Learning to be mauled for my supper

Submitted by tonyplant on December 28, 2005 - 19:19.

Many vegetarians and vegans are familiar with that popular dinner-party game, Bait the vegetarian. I’ve always been omnivorous but since developing Happystance I’ve acquired a keen sense of kinship with those who are accustomed to being mauled for their supper.

The first reaction on hearing about Happystance is usually, “Tell us a joke, then!”. Now, I wish I had Monkhouse’s facility with quickfire gags. The reason Kenneth Williams and Peter Ustinov are celebrated as brilliant raconteurs is because the gift of engaging others through story-telling is so unusual. So, I usually reply that we would all enjoy ourselves more if we either had an impromptu game of football or staged our own Singing in the Rain.

A dinner table never seems to be the best setting for explaining the history and scientific research that argue that present happiness consists of three elements: the meaningful life; the engaged life; and the pleasant life. Although listening to other people tell jokes has its contribution to happiness, it is a small one in the overall scheme of our lives.

And yet, a mixed-generation family dinner table is in many ways the perfect setting for a discussion of happiness. It just seems as if pre-conceptions about the frivolous nature of happiness preclude any meaningful discussion. Why bother with tomes on the human condition and the search for happiness if it could all be summed up in an exchange of one-liners?

When asked, “What do you want out of life?”, most people reply, “I want to be happy”. Similarly, when asked what they most wish for their children, most parents say, “I want them to be happy”. Yet, we rarely if ever discuss what form that happiness would take, or what it means to be happy. If my recent experience is anything to go by, then many people are opposed to the notion that happiness is a legitimate goal to pursue. Or they state that the only thing that would make them happy is winning the lottery. Which is overwhelmingly bleak when you consider that you are fourteen times more likely to be murdered than you are to win the lottery jackpot. Does the possibility of happiness really depend on such an implausibility?

If I’m not asked to recite jokes, then I am denounced as deluded or as a menace to society. At a recent dinner table where I discussed Happystance I was accused of a number of social crimes. The first was class oppression. In a multi-voiced harangue I learned that it is wrong to attempt to teach people to develop a happystance because being happy would make us tolerate social conditions that should be considered so intolerable that they lead to social revolution. Yes, prolier than thou, unreconstructed Socialist Workers of impeccable upper-middle-class stock are thriving and appearing at a dinner table near you, some time soon. Apparently, being happy is a euphemism for having lost the capacity for thought or abandoned any vestige of social conscience.

At the same dinner, I was volubly told that general happiness would undermine human progress. It seems as if happiness is a synonym for complacency. And satisfaction with our current condition would undermine the capitalism that has driven all our social, cultural and economic advances. This despite the fact that being engaged with our work and activities is an essential part of authentic happiness. And that happiness is linked to a greater chance of success.

Who knew that the happiness that we wish ourselves and others is such a menance to society? Why isn’t it the topic of more urgent public denunciation? I’ve always considered myself as rather bland. Notwithstanding the call for jokes, and the accusations of naivety, part of me is enjoying my new status as social subversive. It’s almost enough to make me accept that I must now be mauled for my supper.

Copyright 2005, Tony Plant Happystance Project

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