Putting Happiness on the Market

Has anyone seen the movie Evil Dead? Several of my co-workers are fans. They were chatting about it yesterday, as we waited for Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to start. “When are they going to make Nice Alive? I’ll see that,” I joked. Mary laughed, but no one else was too amused.

No matter. Mary and I began brainstorming movies that include the word “dead.” Dead Man Walking. Dead Poets’ Society. Drop Dead Fred. Don’t Tell Mom, the Babysitter’s Dead (“The dishes are done, dude!”). Dead Again. Dawn of the Dead. Shaun of the Dead (classic). Is there a western called Dead or Alive? We figured yes.

I think it’s time for a Nice Alive. But there doesn’t seem to be a market for “nice.” A few weeks ago, I read an article in The New York Times about our culture’s gloom-and-doom glorification. The writer -- Peter Kramer, a psychologist who also wrote Listening to Prozac -- argued that depression is on the permanent “hot” list. He cited Shakespeare’s Hamlet as the quintessential melancholic hero. If Hamlet had taken Prozac, “Alas, poor Yorick” might have transformed into, “Gosh, Yorick, too bad.” Nobody wants that.

Among last month’s hardcover bestsellers, according to Publisher’s Weekly, were Survivor in Death (J.D. Robb); State of Fear (Michael Crichton); Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil (James Luceno); and Night Fall (Nelson DeMille). Dr. Suess’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go! will probably make the cut later this month when graduations start, but for now, death and destruction rule.

Oddly enough, the nonfiction bestseller list belies America’s fascination with darkness. #3: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential (Joel Osteen). #7: The Purpose Driven Life (Rick Warren). #13: Hallelujah! The Welcome Table: A Lifetime of Memories with Recipes (Maya Angelou).

A hitchhiker to our galaxy would scratch his head….are we “glass half full” or “glass half empty”? Do we even know what’s in the glass?

Reading back through my blog entries, I’m embarrassed to find that I may sound too ignorant-happy. I skip Darfur in favor of “E!” I press the mute button on Iraq. I focus on the pilates videos when poets bring out the environmental decay imagery. I blast Britney full-volume.

The truth is, I’m a pretty happy person. This happiness isn’t chemically induced, but if I needed to take Prozac, I would. I still have a few prescriptions leftover from college. I’m addicted to happiness.

At the same time -- I understand that our world isn’t an entirely happy place. I made myself read about Darfur yesterday. 300,000 deaths in a matter of months. Members of my church recently traveled through parts of Sudan, and last Sunday my priest described the setting: hardly any food or clothing, poor shelter.

There’s plenty of misery on my side of the ocean, too. Most of my fourth graders in Hughes had seen some form of alcoholism, sexual abuse, drug use, or family violence. A 10-year-old girl in my second-year class had been raped the year before. I’m sure my TFA friends can produce equally horrific stories.

With my education and experience, how can I smile on a clear conscience? Wouldn’t I be better suited to wearing all-black and smoking unfiltered Pall Malls?

Kramer thinks not. Misery is chic, he says. It’s even smart. But in the end, it’s not productive.

No doubt, some of our greatest thinkers have been the Pall Mall types. If Vincent van Gogh and his GP had lived in this century, van Gogh might be plus an ear and minus a “Starry Night.” But don’t we shortchange Vincent by ascribing his genius to an illness? What if he had been basically happy, yet cognizant of the world’s miseries? I wonder if he could have been brilliant and happy at the same time. And if it isn’t possible to be both brilliant and happy, should we go ahead and put “deep thinkers” on the endangered species list?

Plenty of days in Hughes, I cried before school. I remember looking at my watch: 6:55 a.m. Five minutes to weep before I get in my car. I cried on behalf of my students and out of good, old-fashioned self-pity. “I can’t do anything for these kids,” I thought. “This day is worthless. I’m worthless.”

I’ll give you one solid guess as to how my school day went when I started out in that self-defeatist mode. In TFAese, those weren’t BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)-meeting days.

I’d like to think that I’d be a better teacher now. I’m aware of sadness -- poverty, death, Heartbreak 101. At the same time, I realize the value of happiness. Happiness doesn’t solve anything, but I believe it creates more possibilities. And Americans seem to crave it in secret, even while snapping up the latest Crichton thriller.