"Ego Accolades" - Rusty Miller - Final Blog Post

 One important and recurring conclusion of the authors of Against Happiness is that there is vast intercultural and intracultural variation in standards and conceptions of happiness, and they also place great importance on how much our culture shapes our conceptions of happiness. I took some time to think about how America, and how my more intimate cultural context has shaped my own conception of happiness, and to consider whether American culture is conducive to happiness, or counter to happiness. The traditional way to tackle such a problem would likely be to display some nice graphs, demonstrating America’s “happiness index” followed by a graph of the increasing rates of antidepressant usage, and then tied up in a nice bow with the rate of suicidal ideation in American youth. However, if the authors of Against Happiness have taught me anything, it is that while these metrics can be useful and have their place, they offer an incomplete picture of the happiness of a culture. How then, can we more completely look at the happiness of American culture? We must start by looking at the things which fundamentally motivate Americans, and the things in which we strive for as individuals and as a culture. 

America, and many Americans, are fundamentally driven, or at the very least are expected to be driven, by what I would call “ego accolades”. The kinds of accolades or awards that we can pin on our shirt, hang on the wall, or float humbly into conversation in order to make ourselves feel better about who we are and what we’ve accomplished, and so that others may recognize and admire our successes. Since before I can remember, the things after which I was taught, and expected to strive, were these ego accolades. As early as elementary school there were things like “honor roll”, and for a kid growing up in a southern baptist church there was "Awana". 

The primary goal of school, and Awana, seemed not to be the experience or the learning to learn, but instead the evidence of having learned, and the accolades that are bestowed onto you for having learned. As you get older the ego accolades get a little less obvious, they transform from plastic jewels in a plastic crown to degrees, job titles and picket fences. The purpose of highschool seems to be to prepare for and get into a “good” college, the purpose of college to get a “good” job, and the purpose of a “good” job to obtain all of the material objects which signify to others (as well as yourself) that you are doing well for yourself. I realize this is obviously an oversimplification, and is far from being universally true for all Americans. But, in my experience this was the path that I was expected to follow, and the path that demonstrates a “successful” life for many Americans. If and when, we manage to stack up a sufficient amount of ego accolades, and especially those of sufficient quality, our lives can then be judged to be successful, and seemingly our happiness is deemed to be obtained. 

But at what point along this path do we begin to enjoy ourselves? To enjoy experience for the sake of experience? It seems as Alan Watts put it, that it is "all retch and no vomit" , like we are in a state of perpetually working toward some future in which we can kick our feet up and be content. This to me, is the state of American happiness. A state of perpetually being just beyond the reach of the present, in some romanticized version of the future where we will finally have everything we ever worked for, and can sit back and enjoy the happiness we have created for ourselves. It is my hope that we can recognize this pattern and this attitude toward happiness, and begin to cultivate first within ourselves and eventually within our culture an appreciation of experience for the sake of experience, and a love of the now for the sake of the now. To stop viewing our present state as some sort of stepping stone on the path toward a happy future. Happiness is in the here and now, and we must learn to appreciate that or it will forever lie out of our grasp in a future that simply is not coming. 

And just how can we do that? Well, you are in luck because I am simply not sure. Throughout my relatively young life, I have tried a number of avenues to reach happiness. First I tried to one that was given to me by my parents, being a devout fundamentalist christian, then I tried fitness, and I tried alcoholism, and none of them brought me any closer to what I would call true happiness. All of those things had their moments of happiness, seeing the gains at the gym, running a half marathon, enjoying the company of people at church, that blissful buzz of your fifth beer and into the eighth. But not one of them ever positioned me in a state of true happiness, which to me is defined by a consistent and persistent equanimity. Now, I am in a phase that I’m not sure is easily or entirely definable. A phase of service to others, of relentless self-care practices, of learning, and finally (and finally again related to what I said in my previous paragraph)  of “presence” practice. Through this presence practice in particular, I believe I am cultivating an appreciation of the now. An attitude of “being here now”. I am far from perfect when it comes to this of course, and I often find myself pulled out of the now and looking toward some other place, but in those moments which I do find myself fully present I experience a peace and happiness that I believe simply is not possible without an attitude of being grounded in the present. 

I want to add that I am grateful for having taken this class, and to have read the books we’ve read and had the discussions we’ve had in class. There are a number of very valuable lessons I am taking away from this class, and in the past months I have been paying special attention to the relationships in my life and doing my best to cultivate better, and more fulfilling (for all parties involved) relationships. Best wishes to everyone moving forward, I hope you find happiness. - Rusty