We value life, not because it is short, but because it is fleeting. The fleeting moments in our life, as trivial as they might seem, are the building blocks of our lives — like a splatter of paint across a blank canvas. C.P. Cavafy, a Greek poet wrote about the importance of these little moments in his poem “Ithaka.” A homage to Homer’s Odyssey, throughout the poem, Cavafy highlights the importance of the journey compared to the destination:
“Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. / Without her you wouldn’t have set out. / She has nothing left to give you now. / And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you./ Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, / you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”
Just as the pursuit of Ithaka cannot be summed into reaching Ithaka but rather in the process of getting there, life cannot be lumped into one big question: what is the meaning of life? We must diffuse life’s weight across scattered, impermanent bursts of happenings to make the burden of existence less intolerable and find meaning in the actual living rather than achieving. To do this, we have to aim to increase joy in our daily lives and derive value not by focusing on reaching Ithaka, but in the little moments it took to get there.
Inherently, humans are pleasure-driven animals. Most if not all of our decisions come from our belief in the ability of that choice to give us pleasure. Why do people work? It is because they know that the suffering they go through in working will inevitably lead to money which they can use to indulge in activities that please them. George Stefano, director at the Neurosciences Research Institute at the State University of New York, after being questioned on his perspective of the importance of pleasure in our lives, defined its role as a determinant of our rational thinking and a “crucial component for making sense of the world.” Unfortunately, due to the significance of pleasure in our lives, it is also the main reason for our misery. Pleasure, according to Laval University physiologist Michel Caband, is a transient emotion meaning that it is a feeling that happens when we transition from a state of lacking to a state of fulfilment. Modern-day advancements, however, have resulted in easy access to an abundance of resources. Consequently, we are less deprived of our sources of pleasure and hardly appreciate the small things that would have given us pleasure if we were deprived of it. This has led some people to start seeking enjoyment from more drastic situations, such as achieving highly unattainable goals of a promotion or perfect grades, making the standards for happiness nearly impossible to meet. However, we cannot continue chasing the next extreme thing that is going to make us happy.
The best way to start appreciating the light-hearted moments is to limit the sources that one gains happiness from. Just as one must first be hungry to find joy in food — to encounter happiness, we must embrace these uncontrollable moments of negativity to focus more on the positives in our lives. However, these moments of negative emotions do not necessarily entail deprivation — they can mean a period of growing anticipation. While overall contentment is an achievable goal, everlasting joy or excitement is simply impossible for humans. We must face reality, a force beyond humans’ control, to truly experience life. If one continues to try and chase the high, the activities associated with joy will diminish in value and one will be left seeking more extreme activities to try and make up for the loss of pleasure. Even if these people achieve the thing that they want, they will be unable to relish it since they will constantly be asking themselves the same question: why am I not happier? However, suppose one accepts the unsustainable nature of seeking happiness and lets themselves succumb to other emotions. In that case, it becomes easier to feel happiness in the smallest things since they understand the rarity of it.
Secondly, we must redefine the relationship between life and happiness. There is an epidemic of people believing that genuine happiness and a meaningful life come from grandiose occasions. Even I am still trying to recognize that life and happiness do not have to hold so much meaning — they are not a reward for hard work, they are simply natural occurrences that can come unexpectedly in the form of a sunny day or a compliment from a stranger. Yes, both life and happiness are essentially what defines our existence but that does not mean it has to be deep or overly complicated. We do not need each moment of our being to be significant. As I stated above, our lives are simply a collection of fleeting moments. We, as humans, tend to think highly of ourselves and regard life as a noble quest we must brave, so much so that we tend to forget that life can simply be an uncontrollable, inevitable process. The beauty of the unpredictability of life is that it gives us infinite possibilities for happiness. Thus, instead of trying to create sources of pleasure, and pushing happiness away to achieve a milestone, let us make the best out of the turbulent, fleeting nature of life and find joy in all the crevices of our lives.
