By Michael Talibard
YES, the true goal of our existence is happiness, but what does that mean? Happiness is of many distinct kinds, which flourish in different phases of our lives. There is the happiness of exuberant youth, also known as fun: full of thrills and spills. And then there is the calm happiness of maturity and age, also known as fulfilment and serenity.
The key difference is that as we get older, happiness comes to depend less and less on fun – ie. on adrenaline. I am struck by this quotation from the novelist Fanny Burney: “A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.”
One man who understood these varied, age-related brands of happiness was Wordsworth. (Sorry, the Eng Lit teacher in me won’t go away.) Looking back on the happiness of his childhood and youth, Wordsworth says: “That time is past, and all its aching joys are now no more, and all its dizzy raptures.” This he contrasts with the quieter, deeper feelings that come later. He was only 32 but already much more mature when he wrote this: “Never did sun more beautifully steep in his first splendour valley, rock or hill. Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!” So he has travelled all the way from dizzy rapture to deep calm. This is a process of maturing.
Now I shall digress slightly, to discuss surprises. Surprises are fun – which is a way of saying they are a young person’s pleasure. I don’t much like them. If you prepare a surprise party for someone, you deprive them of all the pleasure of anticipation. In films one sees examples where, just to intensify the surprise, they put the birthday girl through the misery of believing all through the earlier parts of her day that nobody has remembered her at all. I hope that doesn’t often happen in real life.
Surprises are a kind of secret, and I really dislike secrets. Those who are in on the secret get all the fun: it is very much like belonging to a gang, with that feeling of superiority and power that comes from being an insider. Another kind of secret is the one kept by a love-lorn but shy person in films: such characters damage their own lives by keeping their feelings hidden, assuming that they couldn’t possibly be reciprocated. Again, I hope that doesn’t happen so often in real life. Even if you are to be turned down, it must be better to find out sooner rather than later.
Why do I include secrets and surprises in this article for my series on age? Because I see them as a sign of immaturity: they belong in the playground. No, actually, they are harmful even there. If you are keeping a secret from (or preparing a surprise for) a person older than yourself, such as a parent, and telling yourself this is for their benefit, please think again.
Shakespeare knew this. In his comedies, happy endings result from the kind of dénouement in which secrets are laid bare – as in Twelfth Night. When Viola reveals that she is really a girl, this works out pretty well for her, for Olivia, and especially for Orsino. Tragedy occurs when secrets are disclosed too late – as for example the fact that Juliet is not really dead (yet).
This is only to be expected: those who are still victims of deception obviously won’t find their happiness just yet. It might not make the most exciting of plots, but surely we should expect happiness to be founded upon openness and honesty from the outset.
Jane Austen knew this: Knightley’s value to Emma is that he tells her home truths. Elizabeth’s value to Darcy is of a similar nature.
Among varieties of happiness, what is the status of contentment? As Fanny Burney knew, young people tend to scorn contentment, seeing it as complacent and boring, the enemy of fun. Older people know its value. Contentment is what we feel when we have achieved our goals, but young people believe in setting fresh goals without first indulging in any resting on laurels. This, of course, is just how they should feel at their age. Good for them!
The old can also set themselves fresh goals, and preferably in a new sphere. So for example, rather than making even more profit next year, they might resign and go dig wells for an African village; or if they now lack that sort of fitness, resign and write that novel.
For many, no doubt, this sounds like pie in the sky, but there is always some voluntary work to be done. I shall say more about this in a future piece on retirement. Meanwhile, be happy!
Michael Talibard, who is now in his 80s, is a retired teacher and former head of English at Victoria College. He founded the Jersey branch of U3A and was its chairman for 20 years.
