The October Diaries III | The Pursuit of Opposition

October 3,

If you wanted to tuck a dagger neatly into your back, you'd settle for the conclusion that life is, at its core, a pursuit of happiness. I argue that this illusion is in sore need of being dispelled. Every journey, if we factor in every detail in its entirety, teaches us precisely the opposite about the meaning of happiness. If we are keen enough, we find that the achievement is negligible with regards to the struggle we endured on its behalf.


So why might we ever be so naive to think of happiness as … a pursuit?


Every day, we are surrounded by telltale signs of happiness’ transience, how briefly it flutters, and how our expectations of finding it in a certain career point or objects are almost always much grander than what we feel in the end, the resulting bliss far more fleeting than anticipated. Almost always, we are left sighing, wondering when that next burst of joy will come along. Like children that have just devoured an unexpected treat granted to them by their parents, once the sugar rush dies, we’re left with a desire for the next cookie. 


So just what do we expect to find once we ‘get’ to happiness? Once we’ve ‘got’ it after pursuing it for so long? And just who the hell pursued happiness and caught the damned bastard? After thousands of years of human history, still nobody is bearing the legend of being eternally happy. We have, at best, characters that have mastered the art of contentment, but even that settles for an admittedly less exciting feeling than 'happiness'. It seems a wistful dream.


As a concept of an idyllic continuum, it is. Happiness is one small fraction of the human experience, a fraction that society has romanticized and sensationalized ad nauseam. It is unhealthy and twisted, to tantalize children and adults alike with the notion that happiness is something we find and achieve rather than discipline ourselves into realizing throughout life.

Life isn’t so much a pursuit of happiness than it is a journey of disillusioning ourselves of the countless misconceptions that we are surrounded by, the misconceptions which stagnate our ability to navigate stress and challenges with a mindset for transmuting adversity into fortitude.

From an early age we are taught, or perhaps it is an instinct, to seek comfortability, satisfaction, and joy. The underlying, subconscious thoughts that are hardwired into our minds when we wake up aren’t, “I will make this a good day,” rather, “Will this be a bad one?” We approach the world too timidly, we fool ourselves, as if we aren’t already aware that the nature of our existence is a painful and difficult one. We can’t seem to remember that, not long enough to consider our actions and thoughts carefully enough, at least.

Yet this fact has been evident since we were children. We can’t always have treats, we can’t always play, we can’t indulge in laziness too long, and it seems the older we get, the less reprieve we have from the chaos of it all.
 Life is unfair; the world is, on average, cruel; nature has, seemingly, no greater purpose behind its cold mechanisms.

It’s easy to think nihilistically about existence because it seems, with these details in mind, to be the most rational response to the world.

But I think that this philosophy is dangerous in its nearsightedness. It misses the point, or rather, it fails to imagine more than one. We’re not too stupid to realize the nature of the world, so we shouldn’t expect our intelligence to stop when it comes to regarding ourselves and our potential for individual fulfillment within its context. It’s simply a tough reality to swallow—something we must continually remind ourselves of—but that doesn't mean it gives us an excuse to not thrive.

Instead of grasping onto our ever-dwindling levels of comfort that have only ever been shrinking since childhood, we should seek to swiftly disillusion ourselves of the ‘pursuit’ of happiness, and instead embrace what I like to call the realization of it. Or rather, the pursuit of its counterpart: opposition.


Suffering and happiness create a paradox, the snake eating its own tail. And with human nature woven in to truly muddle the picture into oblivion, (or to create it in the first place) we’re left with an impressive puzzle to play with, but one that is far simpler than it seems.


Mastering a sense of contentment or fulfillment has little to do with the pursuit of happiness, though it may seem counterintuitive to think so. In essence, ever day is a presentation of obstacles; there is no escaping the eternal presence of difficulty. But instead of begrudging life for having this abusive nature, we should be grateful for how consistent it is. If life was a chess player, it’d play the same poison pawn every gods-damned chance it got. It’s about time we stopped fooling ourselves into thinking that it’s going to change its play style after six million years of evolution. We’re evolved to survive in this environment, for heaven’s sake, so let’s start acting like it. This is supposed to be difficult. You are supposed to cry, and you are supposed to learn how to square your shoulders afterwards.

With such a predictable element of chaos, life gives us exactly the right hints by which to win at its game. Instead of trying to rely on the transience of happiness, we should rely, instead, on the much more predictable presence of opposition. Therefore, pursue conflict, embrace the unfairness of the game, challenge yourself to master this playing field; learn to thrive in your own style, rather than complain when life's predictable dance makes slights against you.


The pressence of opposition and challenge is a certainty. Happiness, in external forms, is not. So if happiness is not a certainty, is it folly to seek a similar consistence? Yes, if we are hoping for it to come from somewhere beyond us. But not so much, if we decide to forge it within ourselves. Chaos is never reliable, even if it is predictable, but we, as individuals, can aspire to be.


What can potentially be the underlying certainty is our resolve to shape ourselves within that chaos.
 And that, with the right amount of dedication, is worth betting on.

Life is an opportunity to make our strength, our passion, our inspiration, and our desire to contribute, an equally consistent force as the chaos that we face. We can never be perfect, but in striving for high ideals of individual growth, we can learn to embrace everyday challenges as readily as we might jump at momentary joys. Of course, we’ll never do so with such childlike indulgence, but we can endeavor to actualize a wholesome, mature attempt at honing ourselves.


Accept happiness as a grace, not a reward. Your strength, your willpower, your stamina to weather the storm, make those your rewards. They are not transient, they are muscles, and exercising them only makes them stronger, unlike relying on happiness, which merely weakens our resolve to further conquer opposition.


The more that we seek out situations that make us uncomfortable, the more that we pursue our ambitions, the more seasoned we will be when it comes to meeting those unexpected pitfalls. If we go about our numbered days relying on comfort as markers of movement, we’ll doom ourselves to be disheartened by the same trials time and time again, thereby inviting misery into our lives more often than it needs to be. But if we rise to meet our darkest fears and doubts and make it a habit of doing so, soon enough, the unexpected and the difficult will become far easier to face. And in this sense, we are seeking not happiness from the world, but substance. We are seeking depth, wisdom, and wholesome attributes whose longevity is priceless. And with this mindset of embracing opposition so that we may grow, happiness and joy will fall into place, as the normal casualties of day-to-day misfortunes become less and less harrowing.


Our environment is chaos. Fighting it with a chaotic heart and mind is only adding fuel to the fire. So instead, we should strive so that in every instance of opposition, we greet chaos with a desire to manifest order—first within ourselves, and then the world—such that it becomes a habit, an instinct, not to shy away from life’s difficulties, but to see them for the opportunities they are; for they are, in essence, what has trained the human heart to have depth, the mind to possess cunning intellect, and the body to foster stamina.


Without challenge and tension, we are little less than fragile skeletons, wandering from one hollow indulgence to the next, never quite seeing the greater picture, but more importantly, never quite getting to enjoy and savor it for all that it is. And thusly, never being able to savor happiness, not as a separate entity to pursue above all else, but as a necessary fragment, just like all the others crucial to that brilliant story—of humanity’s chaos.