced. Meanwhile, we search for happiness in distractions.
• When you travel (or for that matter attend a party), you always take yourself with you. Seneca highlighted the core point: ‘You need a change of soul, not a change of climate.’
  • Similar to “The only Zen you find on the top of a mountain is the Zen you brought there.” 

Part Two: Solutions 4 The Considered Life

• In the same way an architect needs plans and an understanding of overarching structure when she comes to build a house, it would be madness for us not to pay attention to the foundations and overall vision of our lives.

Living a considered life. 

• I am talking about engaging with and owning our life stories; of being able to step back far enough to see them for what they are; of finding a way of living that has come from due thought rather than a passive immersion in the tangles of everyday distractions.
• Our philosophy can be highly flexible and subject to great changes, but the important point, I believe, is to have one, and one that enables us to live more fully. It does not need to be easily describable in its entirety, or clearly attributable to any philosophical school; although it should stand up to scrutiny and enquiry, being thought through and considered.
  • It must give us a solid foundation without limiting us by insisting on a set of beliefs. If we don’t assume more conscious authorship of our stories, others will write them for us, and we will invariably find ourselves fundamentally bored or anxious and prone to any number of complaints from within.
  • The greatest burden a child must bear, we remember from Jung, is the unlived lives of its parents.

Leading a considered life is about getting our story right for ourselves. It’s as simple as that. If we, at any point in our lives, can look at what we’re up to and feel that everything is more or less in its place, and that our story is on the right tracks, we will have a good basis for happiness.

Two selves: The Experiencing Self and the Remembering Self 

• When we look back over our lives and decide if we have had a happy time in this world, it is the remembering self that is making that judgement. However, it may be that some of those choices we made, which satisfied the future remembering self, were not at the time the most enjoyable experiences and therefore did not provide particular pleasure to the experiencing self.
• Thus you might choose to spend an afternoon attending to a sick relative rather than go to a theme park with friends, choosing the least ‘pleasurable’ option and leaving your experiencing self less fulfilled. But this choice might furnish your future remembering self with a better story of how you spent your afternoon and even contribute to a wider sense of happiness regarding what you do with your life.

‘decision utility’ and ‘experienced utility’

• In other words, we don’t make decisions based on our experiences. We make them based on the stories of our experiences. And we don’t form our stories based on an accurate reflection of experience.
• We care a lot about endings when we consider stories. They tend to define the character of the whole tale.
  • would you go on a holiday knowing that all memory of it would be wiped from your brain (and camera) the moment it was over? Probably not. Mere pampering to the experiencing self is not enough; we want memories too.

Regaining Authorship

• We are missing out if we feel that happiness is a result of lucky circumstance rather than something rooted immovably in us. For it to be solid, our happiness would not rely on fortuity or what we happen to have. It would be fundamentally about who we are.
• Schopenhauer wrote (and we can include the ladies too), ‘are intent merely on how to spend their time; a man with any talent is interested in how to use his time.’
• The considered life – in which we take back authorship of our narratives – gives some structure to that self-image and resists its distortion by others. It is not to deny our weaknesses by developing an unrealistic faith in strengths we don’t possess.
• The sign of the true expert is his modest awareness of how much more there is to know; how complex and nuanced the subject at hand insists on remaining. Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind 
• The kind of self-image we may be best advised to seek, then, is not of ourselves as beautiful winners (as we are often told we should), but one wherein our strengths and weaknesses are realistically appraised with neither self-aggrandisement nor abnegation, and our share of inevitable failings looked upon with kindness and good humour.
• Choosing a lifestyle that makes a statement of non-conformity (or a rejection of parental expectations) might work as a temporary rite of passage to a more independent place, but in as much as it relies on the ‘enemy’ to know what to reject, it remains tied to and dependent upon the opposition.
  • It may give the illusion of authorship, but ‘fuck you’ is too much about the ‘you’; its centre of gravity is external. It’s also, in the longer term, a very unhappy stance.

• By contrast, a considered life is one in which we deeply engage with our own story. That means we need to identify what our story is and then know how to move it forward. If we don’t – if we swing between pain and boredom, or merely defy those who would dare to tell us what to do – we shut off important channels of development (and, therefore, life). Our authentic selves are not being honoured: they have allowed the toxic clutter and trauma of other peoples’ messed-up stories to confuse our own from an early age. We can pay attention to our anxieties, ask where they come from and of what difficult episodes in the past they remind us, and treat them as deep messages to enable us to reconsider our priorities.

The roots of self-enquiry

In his book Philosophy For Life, Jules Evans sets out four steps of the Socratic tradition:

1. Humans can know themselves. We can use our reason to examine our unconscious beliefs and values. 
2. Humans can change themselves. We can use our reason to change our beliefs. This will change our emotions, because our emotions follow our beliefs. 
3. Humans can consciously create new habits of thinking, feeling and acting. 
4. If we follow philosophy as a way of life, we can live more flourishing lives.5

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There is no dress rehearsal for life. This is life; this is it, right now.

• Each moment you live passes and is gone, never to return. Life is too brief to not consider how to experience it at its best. This is not about bungee jumping or forming an extravagant bucket list. It can happen in the ordinary moments of your everyday life.
• Living a considered and truly affirmed life would be happy for it to be lived over and over again for eternity:
  • What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’
  • Would you live your life over and over again exactly as it happened? Is your centre of gravity within you, with your self-image sturdy and tenacious, or is it outside of you and woefully subject to the inconstancies of fate and the intimations of others? And when you reach the end of this life, will you feel you have lived a life worth living?

