Be Happy!

Everybody knows the saying that an optimist is someone for whom the glass is half full, the pessimist one for whom it is half empty. Optimism is not the same thing as happiness, strictly speaking, and there are pessimists no doubt who are not unhappy - holding low expectations of the future may nonetheless allow you contentment in the present, for instance - but for most people happiness and optimism are probably two aspects of the one condition.

Being happy can make you rich. More than merely the possibility of the rich being happy - a less unlikely proposition - the happy can become rich, both in monetary terms and in the 'spirit' as well. Happiness is contagious, infectious, and other people want to be near happy people; when others want to be around you, and naturally enjoy your company, it's hard to be poor! Happiness or optimism is positively self-reinforcing, but sadness is too. The more you have of either one now, the more you are likely to have of it tomorrow, or next month. Consider the virtuous circle: happiness encouraging an optimistic, brave approach to one's labours (itself conducive to success), and then success encouraging further optimism and happiness. In an example from business life consider a project or new venture: if all goes well then your investment is returned to you and the cycle continues, happiness assured. If not then so long as life goes on, you can pick yourself up and move on to the next project and, sooner or later, you win. If life doesn't go on then you've left behind the cares and concerns of this mortal coil anyway - happiness! The message seems to be that happiness is a choice we can make, not a mere quirk of fate or good luck that some other people enjoy.

What about far greater issues than personal business or our daily work, such as the environmental damage wrought by our species on this precious and beautiful Earth? It's nothing to be happy about; on the other hand it is a different issue to the question of happiness within oneself, with one's own affairs and life. We should be able to find that we are free to choose a happy and optimistic life for ourselves even as we tussle with greater problems in the world around us.

It's bad that the future of the world's coral reefs appears to be gravely threatened, that so many other species of life are endangered by humanity, that glaciers may be melting away forever, and so on and so on. It's difficult to find any note of joy in these doleful prospects. But don't believe that things have really changed dramatically for the worse of late: the world has always been in flux, from geological to biological dimensions and everywhere between, and change is the rule not the exception. Sure it's important that we strive to preserve what is precious and beautiful to us and our future generations, and there's no doubt there will be heartaches and frustration along the way. But on Earth it was ever thus; if not war and famine, disease and pestilence, then today's environmental degradation being the cost of industrial progress (which is nonetheless potentially cleaner and greener day by day) and growing human population (although the rate of growth is plummeting in the first world to below replacement level, and stabilising fast across the third world too). There have always been brave people faced by implacable foes who have fought for their ideals and loves and, from the midst of horrors and short-term defeat, resolutely and happily enjoyed their own lives.

Here's an example of misery, defeat and unhappiness being transformed into success and happiness without really trying. It's not something important, or remote in time or from another culture. Today I was looking at the cost of insuring my car for damage it might cause to a person in an accident - Compulsory Third Party (CTP) insurance it's called here in NSW Australia and the "compulsory" bit is what it says. The cost of CTP has risen like NASDAQ lately, the government leaving the rich field of third party compensation to hordes of salivating lawyers. Payouts made by the courts have risen tremendously, the burden of proof and preparedness of insurers to fight in Court both seem to have crumpled. You can bounce out of your dented car and into court, pocketing a $50,000 cheque for your pain and suffering with time left to make the pub before closing time. And if you're a member of one or two notorious subgroups of Australian society then not only will you find yourself more or less regularly having collisions in your car (many with your own relatives, as it turns out), but your injuries will always be particularly disabling and painful, and require huge licks of attention from the comforting Aussie court system. It's a living for some.

Now, given the story so far you'll most likely be thinking that this correspondent is feeling bitter and twisted about nefarious lawyers, incompetent governments and greedy professional "victims" .... Correct on all counts.

