The conditions of change
If you make the experiment and ask your friends
what
is happiness, you will, I believe, receive very
interesting
answers (similar to the question of basic needs). But I
do not know whether you will be much wiser from it.
One New Year's Day, when we all wish
"Happy New Year" I started asking around,
what is happiness. I received the most
varied answers.
One said: Happiness does not exist.
Another: Happiness is some rare moments
in life that last for an extremely short time.
In a strange way, although the command of the
system is clearly:
Chase after money, only a few people told me that
happiness is
to have money.
Even a saleswoman in a pastry shop told me:
"I do not know what happiness is, and I do not
know if it exists.
"All I know is that it has nothing to do
with money".
You see that we have again reached an impasse,
and perhaps we should give up trying to find a
universally acceptable definition.
Everyone has his own definition, and I assume that
if we asked
him at another moment in his life, he would say
something else.
What can we do now? What else can we do?
Should we give a command for what
everyone should consider as happiness?
Should we send the police to impose it?
We don't have much choice.
We have to accept the definition
that everyone chooses for himself.
Everyone should give the answer which he thinks is right.
One may say:
"Happiness
is to understand what a
wonderful thing it is
to breathe".
Another:
"Happiness
is to know yourself and
to be at peace with it".
A third:
"Happiness
is being able to offer yourself
the luxury to love the
entire world".
Whatever anyone believes is
happiness that is happiness for him.
We have to respect it and according to the
second axiom, this is what we should offer him.
― But
won't that be enormously difficult?
How will we know what
everyone wants,
to get it "tailor
made" according to his wish?
Why? Do you imagine that when I say
"we will offer the happiness he wants",
I mean we will have a
service that goes from house to house and delivers
happiness,
like Santa Claus with his gifts?
We will offer something else:
The freedom that everyone can
be happy in his own way.
Remember these little ones in the imaginary
school, where everyone did what he wanted?
Do you doubt that they were happy?
― And
how will the axioms help us to
find out how many we
should be?
It is very simple.
The first axiom gives us what is called the lower limit.
The population isn't allowed to fall below the
threshold which
ensures the conservation and evolution of our species.
The second axiom determines the upper limit.
As long as all the inhabitants of the earth
are happy, we can increase our population.
As soon as the first unhappy people appear,
we need to stop.
― And
how will we do this, will we send a policeman
to monitor what the
couples are doing?
Haven't we already said that it would be well to
forget the police force? We will not need them.
We will leave the responsibility of procreation to
the well-informed, properly educated citizens
who understand social controls.
Either way, it's the
future parents who carry
the grave responsibility for
the decision to
bring a new life into the
world.
Already, even today, where none of these
"Three conditions
of change"
(information, education,
society)
are in force, we hear young couples say:
― "We
are thinking of not having children. Why should
we bring more unhappy
creatures into the world?".
No need, I think, to expand further.
If you wish, you can think of any social problem,
and
see if by using the two axioms and the three conditions
it couldn't be answered and easily solved.
But we should gradually come to a close.
Just one thing remains perhaps to discuss yet.
How are the economic relations
in this free society regulated?
How will work be rewarded?