Reflecting on the "Pursuit of Happiness"

Living in the United States, 4 July represents the birthday of America and associates patriotic feeling with notions of liberty, freedom, and the like; the catchphrase from the Constitution - "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" - sums the essence of American values. Peculiar, though, the happiness thing - America is the only country that explicitly states this pursuit in its constitution. Why is happiness an inherent right? What sort of happiness is protected? How can happiness be protected when one person's conception of happiness almost always overlaps and conflicts with many other people's conception of happiness?
Inevitably, Americans must be unhappy so that happiness can be pursued (pursuing happiness means desiring happiness, which suggests that happiness is something that has not yet been attained); ultimately, it is our own personal happiness that really matters, damn the rest. So we are protected by our American values to be ourselves at whatever cost and to blame others for keeping us from this constitutional dream. It would seem that the US has evolved more into itself than any of its citizens would care to realize.
I will not argue it, only resign myself to the devilish conclusion that results from pondering the constitution on America's birthday. And I will apathetically pursue my own happiness at some fireworks celebration later this evening, with a cocktail in my hand and a pretty girl at my side. American dream...

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New York Pause

Heading to the Helmsley Sometimes I work in NYC, and this is my office. More precisely, there is a desk in the upper floors of this distinctive building that has a major thoroughfare running through it that I inhabit while typing up documents and conducting meetings in the city. It is nothing exceptional, usually the work and sometimes the desk at which I sit, but the surrounding city is commanding, ever-thriving, and never-still. If I pay close enough attention, I am reminded of the countless things that make this city unique among the many cities I have had the pleasure to live in and visit. But on this brisk morning, when winter gusts barrel down Park Avenue as I hustle the blocks from Lex to the building entrance security guards, I pause long enough to snap this picture. That pause is enough reminder that I am lucky to be here, and New York City is ready to give me its best shot (I'm still not sure if the city is better personified male or female). But that is all t

Party Like It's 1999

A coworker sent me a meeting invitation to the end of the world. Fitting. I'm not sure if I should accept or not (suppose it depends on your views of the end of the Mayan calendar ), but somehow it reminded me of the Prince song on a related subject . Fitting as well that this coworker was not born when Prince extolled the virtues of partying like it's 1999 (side note: I did party like it's 1999 while studying abroad in Milan at that time, which was a heady experience with the coming of the Euro and all. How times have changed, how the mighty have fallen...). Time change, sometimes faster than we think, and our cultural references become dated. Perhaps just like the Mayan calendar falling out of fashion over the last few centuries, until its end becomes a modern cultural phenomenon - or not, depending on your view of things. In either case, it's worth partying like it's 1999 regardless because hey, it will be Friday when this all goes down, and Fridays

A Little Bit of Proust

Somehow I started to read Proust. The blame goes to Alain de Botton , a writer whose witticisms deconstruct modern thinking and make intellectualism seem but a trifle and a whim. He wrote a book in 1997 called "How Proust Can Change Your Life" which distills the enigmatic French novelist into a self-help dispenser of pithy ideas. How clever I found Mr. de Botton to be when I dipped my toe into the vagaries of Proust; I picked up volume one of "In Search of Lost Time" and instantly fell into the deep end. What author dares to run sentences onward into the stratosphere that sometimes seemingly mellows behind the stars of a bright night, but never so much as an introspective person that wretches for the meaning of a simple thought, sometimes stumbling, but always emerging strongly as that same night in starry sky, almost an homage back to Van Gogh, whose rich paintings greatly represented the mood of a generation - and generations often afford a few mis-steps in l

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