Haim Shapira - Happiness and Other Small Things of Absolute Importance

Haim Shapira was born in Lithuania in 1962. In 1977 he emigrated to Israel, where he earned a PhD in mathematical genetics for his dissertation on game theory and another PhD for his research on the mathematical and philosophical approaches to infinity. He now teaches mathematics, psychology, philosophy and literature. He is an author of seven bestselling books. His stated mission as a writer is not to try to make his readers agree with him, but simply to encourage them to enjoy thinking. One of Israels most popular and sought-after speakers, he lectures on creativity and strategic thinking, existential philosophy and philosophy in childrens literature, happiness and optimism, nonsense and insanity, imagination and the meaning of meaning, as well as friendship and love. He is also an accomplished pianist and an avid collector of anything beautiful.

From the same author:

Conversations on Game Theory
Infinity The Neverending Story
Ecclesiastes, The Biblical Philosopher
Nocturnal Musings
A Book of Love

Happiness and
Other Small Things
of Absolute
Importance

Haim Shapira

Translated from the Hebrew by Baruch Gefen

To my wife Daniela and my daughters Tal and Inbal

First and foremost, I would like to thank Etan Jonathan Ifeld for having confidence in me and my book. This book could never have materialized without him.

Id like to thank my faithful translator, Baruch Gefen, whose work preserved the books original musicality.

To Bob Saxton, who edited this book lovingly and wisely a very big thank you.

Id also like to personally thank Deborah Hercun, Jillian Levick, Jo Lal, and Gail Jones from the bottom of my heart, and to express my appreciation for everyone at Watkins who laboured over my book.

Last but never least Id like to thank my agent, Vicki Satlow, and my dear friend Ziv Lewis for their confidence in this work and the numerous hours they spent working on this project.

Thank you!

Contents

Overture

Over the centuries many people have meditated on the fundamental questions of human existence. This book is a voyage of sorts to the valley of great questions. Along with us I bring wise thinkers and sages of all faiths, nations and ages to help us understand their ideas.

On our road trip, we will meet Antoine de Saint-Exupry and Jane Austen, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lewis Carroll, Sigmund Freud and Lea Goldberg, Seneca and Vincent van Gogh, Katharine Hepburn and Simone Weil, John Keats and King Solomon, Rabindranath Tagore and Thich Nhat Hanh, Wisawa Szymborska and Walt Whitman, Friedrich Nietzsche and Leo Tolstoy to name but a few.

Well have a quiz on the meaning of life, investigate why numbers are so important and check just how much land Tolstoy needed to be happy. Nietzsche will guide us through the Thousand Masks experiment. Well question women on what makes them happy and find out why the answers surprise men so much. Well discover the connection between lesson and less, and what Mark Twain thought of anger. Epicurus will present his recipe for a happy life. The Fox will teach the Little Prince about love and friendship.

This little book is meant to change your perspective on almost everything in your life and primarily the concept of happiness. But, as you may know, there are no free rides in this world. Readers who wish to make the best of this book will have to be active: they will need to extrapolate from parts of the text, correct whatever mistakes they find, and expand on any ideas they like.

As serious and life-changing as the voyage to the land of the Things That Matter may be, its no less important to enjoy the ride. Having realized in my own life that serious is not the opposite of amusing, Ive made a serious effort to present you with an amusing book that deeply and profoundly discusses all the Things That Matter.

Happiness Matters

Aristotle believed that Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life; the whole aim. In modern times, however, we have all kinds of different ideas about what happiness is. Some of us must go bungee jumping to trigger our rush of joy, while others will find their bliss staying at home. Some of us are happy in a concert hall listening to classical music; while the cacophony of children in a playground could be music to the ears of others. Some people find elation when they solve a complicated equation; for others a cancelled maths class is a happy childhood memory. Dostoevskys novels introduce us to characters who experience great happiness just knowing that they exist, others who enjoy being miserable, and even several whose greatest joy is to make others sad.

We do differ from one another, often greatly. But is one way of living right and another wrong?

We all want to be happy, but is happiness truly possible?

The Intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of Creation.

Sigmund Freud

We shouldnt confuse happiness with moments or periods of happiness. People can be happy for two hours, two days, and even a whole year but that tends to be it: happiness never seems to sustain itself indefinitely. (By the way, Woody Allen disagrees with me. He believes that periods of happiness are much shorter, and that if anyone is happy for more than two days in a row, its only because someone is hiding something from him or her.)

In this chapter, well see why the path to happiness is very narrow, with room for one person alone. Well join Heinrich Heine as he plans his day of grand happiness. Well familiarize ourselves with peak moments in the lives of men and women, and try to understand the reason for the huge differences between them.

Before we hit the road and start our journey to happiness, heres a little piece of advice:

Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

On Statistics and Cookbooks

If university students were surveyed on the most boring subject theyve ever had to study, statistics would probably win first place. A student once told me that he never understood the need for anaesthetists when theres such an abundance of books on statistics. Before going into the operating theatre, he said, patients could be asked to read two or three pages from a carefully selected textbook, and soon theyd be totally desensitized and ready for open-heart surgery.

When I suggested this to some of my physician friends, they were, at first, very enthusiastic about inducing general anaesthesia without any shots or invasive procedures. But when I showed them some of the textbooks in question, their excitement faded quickly. The patients, they said, yawning, might never awake from surgery.

To ease the suffering of my students who must take classes in statistics, and to show them that the subject can actually be amusing and even interesting, I often send them out to conduct surveys on diverse and even bizarre subjects. Once I suggested they find out what types of books are published most prolifically. After visiting a few bookstores, the young surveyors came up with the following result:

(Wait can you guess the result before you go on? It shouldnt be hard.)

Hold your breath. Drumroll please. And the winner is:

Cookbooks!

Not very surprising, huh? Some books present recipes for extra-tasty and easy-to-make pies, others offer extra work and tasteless pies, while some explain the ties between American pie and mathematical Pi (). Some chefs are naked, while others wear fancy suits. There are big chefs who give little tips, and little chefs who tip big.