Aristotilian Backwash

A. and I were talking the other day about our collegiate failures and successes and how pissed we were at the overall apathy to our education. Such classic phrases as "If I knew then what I know now," and "I just didn't apply myself," were uttered with sheepish reluctance. When I was in college, I really didn't care about the grade. I was an arrogant, self-centered, happy-go-lucky idealist that really believed the only thing that mattered was the information that I wanted. I wasn't there for a degree, I was there for self-actualization. Really. I took the classes I was interested in and only spoke to an advisor twice, at the beginning and at the end, during my nine years at University. That's right. Nine. I loved college life that much. And why not? I slept late, I learned interesting things every day, I drank, I smoked, I surrounded myself with smart people, people that were involved in the same environment as I was, if not for the same reasons, and I loved every minute of it. College rocked. And with nine years of schmoozing comes knowing a lot of people. I was the anonymous celebrity that you didn't know but saw everywhere. Classes, functions, offices, bars, clubs, secluded smoking areas, tops of buildings, private basements. I don't know how or why, but I got around. Someone once recognized me in the middle of a swamp. Honestly. But I digress.

My grades were terrible. Actually, that's not true. Terrible I could take, but my grades were mediocre. I never turned in any assignments, I was always late on papers, I skipped a lot of classes, but I aced almost every exam. It balanced itself out but paints a very washed out picture of my potential, not that I cared. But why didn't I? In my premature journey for self-actualization, I questioned the motive of human ambition. In doing so I agreed, then, with Aristotle that said the ultimate goal of human ambition is happiness. Seemed reasonable enough, and heartwarming to boot. Our actions and choices are bent to the sole, if somewhat convoluted, goal of being happy. Example: I went to school so I could learn, so I could get a good job, so I could be financial comfortable, so I could relax and be happy. I went to school to be happy. So to speak. But being the arrogant, self-centered, happy-go-lucky idealist that I was, I wanted to skip the hoopla and go straight to the point. I was already happy. I loved school, loved learning, and the job thing didn't interest me much. I was happy because I went to school. The glaring hole in this philosophy didn't hit me until year eight. I'm extremely intelligent, but I'm still dumber than a bag of hammers.

So the question becomes: is happiness an appropriate end for human ambition? Does it even qualify? If we assume yes, what happens during the attainment of this goal. To walk down the street to reach the corner store is only necessary if your at home. If you're already there, the very statement "I want to go to the corner store," is absurd. So one could say that the nature of wanting is not having, or that the nature of becoming is not being. So if we say that happiness is an appropriate goal for human ambition, it assumes that we are not happy at the start. And will never be throughout the journey. At worst, we will move through life miserable, driven by our ambition for true happiness and die unfulfilled. At best we will find happiness and give up our ambitions and goals. Neither sit very well with me.

I don't think it's a valid goal. I think happiness is not something sought after but something realized. We cannot chase happiness because I don't think that it's something external. While that may seem like an obvious statement, the argument between existence and essence is time honored. Is there a great thing that encompasses and defines all happiness through which all things can share? That should every object cease to exist, that thing, that Happiness, would continue on? Is it external? Or is it a label by which we define ourselves in reference to our surroundings, and thereby internal? I would stand by the latter.

We cannot have happiness as our end goal. It is a state of being. To say happiness is an end is likened to saying I just want to exist. While true, it is ultimately useless. Goals are temporary, materialistic things. Houses, investments, bank accounts, travel. Happiness, on the other hand, is a state of mind that we can be or not be. There is no "on the way" to happiness, regardless of what the commercials say. We can find ourselves at the worst place possible and still find happiness, and, conversely, at the most beautiful places and feel nothing. It is a perspective we strive to keep in mind, but seems less about working toward, and more about allowing.

I made the genius error when I was in college of knowing all of this, but not understanding. I skipped to the ultimate end of having happiness as a goal, and found a strange sense of nihilistic apathy to my ambitions. In the, hopefully, long journey we have in front of us that is our lives, happiness is not, and should not be, the final destination.

It's more like a backpack.