Pitfall Thought
Is Happiness Overrated? Or, How Do Readers Want You to Make Them Feel?
A closer look at the emotional disposition humans seek to strike for the most part of their lives, including when they consume content.
A brief response I left to someone’s Medium article restarted a line of enquiry in my mind that I abandoned a while ago.
How do we, humans, want to feel?
What do we want our emotional baseline to be? Happy? Excited? Neutral?… Sad?
It began a while ago when I was working a student job with a bunch of smart people in their 20s. We were on our lunch break, discussing the trivialities of London life such as happiness, or lack thereof.
“I don’t want to be happy,” one of my male workmates said. “I don’t care much for happiness.”
A friend of his approved — while I was gasping for air. To my psychology student self, who was deeply into positive psychology back then, this was an affront.
“What do you mean you don’t want to be happy? Everyone wants to be happy! Happy feels good! Why would you not want to be happy?” I said.
“I think happiness is overrated. I’d rather be content,” he replied.
I sensed he took pleasure in my squirming for an explanation. Although I don’t think he said it just to seem interesting, I think he enjoyed the idea of swimming against the tide — that is, against the hedonistic culture of the West.
“Happiness is too intense to sustain it in the long term,” our other colleague interfered. “Your body can’t produce that level of dopamine for a long while, or you get used to it — in which case you default to contentment.”
Of course, I continued defending my point for the rest of the break. I've been reading Martin Seligman since I was 16:
“What do you mean you can’t be happy forever? Okay, not happy — but optimistic? You can certainly keep yourself on the positive side of the emotions wheel for a long time… No?”
The question stuck with me. Is happiness overrated?
Seligman or not, I didn’t have a complex view or a deep understanding of emotion back then. Neither do I claim to have them now. I know better than claiming to be an expert. I’ve certainly played with emotions since and worked with them. I looked at them from a neuroscientific perspective and from the standpoint of a fiction writer who wants to capture and arouse emotion.
I’ve read many scientific papers and psychology books since that chat. I watched The Black Mirror and many other trending TV shows and movies, trying to figure out: What is it that makes us all watch this program? How does it make us feel? Why do we want to feel bad? Why do we watch and make horror movies? But beyond TV shows:
Why do we enjoy doing bad things despite experiencing negative feelings about it?
Why do we cheat? Why do we enjoy witnessing violence sometimes? Why do we enjoy inflicting it? Why are we into kinks and BDSM?
The answer can’t be happiness because we know there’s guilt or self-disgust in there as well. No, BDSM doesn’t make me feel happy. It makes me feel vulnerable. It makes me feel confident. It makes me feel both.
We want to feel both negative and positive emotions at the same time.
That is the answer. It was a revelation to me. And a question for you. The more I looked into it, the more it made sense. We don’t want to feel just one side of the emotional spectrum. Some complex emotions that I think we truly seek both in life, as well as in the content we consume:
- Ambivalence
- Bittersweetness
- Nostalgia
- Love-Hate
- Resentment and Empathy
- Contentment and Restlessness
- Jealousy and Self-Awareness
What do you think about my hypothesis? I would love, love, love to know if you asked yourself the same questions about emotion — and the conclusions you arrived at — whether as a content producer or a human being living life. We all seek to create, after all: first of all experiences and second of all stories.
