HAPPINESS
A documentary on the Pursuit, Study,
& Capturing of Happiness
BY:
Shelly May Roby
December 19, 2008
CINE 724: Film Theory I
Fall 2008
Professor Aaron Kerner
San Francisco State University
All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.
-BLAISE PASCAL[1]
HAPPINESS
A documentary on the Pursuit, Study,
& Capturing of Happiness
All my life I have searched for happiness. I have never been one to settle for something because it pays well or that it looks good. I got my dream job when I was 28, only to quit it two years later when I realized it was not making me happy. Over the course of my life I have moved anywhere and everywhere in my pursuit of happiness. From San Francisco to Chicago; L.A. to Austin, and then back again. I have always tried to listen to my gut and follow my heart. But I trip up, I fall, and lately it seems that I run circles around life frantically looking for happiness, never really finding it.
What about those individuals, like myself, who are extremely grateful for one’s life, and appreciative for all that they have and are, but still after all the self-help books they read, therapy sessions they attend, and journals they fill, their desperate quest for happiness continues? Is happiness really such a quest, or is it merely a decision one makes in each moment of one’s life?
MY HAPPINESS THEORY
I have a theory about happiness – I believe that happiness is not a pursuit and a mission one sets out to accomplish in life, but simply a momentary intention set for oneself. It is as simple as deciding to wear your blue shirt, rather than your yellow shirt on a random Tuesday.
If we are able to simply pull the happiness switch within us on a moment to moment basis – and not base our present and future life on our specific memories – allowing what has happened to us in the past influence our present moment and future moments – we are able to free ourselves from our individual stories which we wear proudly, and most of the time, unconsciously, throughout our life. In a nutshell, we are then able to magically create the life we have always intended for ourselves.
“Happiness depends on ourselves.”
-- Aristotle
THE DOCUMENTARY
Happiness is a documentary dedicated to the discovery, study, and pursuit of happiness. It explores present day theory on obtaining happiness, also examining the relationship between our happiness, our memories and our stories. How does our memory contribute to our present day experience? And, do the stories we tell ourselves about the person we are and the life we have lived thus far, aid us or hurt us? It is my belief that together, both memory and our individual story create our present day experience. If we choose happiness as our present day experience, focusing only on pleasant memory and pleasant story, will our life become one of happiness? In contrast, if we focus only on unpleasant memory and stories which do not serve us and ultimately layers our individual life, will our life become one of discontentment?
EXAMINATION OF THE SELF, THE HUMAN BEING
Happiness will examine well-known life situations from what the average, everyday individual has to experience to unimaginable life events most of us only read about in books. For example we look at the ending of a romantic relationship, and also extreme experiences, such as the Holocaust. How does one find meaning in such an experience as the Holocaust? What does one take away? Is it possible to bloom embedded within such horror? Author, scholar, and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl comments on this in his extraordinary book, “Man’s Search for Meaning”:
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way…It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.[2]
Throughout “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Frankl speaks of this innerness within each of us, and ultimately the inner decisions we have for living our individual lives. It is my belief that this “innerness” which Frankl writes about in his book, acts as one’s powerful happiness switch, which at any given moment we each – individually – are able to check in with ourselves and make the decision to be happy or not to be happy, to act with meaning in our life, or to act without. It’s our ultimate free will. As Frankl explains in his book, this inner decision was the one thing that could not be taken away within the gates of Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps – as one was stripped of their family members, robbed of their clothes -- their entire physical life disregarded and destroyed -- the inner workings of these men and women could not be touched, no matter how vulgar or inhumane the keepers were. The decision to choose one’s attitude, one’s state of happiness -- these inner workings of the human being -- are what I believe fuel the outer workings of the individual’s world, and ultimately the world as a whole. For if one could find the sacred buried beneath the rubble of horror and at the same time have the insight to access this inner place, imagine the power which must reside within each of us at any given moment in our lives.
MEMORY
So too, does memory play a key role in Frankl’s survival while in the concentration camp. Specifically he says, it was the memory of his wife, his beloved, which fueled him and helped him to continue day after day:
But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise…I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.”[3]
Within the walls of the concentration camps, the memory – the image – of Frankl’s beloved wife comforted him and brought him out, however slight, from his present day reality of being a prisoner. The memory of his wife, whether one sees it as a mask, a method of survival, or simply a memory from the past remembered today, colors Frankl’s present reality and alters it in such a way which lifts Frankl up, allowing him to stand on ground unimaginable to the everyday human being.
Elie Wiesel, the well-known writer (most famous book, Night), professor, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Holocaust Survivor, also speaks about the power of memory. On September 11, 2001 I was working as a television producer for the Oprah Show in Chicago. Immediately following the attacks we put together our daily shows attempting to make some sense of the horror, confusion, and tragedy America was feeling at that time in history. One particular show we produced was called “What Do You Believe?” We decided to feature and interview individuals who had experienced unimaginable situations, and find out how they remained hopeful and faithful in such extreme and dire circumstances. Elie Wiesel was one of those individuals. This is what he had to say:
During the war I was so young and so old at the same time, I had no belief, I had no anchor, but after the war whenever there was a challenge, I said to myself what is the alternative, to stop believing?I believe in memory, the memory is a dimension -- without which I could not go on I think. I believe that memory must serve as a shield – because I remember there are certain things I will not tolerate. Of course I remember what people could do to other people. My faith in God has been severely tested, I never lost it, but it became wounded, and still is. God and I have problems with each other and nevertheless I remain inside faith. The opposite of love is not hatred but indifference, but then it means the opposite of beauty is not ugliness but indifference, the opposite of education is not ignorance, but indifference, the opposite of life is not death, but indifference to life and death. Hatred devours the hater as well as the hated.”[4]
Like Viktor Frankl, Elie Wiesel speaks of memory as a tool for his present day survival. This dimension of memory acts somewhat as a vessel where one is able to pull from and in turn, breath from; a vortex of sorts which we can step into and slip on, spinning with it and through it, as it supports us in our time of need.
