"Maybe. Who cares?" said Slartibartfast before Arthur got too excited. "Perhaps I'm old and tired," he continued, "but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied. Look at me: I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway."
He rummaged around in a pile of debris and pulled out a large Plexiglas block with his name on it and a model of Norway molded into it.
"Where's the sense in that?" he said. "None that I've been able to make out. I've been doing fjords all my life. For a fleeting moment they become fashionable and I get a major award."
He turned it over in his hands with a shrug and tossed it aside carelessly, but not so carelessly that it didn't land on something soft.
"In this replacement Earth we're building they've given me Africa to do and of course I'm doing it with all fjords again because I happen to like them, and I'm old-fashioned enough to think that they give a lovely baroque feel to a continent. And they tell me it's not equatorial enough. Equatorial!" He gave a hollow laugh. "What does it matter? Science has achieved some wonderful things, of course, but I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
"And are you?"
"No. That's where it all falls down, of course."
"Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good life-style otherwise."
Somewhere on the wall a small white light flashed.
"Come," said Slartibartfast, "you are to meet the mice. Your arrival on the planet has caused considerable excitement. It has already been hailed, so I gather, as the third most improbable event in the history of the Universe."
"What were the first two?"
"Oh, probably just coincidences," said Slartibartfast carelessly. He opened the door and stood waiting for Arthur to follow.
Arthur glanced around him once more, and then down at himself, at the sweaty disheveled clothes he had been lying in the mud in on Thursday morning.
"I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my life-style," he muttered to himself.
"I beg your pardon?" asked the old man mildly.
"Oh, nothing," said Arthur, "only joking."
There is one statement in the above passage that strikes me the most, that I've been thinking about for close to five days now. I've been struggling with it, actually. It is when Startibartfast states: " . . . I'd far rather be happy than right any day." It's a really difficult conundrum. Happiness over truth. Happiness over self-respect. Happiness over morality. All of these things are rolled into Slartibartfast's tiny proclamation.
Of course, Slartibartfast is neither happy nor right, so he's not really a great gauge. But the quest for happiness is eternal. I don't think there's a person reading this post who would choose to be unhappy. That's a no-brainer. However, it's the idea of compromising yourself for that happiness that has kept me from finishing this post since Sunday.
It is Thursday morning now. I fell asleep last night with this post glowing on my laptop screen, still unfinished. I am no closer to an answer. I guess I'm wondering if happiness and rightness are mutually exclusive things. If I do what is right, shouldn't that make me happy? If I'm happy, doesn't that mean that I'm doing what is right? Sure there are activities that I could engage in that would give me pleasure but that would be really bad for me and/or the people I love--taking drugs, for example. Quitting my medical office job. Eating pancakes for every meal. But pleasure doesn't always mean that I'm doing the right thing. Taken to the extreme, pleasure can lead to addiction.
I guess that's the answer that I've been circling for days. If I'm having fun but hurting myself or people I love, then that's not really happiness. It's selfishness. It's putting myself before everything and everyone else. Sometimes, that's necessary for your health and sanity. However, a life that is simply a series of selfish acts is pretty meaningless. It won't lead to fulfillment. It will lead to loneliness and isolation. Meaningless relationships.
I know this is pretty deep for eight o'clock in the morning. But I think I finally got it. The moments that give me the most happiness are the moments when I do things for other people. My kids. My wife. My friends. By lifting others up, I lift myself up, as well. That is true happiness. That is true rightness. They don't exist on separate planets. Yes, there's tough love, where you have to do or say something that, on the surface, appears to be hard, even unfeeling. That's the tough part. In the end, though, it's all about trying to help someone you love. That's the easy part.
I can't choose between happiness and rightness. I can't separate them. They are both necessary. Both important. In the end, for me, it's all about love. Sometimes, love is going for a walk at sunset with someone, holding hands and listening to waves on a beach. Easy. Other times, love is holding up a mirror and letting a person see their mistakes. Difficult.
Saint Marty believes, however, that, in the end, love always wins.
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