Self-Help

Q:Have you noticed all these new nonfiction books on “happiness”?
A:It’s an industry. It’s really frightening. People need to read a book on how to be happy? It’s completely an American thing. Can you imagine people in Naples sitting on a bus or in a trattoria reading a book about happiness?

The above quote, from an interview between Mr. Charles Simic, former Poet Laureate of the United States, and Deborah Solomon for the NYTimes magazine.

We Eastern elitists are brought up to seek out meaning and purpose through education. To an increasingly degree (and I find this spiriting), the scientific method and the trappings of academic investigation are being used to analyze ennui and perceived personal failings. Decried by Simic, these new nonfiction books are setting out, in unromantic terms, pathways and practices that carry the promise of socially sanctioned states of success (pardon the alliteration). Focus and discipline are two qualities that are lacking in many people’s lives (myself included) – in my experience, discipline (in the form of social prohibitions and punishments) and focus (in the form of a lack of social mobility) are at a premium in European countries like Italy.

On average, Italians work 250 hours less per anum than their American counterparts. Why is this? In my opinion, those extra 250 hours represent the presence of a uniquely American insecurity – one derived from our unparalleled psychological independence. To a large degree, our success or failure is entirely predicated upon effort and education. Which is why we anxiously poor over nonfiction books which promise a better Way – and why we will never be content.

Thank God for that.