Happiness; Nature or Nurture
In Science News this month was an interesting, if subjective, article called Roads to the Good Life. “Psychologists who study well-being or human flourishing have long posited that the “good life” can be pursued via two paths: happiness or meaning.” Some researchers have posited a third path to the good life coined “psychological richness.” They claim “the path to a rich life arises from novelty seeking, curiosity and moments that shift one’s view of the world. Rich experiences are neither inherently good nor bad; they may be intentional or accidental, joyous or traumatic.” This view, obviously, encapsulates the pandemic as possibly positive for psychological richness.
A recent New Yorker profile details interesting conjecture about behavior genetics, Force of Nature. “The behavior geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden is waging a two-front campaign: on her left are those who assume that genes are irrelevant, on her right those who insist that they’re everything.” Incredibly detailed, the article is, of course, not definitive.
Here I submit a poem that possibly puts things in perspective in a fraught world. If it looks familiar, I did post it several years ago, but it’s worth reading again.
A Brief for the Defense
Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.”
― Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven
Continuing in the poetic vein:
Times Like These
Friend, in times like these
here is what one does.
Enter that flowing meadow of
flowers you have been tending
all your life. Invite your mother
and father to join you.
Name and praise each bloom,
bowing to all. Even if
there is but one gem, fresh and
eager, call out its name,
breathe its sweet ambrosia
rising to greet you.
Even if there is only one survivor,
faded, slumped, headed
for its return, bless its name
and bid it quick homecoming as
snail, vole, or finch.
If there are no flowers in your
meadow, weep, and weep again.
Your pure tears will water seeds
hidden long in the earth, waiting
for new lives without care of grief.
This is what one does
in times like these.
- Gregory White
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well. |