The Pursuit of Happiness - by Ibn Abdullah 🦁

The pursuit of happiness. Humanity's supposed ultimate end—the destination from which man derives, or attempts to derive, meaning within the miserable perpetual loop that is existence. To be happy might perhaps be the single most desperate desire of every man, woman, and child to whom free will has been granted. To live a life marked by joy, contentment, and, most importantly, fulfilment. The ultimate pursuit of man, within his limited span of life and glaring mortality, is said to be the pursuit of happiness—or so man has deceived himself into believing. This notion, that above all else humanity seeks the path that ultimately leads to happiness, might well be, I would argue, the oldest and most enduring case of mass hysteria and collective self-deception. While it may be true that, on a microscopic level—when each individual is considered in isolation—man's desire for happiness is indeed genuine, the same cannot be said of humanity in its macroscopic entirety. If happiness is truly mankind's ultimate pursuit as a collective species, why then does man so often seek the most injurious ends, from which only a minuscule measure of joy is to be found? Why does he ceaselessly break every preconceived limitation to establish developments and fabricate advancements for which no genuine need existed? Why does he pursue increasingly efficient means to attain increasingly needless ends, knowing full well that ease itself can rob life of its joy? The human species proclaims that all such advancements and developments are ultimately directed toward humanity's most treasured desire—happiness. I find myself unable to accept such a claim, given the glaring dichotomy between man's words and his actions. I would instead argue that mankind's ultimate pursuit, as a collective species, is conquest. The human species is marked by an extraordinary delusion. No matter how unattainable an end may appear, humanity retains an almost irrational confidence in its ability to attain it. But what grants mankind such profound certainty? What fuels this unwavering conviction that no frontier is beyond its reach? That, I postulate, is conquest. Humans are captivated by conquest, and every frontier they overcome serves only to heighten their pride and awaken an appetite for greater victories. The more desperate the predicament, the sweeter the triumph. The less probable the odds, the greater the satisfaction of defiance. The mightier the foe, the more fulfilling the conquest. The French philosopher and Nobel laureate Albert Camus likened the human condition to the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus. Condemned by the gods, Sisyphus was sentenced not for decades, centuries, millennia, or even a lifetime, but for eternity. He would endlessly roll a titanic boulder up the treacherous slopes of a mountain, only for it to tumble back to its base moments before reaching the summit. Again and again, forever. A miserable eternity, one might conclude. Yet Camus argued otherwise. Those fleeting moments of rest afforded to Sisyphus after each ascent were, to him, moments of defiance—moments in which existence itself briefly acquired meaning. So too do humans live lives defined by monotonous repetition, endlessly pushing their own metaphorical boulders. Yet scattered throughout those routines are brief moments of accomplishment, triumph, and conquest. It is these moments, Camus argued, from which life derives its meaning and man his fulfilment. But is such a stagnant existence one that humanity would willingly endure? I think not. The human species possesses an insatiable appetite for progress. Earlier, I asserted that mankind is forever pursuing ends for which no genuine need exists. Developments and innovations that, in all honesty, humanity could survive without. Yet they continue to emerge without end. Their stated purpose is comfort. Comfort, we are told, leads to happiness. But I suspect comfort is merely the excuse. Progress is the true objective. Humanity harbours a profound contempt for stagnation, regardless of whether that stagnation is prosperous or miserable. Suppose mankind were presented with a choice: to reside forever within a stagnant utopia, where every person is eternally happy, content, and fulfilled, but where no further progress is possible—no new discoveries, no unexplored frontiers, no obstacles left unconquered. I believe humanity would reject it every time. It would sooner choose a world plagued by moral erosion and emotional corrosion, devoid of collective happiness, if only it preserved the possibility of advancement, of progress, of conquest. It is this desire for conquest that has, throughout human history, precluded the prospect of true global unity. It is also the primary catalyst behind the endless mitosis of the beautiful virus we call diversity. Unity is a dead end for mankind. If united, who remains to conquer? Thus humanity has continually devised new distinctions and manufactured new divisions: race, religion, sectarianism, language, and the arbitrary boundaries of nation, state, county, village, tribe, and clan. Through these endless partitions, mankind has fed its insatiable appetite for conquest, whether through physical domination or intellectual subjugation. Arthur Schopenhauer proposed that the will to life is the fundamental driving force of human existence. Friedrich Nietzsche later advanced the notion of the will to power. To these, I would offer a third proposition: The will to conquest. For mankind, considered not as individuals but as a collective species, happiness is not the highest pursuit. It is merely a by-product—a secondary ambition that trails behind the twin pursuits of conquest and progress.

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