One of the first things I learned in my intro to phil class freshman year of college is that happiness cannot function as a guide for the formation of an ethical theory. After all, if everyone got what they wanted there certainly wouldn’t be enough left for me! At least that’s a crass way of generalizing the supposed dangers of a schematic as fickle and subjective as happiness. However, this critique of happiness has grown tired. Ethics always boils down to happiness, most theories simply sublimate it.

This begs the question. Why are we so afraid of happiness? Of course, at first glance that seems like a ridiculous question. Our entire culture is one big satisfaction orgy. But that doesn’t change the fact that happiness scares the be-jezus out of good capitalists. Satisfaction should not be confused with happiness, especially not the perpetual (dis)satisfaction of misappropriated desire that is the satisfaction of American capitalism. In our culture satisfaction functions as both a fetish and a salve. On the one hand it is that little magic charm that empowers you to go through with the disgusting act that you wouldn’t be able to complete otherwise. On the other, it serves as a recovery from the dissonance of a fetish driven lifestyle.

Capitalism (as a sociological phenomenon) is founded on the faux axiom that there is a fundamental lack in human being that cannot be solved through living, only through accessorizing. That’s why we trade our time for capital. That’s why we trade our capital for products. That’s why products are always recycled for new products. We have become convinced that our existential lack is not only innate, but that it can only be addressed through prosthetic.

I can’t help but wonder if we’ve got the story wrong. What if we’re not mis-shapen? What if our culture is? How does that change the way we address our dissatisfaction?

To put it into a metaphor: are we happier if we live in a human shaped culture as opposed to a culture fashioned around capital? Let’s take it a step further and put it into a literal metaphor: are we happier creatures if we’re living in a human shaped house? I’ll be coming back to this question in future posts because it deserves a bit more unpacking.

After years of working through some of these questions I’ve come to some unpopular conclusions. First, it’s worth talking about what a human being is. I know that some of you will want to say, “But there is no the-human-being.” And you’re right, but that doesn’t mean that there is no the-human-being.

Second, it’s worth taking what we discover about the shape of a human being, chucking parts of our culture that don’t fit the model, and building a culture around what we are. Our current iteration of culture is founded on our supposed lack, hence the accessorizing.

Finally, if we’re honest with ourselves, something as seemingly inconstant as happiness can function as a guide. If we follow it, it can trace the lines of dissonance between the-human-being and the misshapen culture we’ve constructed for ourselves.

To put it ever so simply, we follow our bliss to a new blueprint. So, that leaves several questions that I’ll put to you.

1. what does following look like? how do you do it?

2. what sorts of dissonance do you uncover when you try to live a human shaped life?

3. what edges of the blueprints have you stumbled across?

I’m a planner. Every big decision is cycled through my brain countless times. Every possible outcome is considered. Once the strongest arguments for and against have been culled, I pose them to my friends and relatives to get as many varied perspectives on the issue as possible. Then I cycle it some more. Then I take action. I do this simply to give myself the best chance for a happy future. Success? Read on.

First, it’s important to know that I’m in law school. I’m two months into my first year. I decided to go into law school after spending four years strategically pursuing, and failing to find, a fulfilling career in marketing and public relations. After each failed attempt the planning cycle began anew, and at the end I found myself enrolling in law school—finally facing a worthy challenge, and as I saw it, my last chance at catching-up with that “happy future” that had turned out to be surprisingly elusive.

As some of you may know, surviving the first few weeks of law school requires some pretty intense adjustments. Once I got through that and finally had a chance to take a breath, I realized that I had yet to care about anything that I had learned. After a brief moment of panic, I focused on the fact that this was the first month of the first year, and it was bound to improve. It didn’t. I got through midterms with respectable academic success, but that wasn’t enough to outweigh the fact that I still hated law school. That realization led to real panic—my last chance for happiness was slipping through my proverbial fingers.

Melodrama aside, to an introspective planner like me, things don’t get much more bleak. Of course my natural reaction was to figure out what had gone wrong. After a few days without shaving and eating nothing but cold cereal, it hit me. (For those of you anticipating an incredible epiphany about the meaning of life, now is the time to lower your expectations) As embarrassingly cheesy as it may be, I realized that in spending so much time and energy in strategically planning my perfect future, I had stopped giving myself permission to focus on what would make me happiest right now.

I wish that solved everything, but alas, focusing on what makes me happy doesn’t pay very well, and as painful as it has been to admit, I believe it is only a lucky few who can find that perfect career, getting paid to do what they love. For the rest of us the key is finding an enjoyable job that allows us the freedom to do the things that that we really care about.

Does this mean that I’ve figure out what that job is? Nope, I don’t have a clue, but in case you’re curious, it has made one thing clear—law school is not even close. So, tomorrow is the day I become a law school dropout. What then? I don’t know, happiness I hope, but I’m certainly not planning on it.