Hector and the Search for Happiness (15 page)

And he explained to Hector that these images were very useful for knowing how the brain worked, but that they didn’t explain happiness any more than your smile explains why you are happy.

Hector noticed that Rosalyn was smiling as she listened to him. Earlier, when they’d been looking at the images on the screen, out of the corner of his eye he’d seen the professor and Rosalyn kiss.

Which proves, in case you still had any doubts, that the professor definitely wasn’t a Martian.

T
HE professor took Hector to lunch outside at one of the university cafés, because in this town the weather was always good except for two weeks in winter when you had to put on a sweater in the evening.

They were sitting facing a huge lawn and Hector was enjoying watching the squirrels, which weren’t afraid of people and came up to beg for food. At the other tables were students, students and professors, professors and professors, all mixed together, because it was the kind of university where students and professors talk to each other.

‘Well,’ the professor said, tucking into his chicken, ‘do you feel that you know more about happiness?’

Hector said that he did, but, right at that moment, he felt something tugging at his trouser leg: it was a squirrel wanting some of his lunch. And this made him think. Did the squirrel realise how lucky he was to be there? Or on the contrary did he spend his life wondering whether he might not be better off somewhere else, or feeling that he didn’t have the life he deserved? In the end, it depended on the comparisons the squirrel was able to make: he must have seen the large portion of fried squid on the plate in front of Hector. The squirrel could either think that the large portion was a stroke of luck because it increased his chances of getting some squid, or he could consider it a terrible injustice that Hector should have such a large portion all to himself; or he might even feel that it proved that he, the squirrel, was a miserable wretch (especially if his squirrel-wife reminded him of it every evening when he went home). The squirrel’s happiness depended on how he looked at things.

So Hector said to the professor, ‘Among my patients are people with no money or health problems, who have close-knit families, interesting and useful jobs, but who are quite unhappy: they are fearful about the future, dissatisfied with themselves, they see only the bad side of their situation. There was one determinant of happiness missing from your list just now: people’s way of looking at things. In short, people whose glass is always half full are clearly happier than those whose glass is always half empty.’

‘Aha!’ said the professor. ‘That’s a typical psychiatrist’s observation. But you’re right, it’s an important point.’

And he explained to Hector that there was a big debate among professors of Happiness Studies. There were those who thought that you were happy above all because your life was full of positive things or events, like in Hector’s list. Other professors disagreed: they thought that happiness depended above all on your way of looking at things, on that idea of the glass being half full or half empty.

‘Colleagues of mine who defend the second idea tend to think that happiness levels are a bit like blood pressure or weight: they may vary from time to time according to circumstances, but generally they return to the same basic level, which is different in each individual. They study people who have experienced great success or great misfortune and observe that after a few months their moods return more or less to what they were before.’

‘And what do you think?’ Hector asked.

‘A little of both. We depend on circumstance, but some people have more of a gift for happiness than others.’

And Hector thought of Djamila, who was so ill that it was a great misfortune, but who was still happy when she thought that her younger brothers weren’t going to die in the war.

Hector took out his little notebook and wrote down a lesson, which he thought was very important:

The professor was vigorously chewing his chicken. Hector had only ever seen him in a good mood. And this made him ask another question.

‘And why do some people have more of a gift for happiness than others?’

The professor went back to the studies of the twins and the young women, but luckily there was no blackboard and so he couldn’t begin explaining the calculations again. Basically, having a gift for happiness was a bit like being good at maths or games: it depended partly on the development of the brain after you were born, and even before, but also on how your parents or other adults had brought you up when you were small. And of course on your own efforts and subsequent encounters.

‘Nature or nurture,’ said the professor. ‘Whichever way, the parents are to blame!’

This made him laugh loudly, and the people sitting near them turned around, but when they saw that it was the professor, it made them smile — they all knew him.

Just then, they saw Rosalyn arrive, only she was no longer wearing a white coat, but a pretty blue flowery summer dress; she was talking to an attractive man who kept looking at her, and they went and sat down together at a table.

The professor stopped talking. Hector could see that his good humour had vanished. He turned pale as he watched Rosalyn and the man begin eating their lunch, chatting and smiling.