5 A (Very) Brief History of Happiness

• IT’S A STRANGE thought. We take it for granted that happiness is a birthright, a sign of a life successfully lived. We talk about being happy, or otherwise, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to understand.
• We can recognise what it is we like about somebody (some aspect of their beauty, or their goodness, or intelligence, or wit) and admire it as a quality quite separate from that particular person, rather than confusing it with him or her. We can learn from it, perhaps try to develop it in ourselves and know how to recognise it in others.
• We are far less likely to come to idolise a person if we can recognise that what we admire about them are qualities that exist separately from the particular (and therefore flawed) example that they constitute.
• Like Plato, he saw the natural aim of human life, and the best condition of the soul, as eudaimonia, which is roughly synonymous with happiness, or more accurately ‘flourishing’.
• Aristotle would say, the key to our happiness? In other words, what separates us from other forms of life? Aristotle supplies us with the answer: reason. What, then, is the highest aim of this reason? To ensure happiness. Success at being human would amount to the best, or most virtuous, use of reason. Flourishing – Aristotle’s take on happiness – is ‘an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue’.
• Aristotle suggests we are to fulfil what is highest in our nature, and rather than doing this in the way that Plato encourages (through the contemplation of lofty, eternal Ideas), we should instead use our reason to work out the best thing to do in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
• Aristotle, could be found in balancing extreme qualities with their opposites: finding the mean. For example: courage taken to an extreme is foolhardiness; its opposite is cowardliness. A virtuous person treads the middle path. Between licentiousness and asceticism lies temperance; between shyness and shamelessness lies modesty. Temperance and modesty, then, are amongst our virtues.
• Excessive behaviours tend to be easier to exhibit than virtues, so in order to tread the middle path we must practise well, as a musician practises his instrument, and be on our guard against temptations, our biases and our unhelpful tendencies. There is a sort of muscle-memory to ethics: we learn to act in a way that is appropriate until it comes naturally.
• Using an analogy of an archer before a target, Aristotle believed that ethical enquiry could allow us to see our target more clearly. The aim was not to identify the target as such, but to allow us to discriminate better and see more clearly.

• This is our condition. Here on the one hand is the world, full of rich and mysterious things, experiences and people; and here on the other is our need to navigate it, and the only compass we know how to use has been battered and misaligned long ago.
• To forge ahead and do our best, we have to turn an ambiguous world into a set of easily navigable certainties. Thus we name the unnameable so we can identify it, tick it off and move forward. To get our bearings, we glibly label those things that remain eternally unresolved. We overgeneralise and reduce in order to make sense of the world and our place in it.

Instead, happiness shows itself to be a kind of activity, something that happens through our fluctuating relationship to life, others, fortune and ourselves. Prior to Plato, we saw the world as a state of flux. Heraclitus told us: ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.’

• Mindfulness is just paying deliberate attention in the present: noticing things. When we are mindful, we turn off our autopilot and switch back on.
• Two hundred and seventy-seven performances of my secular faith-healing show Miracle have convinced me of the psychological component of many debilitating afflictions, and the power that can come from harnessing the stories we tell ourselves about them.
• The mortality rate was twice as high in the group that had all their decisions made for them. Being granted authorship of our stories, and experiencing mindfulness rather than mindlessness, makes for happier and healthier lives.

In matters of love, a mature relationship involves celebrating the mystery and wholeness of one’s partner. It is standing in appreciation of their otherness, not neurotically attempting to obliterate it because at some level their separation from us might trigger responses we once had to a fallible, unavailable parent.

• It is realising that we are each of us alone, that no one is ever entirely right for us because we are all broken, and that we can only open our broken aloneness to that of another.’
• A good relationship, like a good parent or a good death, need only be ‘good enough’, consisting of two people navigating each other’s inadequacies with kindness and sympathy.
• In matters of love, we see there is no single perfect partner who will give us everything we need, because we project those needs upon them, placing upon them impossible demands, unless our expectations are brought in check.
• At its best, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke tells us, it ‘consists in two solitudes protecting, defining, and welcoming one another’. Likewise, a mature life, and a flourishing one, involves standing in toleration and acknowledgement of ambiguity rather than greeting it with disappointment.

Our ultimate aim is maybe not so much to be happy as to live fully and make sure we are moving forward. Rilke suggests ‘imagining an individual’s experience as a larger or smaller room … most people are only acquainted with one corner of their particular room, a place by the window, a little area to pace up and down’.3

• Wholeness cannot be found in the mere avoidance of troubling feelings, however helpful the tools of the Stoics are for reassessing attachments and finding one’s centre of gravity. To live without anxiety is to live without growth. We shouldn’t try to control what we cannot, and we must take responsibility for our feelings. But the reason for this is to walk out into the world with strength, not to hide from danger.
  • If you feel anxiety, let it sit. See if it is amenable to the lessons we have learnt from the Stoics. You don’t need to fix things that lie outside of your control. You also don’t need to fix the anxiety: it is a feeling that you have; it is therefore not you. The need to fix, to control is what fuels the anxiety in the first place. Let it be, and it will lose its excessive force. Then, once you are no longer running away with it, or trying to remove it, you might even welcome it.

• Why? Because the Stoics can’t always be right. We cannot demand from them a formula for our happiness, because no such formula exists; happiness is messy and fuzzy and active.
• Disturbance, then, can be a signal that we are moving in the right direction: namely, out of our comfort zone. To remain tranquil and comfortable would deny us our growth. To remain happy would stop us from flourishing.

The final call, then, is not to merely seek tranquillity but, from its strong shores, to welcome its opposite. It is a strong society that encourages dialogue with its enemies, and a fearful one that promulgates reductive nouns and categories (such as ‘Terror’) to demonise and avoid the unsettling complexities of active, untidy reality. We, too, must seek the same conversation within ourselves. And do so before the forces we repress rage against us.