Blue Fox Shaman

Bärchen: What the heck is all this mess, and this contraption…thingy?!

Fox: Oh, that. Sorry! I let The Guys use the spare room to do a little project. Doesn’t look like they quite finished, and left things in disarray.

Bärchen: What were they…are they trying to make?

Fox: They said it was a Happiness Trap.

Bärchen: What the…?! I’m confused. What is a “Happiness Trap”?

Fox: I know, I know. Interesting idea, but obviously they didn’t know quite what they were getting themselves into.

[… Bärchen walks around the mess trying to get a clearer picture of it…]

Bärchen: Huh! Did they explain what they were trying to do?

Fox: No, but I noticed they were were working from this sheet of paper. [hands it to Bärchen]

Bärchen: [reading]

Definitions of Happiness
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun: Good luck; good fortune; prosperity.
noun: An agreeable feeling or condition of the soul arising from good fortune or propitious happening of any kind; the possession of those circumstances or that state of being which is attended with enjoyment; the state of being happy; contentment; joyful satisfaction; felicity; blessedness.
noun: Fortuitous elegance; unstudied grace; -- used especially of language...

Fox: Yeah, that’s The Guys. Words, words, and more words.

Bärchen: It’s strange though.

Fox: That they’re trying to build such a thing.

Bärchen: Well, that, yes, but also, I hadn’t really looked closely at the dictionary definition of “happiness”, but now I notice a strange juxtaposition…you could maybe call it a contradiction.

Fox: I think I know what you’re going to say, but go on.

Bärchen: Well, the first entry of the definition has to do with, uh, let’s call it “things that happen to you”.

Fox: Uh huh.

Bärchen: But the second entry says its a good feeling that arises from these things, or anything good that happens. Then it basically repeats the first entry in different terms. Then they just throw up their hands and start giving synonyms.

Fox: I love this part– happiness is “the state of being happy”. Hah!

Bärchen: Yes. Exactly. The third entry gets into an idiomatic usage, but whatever. But that first entry, especially, troubles me.

Fox: You’re not happy about that one? [smiles]

Bärchen: Right. I can’t even count how many times something good has happened and I was too worried about something else to really take notice.

Fox: To be happy?

Bärchen: Precisely. Or, being the worry-wart that I am, worrying the good thing wouldn’t last. Or worrying about worrying about…

Fox: I’ve been trying to break you of that habit. [in a voice like Golum] Nasty Habit! What’s it got in it’s nassty little pocketsess??

Bärchen: Okay, you. But The Guys are probably going about it backwards. I mean, what are they going to do, sit in the trap themselves until happiness comes along and bites them?

Fox: Hmmm, not a bad idea, in a way.

Bärchen: What?

Fox: Well, if happiness is really the recognition of a blessing, then I suppose one way to catch it is to sit still long enough to give it a chance to bite you.

Bärchen: Uh…yeah, you do have a point there. Trouble is, what happens then?

Fox: Hey, there you go. Now you’re worrying about not being able to hold on to happiness. There goes happiness, out of the cage…again.

Bärchen: Touché!

Fox: It’s like that song by Bobby McFerrin.

Bärchen: “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”?

Fox: Right. People never realized that was quite a bit “tongue in cheek”.

Bärchen: It’s catchy, that’s for sure…which probably contributed to its downfall. Everybody got sick of it real quick.

Fox: That’s because Bobby assumed the third thing about happiness was obvious. Apparently, it wasn’t.

Bärchen: The third thing? Hold on, you lost me. What three things are we talking about?

Fox: Well, the first thing about happiness we already touched on–it will come when you hold still long enough to recognize a blessing. The second thing is what Bobby talks about–don’t worry…about anything. Worry keeps you from experiencing the happiness that is already here, and overthinking, which is what worry is, never helps with what’s going to happen. And the third thing…

Bärchen: I think I see it coming. You can’t hold on to happiness. Not that you have have to bid it farewell or send it packing. But you’ve got things to keep going so that all those things you might be prone to worry about don’t happen…to the best of your ability.

Fox: Very good, Bärchen! Trust is the missing key, but we’ll get back to that. Happiness is a puppy…

Bärchen: Awww!

Fox: Silly! What I meant to say was, that if you feed it and pet it occasionally, it will start to follow you around, and bark at you from time to time.

Bärchen: You can’t put a leash on it?

Fox: Nope. It sees a leash and it runs away.

Bärchen: But “the Pursuit of Happiness”…uh, is that like “If you love something, let it go, and if it doesn’t come back…hunt it down and kill it”?

Fox: My! We’re feisty! [smiles] Close, but not quite. You actually want to pursue what Plato called “The Good”; although I like to make that concept a little more concrete. I say pursue our Eightfold Dharma (sorry, not the Buddhist one), summed up in the last pair of principles–Love and Beauty.

Bärchen: I fear even that may confuse. Most people are pursuing those, but by trying to get somebody else to give it to them.

Fox: Ah! Yes, I was thinking about giving them away. Hmmm! You know, maybe that’s the reason happiness is so scarce.

Bärchen: And you were going to say something about Trust.

Fox: Yes. We’ve looked at fruit and branch, maybe we need to consider the root. Trust is really, really scarce nowadays, wouldn’t you say?

Bärchen: Absolutely. I know in my case, that’s the real pull organized religion had. A Parent figure, somebody you can trust to work it all out, at least in the end, and maybe, if you pray hard enough, in the present.

Fox: Yes, well, “a bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench.” So, nothing wrong with that, except…

Bärchen: Except, “test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”

Fox: Uh huh. But what about our fellow Rationalists? What can they put their Trust in? [points towards a nearby table with a game board on it]

Bärchen: Very good question! I…what are you pointing…oh! Hah! Life! Yes. That’s what we do as Rationalists. But lest the religiously-inclined feel sorry for us, we’re perfectly capable of anthropomorphizing Life. As it says in the “Ubi Caritas”, “Timeámus et amémus Deum vivum”†.

Fox: “Et ex corde diligámus nos sincéro.”‡

Bärchen: Amen! Hard to do justice to those words in translation.

[…The Guys return with assorted, additional hardware…]

Bärchen: Hey, Guys, no need for all that stuff. We figured it out while you were gone.

Fox: You are the Happiness Trap.

The Guys: What is she talking about? We’ve got everything we need now…You didn’t touch what we’ve done so far?!…Okay good.

[…The Guys get back to tinkering…]

Bärchen: Do they ever listen?

Fox: Sometimes. But you know what?

Bärchen: What?

Fox: Look at them now. They’re in the Flow, they’re doin’ their thing, and they look, kinda…

Bärchen: Happy?

Fox: Uh huh. Let’s leave them to it. And let’s you and I take a walk in the woods.

Bärchen: Sure. You know what makes me…

Fox: Happy?

Bärchen: Yes. That, and you finishing my sentences. [they laugh]

† “Let us fear and love the Living God”
‡ “And let us love each other sincerely from the heart”