Within the Happiness documentary we will sit down with Elie Wiesel and find out first hand how he is still able to remain hopeful after experiencing life within various concentration camps during World World II. At 15 years old, Wiesel was deported by the Nazi’s to Auschwitz. Before his release in 1945, his mother and younger sister had perished, along with his father, who died at Buchenwald, where Weisel was held prisoner, as well.[5]
It is this use of memory which Frankl and Wiesel speak of, which the documentary Happiness will explore throughout. How does the use of our good and bad memories aid or hurt our state of happiness? The film will also look at Johnny Springer, a thirty-four year old man who recently broke up with his girlfriend, Kim. Transfixed with remembering the time he and his girlfriend spent together – spinning his memories of her over and over in his head – stops him, he says, from enjoying his present moment, and ultimately, finding happiness today.
The film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) directed by Michel Landry beautifully demonstrates this idea. The film focuses on the relationship between Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet). After falling in love and then experiencing relationship problems, Clementine opts to have all her memories with Joel erased from her mind. Joel eventually learns of Clementine’s procedure and decides to erase his own memories of Clementine clean from his mind, as well. This memory procedure referred to as The Lacuna procedure, guarantees the following:
“Memories are preserved through the pictures in our minds. Most of the time these memories are pleasant, but in the case of many lacuna patients, these mental pictures cause heartbreak and sorrow. The lacuna procedure guarantees the permanent erase of targeted memories…[6]”
In one particular scene, Joel, horrified, learns Clementine has erased him from her memory and visits the Lacuna laboratories to find out what exactly Clementine did with her memories of him. He sits down with Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkenson) in his office and listens with disbelief to the doctor’s explanation:
Dr. Howard Mierzwiak:
Look, our files are confidential Mr. Barish so I can’t show you evidence. Suffice it to say, that Ms. Kruczynski was not happy and she wanted to move on and we provide that possibility.
After going home and pondering what Clementine had done with the memories of their relationship, Joel decides to have the procedure done, as well. He rushes back to Lacuna and requests the memory procedure for himself. While sitting in the waiting room, to Joel’s left, sits a woman with an armful of used dog toys and a dog bowl which reads, “Buster” – the shot suggests she is at Lacuna to rid herself of the memory of her deceased dog. To live in this present day without her dog may be just too painful for her. To Joel’s right, a man sits with a bag of old trophies, a shot possibly suggesting dreams forgotten; a life once lived, happier times.
Joel Barish:
I want it done now…
Dr. Howard Mierzwiak:
Now the first thing we need you to do Mr. Barish is to go home and collect everything you own that has some association with Clementine -- anything. We’ll use these items to create a map of Clementine in your brain, so we’ll need photos, clothings, gifts, books she may have bought you, CDs you may have bought together, journal entries, you’ll want to empty your home, you’ll want to empty your life of Clementine. And after the mapping is done the technicians will do the erasing in your home tonight. That way when you awake in the morning you’ll find yourself in your own bed as if nothing has happened -- a new life awaiting you.
In the above scene we see Joel gathering all items related to Clementine – pictures, drawings, a mug with Clementine’s picture on it, photos they had taken together, scrapbooks, journals – all memories associated with the relationship between Joel and Clementine. Joel feels, and the Lacuna procedure guarantees, that to rid himself of these memories will make him a happier person. Remembering a life that once was, and in Joel’s case, a life with Clementine in it, is too painful for him to realize in his present day. To erase Clementine completely from his memory Joel feels, would allow him to move on and finally step into today.
However, one of the most beautiful elements of this film is the closing scene after Joel and Clementine learn of the procedures which they both individually opted to have. Here, they decide together to love one another now regardless of their known relationship problems in the past. They choose to live in the moment, to love in the moment:
Clementine:
I’m not a concept Joel, I’m just a fucked up girl who’s looking for my own piece of mind. I’m not perfect.
Joel:
I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.
Clementine:
But you will. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.
Joel:
Okay.
Clementine:
Okay. Okay.
It is this decision that Joel and Clementine make together which says: I want to love you now, and I do not care what has happened in the past between us or what is bound to happen in our future. It states: I am happy in this moment with you and this is all I know for sure, and that’s okay. It is this notion of being present in the moment which I believe acts as our happiness switch – our internal guidance system -- which allows us to focus on each and every moment of our life. It is only in the moment that we have the will to choose to be fully present. Checking-out into our past or checking-in to our future is also there as an option, as well, but it is our free will to decide with path we take.
Happiness will also explore those who have already lived a full life, for example a 102-year-old man, Nathan Mass from San Francisco. What can such an individual -- who has come before all of us -- teach us about living today? How does memory serve Mr. Mass and what makes him happy today?
THE WORLD TODAY
It is an interesting time in the world to take up the study of happiness. With the United States economy at one of its all time lows since the Depression, daily layoffs (this week alone 40,000 job cuts were announced).[7]). And just days ago, President Bush agreed to a $13.4 billion dollar federal loan to the big three automakers (GM, Ford Motor, and Chrysler). The auto industry – one of the major engines of the US economy -- has not felt this kind of pain in 26 years.[8] In Tom Morris’ book, If Aristotle Ran General Motors, Morris, a well-known modern-day philosopher, writes about how he believes Aristotle would run one of the biggest auto making companies in the world. Morris says: