Happiness

Well I’m not one to judge other action unless and until their acts impinges upon my own freedom to act, or causes me to pay for their action. When that happens I tend to get riled. I figure what is important to another person is their business, and none of my own.

If they find happiness in old cars, then as long as I do not have to buy the car for them, more power to them. The same is true for skydivers, mountain climbers, skiers, and on and on. I find my happiness playing with horses, and have arranged my life to give me as much happiness as I can afford. I spend a lot of time on a horse, beside a horse, watching horses, camping with them, trail rides, horse shows, and so on and so forth.

If another finds his happiness in piling up success in his chosen career, be it a stockbroker, banker, doctor, or whatever how is that different from how I pursue my happiness? If they prefer the comfort of a large home instead of a pasture, or a fancy restaurant to a meal over a campfire, does that make their choices less moral then my own? If I choose to smile a lot, and they express their happiness in expressionless faces am I superior to them?

Can I judge how happy they are or are not form the little I can ever get to know about them? Oh, I can know how they act around me, but just how far can I project that beyond knowing if I wish to be in their company or not? Have you never known the person who was so smug in their goodness, or the person who preached the rightness of their believe so obnoxiously that they were as insufferable as the vain self center egoists?

Let me tell you this I have been rich and I have been poor, and being rich makes being both happy and sad better. I would rather be sad in a nice bed then sad sleeping on the ground, and I have done both. I would rather have the means to share with my friends, and the occasional stranger then to be bound in my poverty to care only for my own needs.

Now, I normally do not toot my own horn about the good deeds I do, but for the sake of this story I will make an exception. Yesterday morning as I was walking the dog around the fence line I noticed a man going by on a liquor-cycle (for those of you outside the South, a liquor-cycle is a small motorbike like a moped that does not require a license to operate on the highways. They got the moniker because a lot of people who have lost their driver license on account of a DWI drive then to get to and from work.) Any way, I noticed that he was loosing power as he went by, and soon he was walking beside it.  I took the hounds to their pin, got in the small pick-up and drove up to where he was pushing his bike. I offered, and he accepted reluctantly to put the bike in the truck bed and a ride, about 3 miles, home. After dropping him off I gave him my phone number and told him that if he could not get it fixed before he had to go to work again to give me a call and I would give him a ride to work. I haven’t heard back, so I assume that he got it fixed.

The propose of this horn tooting? Well I do not expect others to find happiness in the things I find it in. Nor do I expect them to help me in anyway. They owe me nothing, unless we made a deal about something, then I truly expect that our contract be fulfilled by both of us. Should I find myself broke down on the side of the road with three horses in the trailer I have no ill felling for the stream of cars that whiz on by. I am nothing to them, and they owe me nothing. If my brother were to pass me by I would be pissed at him, for I am something to him, as is true for those who call themselves my friends.

If I choose to help another and receive pleasure from helping is that not my reword? Does that make me a more worthy person then the person who would have continued playing with his dogs and let the man push his bike home? I think not. All it means is we have different values find happiness and meaning in different way. Had I not given the man a ride would I have failed any obligation I had to him? Did he have any right to expect anything from me? Would he have any right to get mad at me had I stayed in my pasture?

My brother is my brother; he can live his life in any manner he wishes. He is under no obligation to conform his opinions to my own, find pleasure in what I find pleasure in, nor believe in the values I believe in. As my part in this, I am under no obligation to accept his worldview, and we remain free to criticize one another’s choices in any manner we may wish short of force.

I am a practitioner of the Hegelian dialectic process, that is, you present a thesis, I offer an antithesis that we may come to a coherent synthesis of our different opinions. This is the art of arriving at the truth by the exchange of logical arguments.
~
~
~
©
Rexx