The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1890-07-03
PURSUIT Of HAPPINESS.
Prodigious Amount Of Misdirected
Energy Expended in That
Avocation.
Competitive Activity the Highest
Form Of Mental or Physical
Enjoyment.
All Purely intellectual Joys Not Health
ful-Lots of Fun to Love, Also to
Have Money.

It is prodigious what an amount of en-
ergy is sunk in the unsuccessful exercise of
that inalienable right. the pursuit Of happi-
ness, says Scribner's for July. One
reason for the waste is that peo-
pie are governed too much by the opinions
If others as to what is pleasure, and neg
lect to get information that would fit them
by Analysing their own experiences. Thous-
ands and tens of thousands of people do
things day after day with the purpose of
enjoyment which they never have enjoyed,
and never will, but which they have learned
to regard as intrinsically pleasant. They
ride horses, they drive, hunt, dress, dance,
or whatever 1t is, not because they get per-
sonal enjoyment out of those occupations,
but because other people have enjoyed
them. ~
OF course, happiness is a state of mind;
and it is the mind, or the soul, that we want
to get at. We know this we'll enough theo-
retically, but fail to act with reasonable in
telligence upon our knowledge. To q GER
tain extent, the mind is dependent for its
states upon the conditions of the body, and
we are rightly taught that degree OF at.
tention must be paid to physical means if
we are to get intellectual or physical re-
suits. But even with the enjoyment Of
healthy body very important share OF the
pleasure is quasi-intellectual. When he has
pleasantly disposed toward the world. HIS
feelings warm, his sympathles are aroused,
and he is happy in consequence.
The exhilaration of the racer or the
huntsman, of the oarsman or the football
player. any high degree of muscular activ-
ity in a healthy man, is perhaps the nearest
to purely physical pleasures; but even here
it is higher enjoyment when it is competi-
tive activity, for competition itself is not
able and legitimate delight: "Rejoiceth as
q strong man to run race" the Scripture.
saith, and knows it's business as usual; for
trying to win involves chance to lose. and
that there is not much fun where there is
not some hazard has been the rule since
Eve acquired knowledge If evil at thu same
bite with good. Is
OF those purely intellectual joys that are
analogous to the physical joys, not all are
the mind just as it is to exercise the mus
cles; but there are joys of the intellectual
glutton and the intellectual sot, joys that
are not nearly as disreputable as they ought
to be. Minds are clogged with over-feed-
ing and racked BY stimulation, just as
not to be despised. Making money is
mighty pleasant; to have things is an un-
questionable source of satisfaction; to col
lect rare commodities orchids, race-horses.
railroad bonds is kind of sport that thou
sands Of people follow with lively enthusi-
asm. 1t is fun to have and to hold. to add
to and complete, and it has been since who
knows how many centuries before Ahab
longed for Naboth's vineyard. But avarice
in all its forms, old-fashioned and vener-
able as it is, is only second-rate sport,
since it lacks the element that the great
est pleasures must have, the element of
love.
Not passion. Passion is one of your sec
ond-rate, quasi-physical pleasures, which
are half pain, and cannot be depended
upon. But love is quite different matter,
and SO detached from all that is bodily
still be pleasure to us when we have
taken our bodies off. When we have loved
the most, and with the least passion and
the least selfshness, was it not then that we
attained most nearly to the state of mind
which is the great prize of life?
Is it a matter of general knowledge that
to love in this fashion is the best fun ago.
ing? Is it part of the ordinary experience
of the average man, so that it is safe to take
it for granted that every reader of this
screed can recall times in his life when
there was magic light on all he saw, and
mon remark in extenuation of the moon
venience of not having very much money
that people of ordinary fortune can eat as
much as millionaires; and if we find that
we can love as easily and as extensively on
small incomes as on greater ones, we may
safely consider that we have the better Of
the rich again. Perhaps we can; wealth
offers SO many diversions that sometimes
the pleasure there is in loving is overlooked.
The impression certainly exists that great
riches have tendency to clog
the affections; and great inequalities
of fortune are a barrier between
man and man, not insurmountable but APP
preciable. Love is personal, and very great
possessions almost inevitably throw per
scn:. qualities into shadow. We love men
for what they are, not what they represent
We cultivate the muscles because it is
fun to use them, and because it brings us
the happiness that comes of health. For
like reasons we make business of the cul-
tivation of our minds. How simple it is of
us to neglect to the extent that most of us
do the systematic cultivation of our hearts!
Now and then some one discovers that to
love ones neighbor with enthusiasm is the
best fun there is, and make business of
doing it; ond then the rest of us lean on our
undertakes and cape at him, and wonder
how he can spare SC much time for such an
object.