But I know why I should not be feeling that way at all, and this is it. True it is that the cost of CTP is already making it all but impossible for poor people to consider owning a motor vehicle in this country, and this is a backward step. On the other hand the public transport system is not bad, and internet access and computers are both plummeting in price, which is some compensation (the mind can roam free, and never mind the groceries). As for myself at least I can afford the insurance, but better than that I can also choose to feel that I'm happy to pay it, somewhat surprisingly. Why so? Because the extortionate sums compulsorily levied for CTP go to pay for two very good things in society - lawyers and care for disabled people. It's good that people seriously injured in an accident may be compensated sufficiently to allow for ongoing care and special facilities, because just a few years ago many of those serious injuries would have effectively ended the social, working and probably "love" lives of all but the very rich victims. Today the insurance payout may pay for full-time nursing care while it is needed, for specially designed and built housing (even cars), and so on. As a result this society, paying through the neck for its insurance but looking after its ill and disabled, is a better and happier society than that which it replaces.

Oh, the lawyers? What do you call a bus load plunging off a cliff? A nice but modest start. Why do researchers prefer lawyers to rats for laboratory experiments? Because they often grow to be fond of the rats and feel bad about experimenting on them; and there are some things that a rat just won't do.

Lawyers. It's good to pay insurance premiums to keep lawyers in flashy suits and cheap women (or men) and gin, because only a truly civilized society can afford that kind of a drain on its collective purse. When you can afford the number of lawyers that California and Australia boast today you know that you're a wealthy and happy society, and that you've made it into the First World.

Ultimately it all depends on your point of view, and the truly enlightened amongst us are capable of being at least content, occasionally even ecstatic, almost all of the time.

Nort
21 January 1999

[Dedicated to the late Julian Simon, with whom it was not necessary to agree on all specific issues all of the time to nonetheless see that he embodied a very admirable personal philosophy of joy in humanity and love for one's fellows, and a buoyant optimism in the future. Whatever the battles to be fought and the losses sustained along the way, his was the right (happy) attitude toward one's own life, loves and work, however humble]

Media and Other Influences on Government

Australian edition

See! the Murdoch gutter-press baying in pursuit of the softest possible targets (heroin addicts) for its "ordinary-people" readership.

Hear! the uglies of trashback radio hectoring, leading public debate with their asinine assiduity.

Smell! the fear of the once-big country's tiny little leaders.

Feel! that the government will always fall to heel under the authority of the media moguls and their monkeys. (When there is risk of offending one mogul while desperately paying tribute to another, turn very very quiet and hope that nobody will notice you). After the hysterical demonstration of brutal and brainless power put on by the uglies of the Murdoch press over the proposed ACT heroin trial, this lickspittle government must have thought very hard about the consequences of upsetting one media warlord more than another.

So the craven, crestfallen cave-in by the government on its much-trumpeted media policy, ambitiously pursued for so wearyingly long by Richard Alston, came as no surprise. Thankfully, it was a crappy policy anyway.

Of course we doughty citizens of Oz used to listen to little John Howard raving about the imbalance of the dreaded ABC and the Fairfax press. There was implicit support for the non-Fairfax press and the commercial TV channels. But News Limited's thugs would not have dared to rant and rave as they did over the heroin trial had they any respect for the calibre of the Prime Minister or his Government. Now the twee blind mice of the Australian Liberal government will be taking good care not to upset Rupert's minions again, and once Little John recovers some of his strength we'll no doubt be treated to more complaints about the traditional enemy (the ABC). Conservatives only change when told to by their betters.

[For those who have been asleep in recent years, let's explain simply: Rupert Murdoch didn't want Fairfax handed to Kerry Packer on a plate, so he did at least three things. First he made his feelings plain in an open and reasonable way - News would require some quid pro quo were Packer to be handed such a glittering prize as Fairfax. Second, he demonstrated his stature and influence by visiting the prime minister on his sick bed at a time that Cabinet Ministers and others could get nowhere near their leader. Thirdly, sensing the weakness of the man and his men, he turned on a demonstration of the very real reasons that a populist, poll-driven prime minister should have for fearing the power of Rupert Murdoch. And of course it worked, as any number of political observers in this country might have forecast it would]

We hope that the examples set by so many others in this country - of fine science, jurism, journalism, even government and public service - can survive a tabloid-educated populace which will no doubt persevere in voting for tweedle-dee-dumb politicians, brayingly supported by the emptiest and loudest of the talk-show hosts among us.


Nort
September 1997