“The Happy Man “— Review
“The Happy Man” is an excerpt from the book “The Conquest of Happiness” written by a prominent philosopher of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell.
Russell’s philosophy of happiness says that happiness depends to some extent upon the external circumstances and partly upon oneself. Bertrand has restricted his essay on the part which depends on oneself.
With some significantly accurate analogies, this philosophical essay urges the reader to self-reflect and think about how one should pursue happiness.
According to Bertrand Russell, a happy man is one who lives objectively, one with varied interests and free affection. He believes that the one who receives happiness and affection is also the one who gives it. Happiness is sure to be achieved when a person has access to simple things like food and shelter, health, love successful work and respect of one’s herd.
Disintegration or lack of integration is portrayed as the primary cause of unhappiness. Disintegration of either, conscious and unconscious mind, or, self and society have been explained with examples in the excerpt.
The author says that Self-centered mentality is one of the significant sources of disparity. His analogy of self-centered passions with prison is very accurate. “The passions which shut us up in ourselves constitute one of the worst kind of prisons”. Fear, envy, the sense of sin, self-pity, self-absorption, self-denial and self-admiration are some of these passions which one should avoid.
Fear is one of the principal reasons for someone’s unwillingness to admit facts. These people wrap themselves in warm blankets of self-denial and garments of myth which when penetrated by cold blasts of unwelcomed realities leads to depression, fear and sorrow.
The lack of variety because of self-centeredness is another topic on which Russell has focused his study on. He says that the person with the invariable sameness of the object of his devotion is bound to suffer intolerable boredom.
The essay is very well written and is entirely accurate in most stances however there are parts which I do not fully agree to.
(1) “The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed.”
However, this is not always true as there are people who are unhappy or depressed who still try their best to make people happy. Robin Williams, whom I have a deep regard for, once said: “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy. Because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anybody else to feel like that” hence my views contradict the Russell Bertrand’s here.
(2) I think that Russell got confused between fearlessness and courage in the middle of the essay. He says that practicing courage would make a fearless person. However, courage is not the absence of fear but facing one’s fear.
Apart from these two parts the essay is very relatable and helps me to think about how one should pursue happiness and what all things should be avoided incase to stay happy.
