When I think of this concept I always think of the movie Bruce Almighty where Morgan Freeman asks Jim Carrey, "Since when do people know what they want?" Jim had granted all prayers with a mass email reply of 'yes' and chaos ensued. In the movie "The pursuit of happyness", we follow Will Smith's character as he ultimately reaches happiness and the trials he goes through on his pursuit. Even though the movie is based on a true story, the movie implies Will's character is pursuing happiness.
So what then is happiness? How do we know when we are fooling ourselves in our thinking that something is a real happiness or pursuit thereof? When we have to choose between two things that we think make us happy, how do we know which one makes us more happy? I watched Cast Away last night with Sarah. She had never seen it. Tom Hanks' character loses his only friend, a volleyball named Wilson, near the end of the movie while floating adrift on the Pacific after a big storm. He mourns his loss as if it were a real friend who sustained him during his toughest times over the last four years, yet it was a volleyball. When you watch him interact with the ball, you see one side of him in the ball, and somewhat of an opposing side in Tom's character. In the extreme, we all fight with ourselves internally as he showed on the film externally. We reason within, arguing and discussing out with logic and emotion until we come to what we think to be the best solution.
I often wonder about this aspect of life. How a loving Father can allow so many lost children to wander around in darkness, reaching for what they believe to be happiness when all they are doing is satisfying urges and desires that last fleetingly. Is that the point? Are only a select few supposed to have the answer? As bordering as close as one can get as a Latter-Day Saint to universalism, I wonder what the end goal is for all the matter that all the Spirits that don't make it to the Celestial kingdom. Even we as mortals recycle, reuse and replenish.
Back to happiness. I have a dear friend that defines happiness currently that is drastically different from my definition. We have similar struggles and weaknesses, yet we are dealing with it differently. This person thinks he knows that what they are doing gives them happiness, whereas I feel the same about my solution, but we are going opposite directions. I wonder about what Father thinks about it all. In his mercy, I can see Him feeling so sad for our struggling and so sad when we try and turn to Him but can't seem to find Him, or do then forget how. This life is full of inequality, unfairness, sorrow, pain, death, sadness and everything else. May our Father quicken the day of release from the torment so many people feel.
