If Nothing Changed, Could I Be Happy? pt. 3
On Restarting and Progress
I recently finished William Neuman’s Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela. In it, he tells the story of a man resting under a coconut tree. I paraphrase:
A Father and son noticed a man under a palm tree and invited him to join their lunch.
“No, thanks. If I get hungry or thirsty, I just climb this tree and grab a coconut.” He showed them.
Impressed by this, the father tells him, “you could sell coconuts to tourists.”
“What would I do that for?”
“For money.”
“But I already have everything I need right here.”
“But then you could buy whatever you want, things for your family.”
“No, thanks. I already have everything I want right here.”
I’ve heard versions of this story before. Sometimes it was a businessman and an olive tree farmer. Whatever. They arrive at the same point: why pursue more when you’re already happy enough?
I see the point, but it would be cheap to finish at this idea. Instead, I want to risk adding too much and include a refreshed definition of happiness that I think would update this story.
In Happiness, Alain Badiou arrives at the possible definition: “happiness is always the jouissance of the impossible.”
When I consider myself here and now, I have to admit a love for the moment but a type of exhaustion for the future. But I have the coconut tree (forgive me). And in line with this moment from Badiou, perhaps it is simply enough to appreciate the miracle of finding a coconut tree at all. The impossibility of it existing and the event of me finding it are the setup for happiness, as long as I appreciate it for its impossibility and presence.
More soon,
Trevor