Resting Content

Pleased to report that I finally cleared the 'God Issue' of Philosophy Now and moved on to 'Issue 100', which has a number of articles related to language. This was my excuse for buying this issue before finishing no. 99 and, thus, breaking my self-imposed rule about not buying a new copy of any magazine until I've gone cover to cover through the one presently held. The rule has prevented me from building up foolish back-logs of unread material and I felt bad about this recent breach, but now that guilt is assuaged.

The first article I looked at in the latest edition (latest for me, that is) concerned the general subject of Happiness and quite thought-provoking it was, especially with regard to the idea of a Happiness Industry selling us unrealistic images of the contented life. However, I must say I felt the writer underestimated quite severely the virtues of contentment, something I believe is characteristic of those who regard themselves as in some sense intellectuals. So often the notion of contentment is dealt with as something almost negative, as in the notion of being 'merely contented'. For anyone who is suffering there is nothing 'mere' about the notion of the absence of suffering, and contentment is even more than that, being a something rather than a nothing, a presence rather than an absence.

I know this as I have had the good fortune to experience a great deal of contentment in recent years, for which I am profoundly yet simply grateful.

The world of Islamic thought makes much of two concepts that receive little real attention in what might be characterised as the modern world. Both seem inevitably to be associated with notions of passivity in that world, yet seen truly, felt truly, are deeply active, positive states of mind: I am thinking here of gratitude and patience. I am beginning to see these as the deep underpinnings of the kind of rich contentment that is itself a basis for action, not complacency, a transformative state.

In turning away from traditional forms of wisdom we've retreated in our understanding of human psychology. In doing so we've left ourselves at the mercy of the Happiness Industry.