‘That bastard Rupert,’ muttered the professor through gritted teeth.

He looked very unhappy and very angry and Hector knew that at moments like this it was good to talk. And so he asked the professor why Rupert was a bastard.

‘Not only does he steal my research grants, but he’s always hovering around Rosalyn!’ replied the professor.

And he explained that, like him, Rupert was a professor, specialising in the difference between men and women’s brains. He used Rosalyn’s machine quite a lot for his experiments, and so he saw her fairly often.

‘And because the difference between men and women is fashionable, the media are interested in what he does and Rupert appears on women’s TV programmes. The dean likes that, it’s good for the university, and so he gets the biggest research grants in the department.’

And Hector could see the professor suffering as he watched Rosalyn and Rupert chatting and laughing.

Hector took a mental note of a lesson he would write down later:

If you thought about it, people had always suffered because of rivalries, and had even gone to war: they wanted something the other had or to take the boss’s place.

Fortunately, right at that moment Agnès arrived, and this served as a distraction. She was also wearing a nice dress, and when he saw her looking so pretty and smiling, Hector wondered whether he would be happier now if they’d been married when they were young. But perhaps they’d have argued about the children or grown bored of seeing one another all the time and would be divorced by now like everybody else.

‘So,’ said Agnès, sitting down beside them, ‘is Hector’s brain normal?’

Hector replied, ‘Normal for a psychiatrist,’ and this made Agnès laugh, though not the professor, who was trying not to look at Rupert and Rosalyn, but was clearly still suffering. Since Agnès was clever, she immediately understood what was going on. And so she moved opposite the professor, so that at least he couldn’t see Rupert and Rosalyn. And she started talking to him about a recent article she’d read on the difference between feeling joy, being in a good mood and happiness, and the professor quickly became excited again and his good mood came back.

Hector gave the squirrel a piece of squid, and it went off to nibble it at a safe distance. Hector didn’t know how to read a squirrel’s smile, but he had the feeling that the squirrel was quite happy.

And then he looked at Agnès, who had managed to help the professor recover his good mood, and thought again of Djamila, who was happy for her younger brothers, and Ying Li, who sent money to her family, and Marie-Louise’s cousin, who had given him that nice surprise. And he made a note:

He didn’t know whether Rupert had already discovered this difference between men and women, but Hector didn’t need Rosalyn’s machine to know that it was true.

And so might the next lesson be:

‘Y
OU’VEdone a fine job,’ said the old monk.

He was sitting behind his desk reading Hector’s list. He had put on a little pair of glasses, and looked even smaller and older than Hector remembered, but he still looked just as contented.

Hector had copied out his list again after adding on the final lessons, because you couldn’t show a rough draft covered in crossings out and nonsensical squiggles to a venerable, kind old monk.

Out of the window, you could still see the magnificent Chinese mountains, occasionally darkened by the shadows of the clouds then dazzling in the sunlight, and Hector thought that seeing the mountains like that every day must help you in some measure to be wise.

The old monk read the list very attentively, and this had a strange effect on Hector. Because the old monk had obviously experienced many more things than he had. And during all his years as a monk he’d also had a lot of time to reflect. And yet he was reading Hector’s little lessons on happiness so attentively. Hector wondered whether he himself was capable of reading so attentively the letters his patients sent him, or even those written to him by people he loved.

That could be another lesson:
Be very attentive towards others.

The old monk stopped reading. He asked Hector to show him his notebook, because he also wanted to see the rough draft. Hector hesitated, and began to say, ‘Do you really think . . .’ but the old monk laughed, still holding out his hand, and Hector passed him the notebook.

The old monk examined the rough draft. From time to time he smiled, not in a mocking way, as previously mentioned, but because he was genuinely happy. Hector thought to himself that the old monk must have a good way of looking at things, one of the ways that make you happy.

Finally, he stopped reading and asked Hector what it was he had crossed out so thoroughly. Hector felt embarrassed, he didn’t really want to tell a monk, but the old monk insisted and so Hector said,
‘Lesson no. 18: Happiness could be the freedom to love more than one woman at the same time.’

The old monk roared with laughter.

‘That’s what I thought when I was a young man!’

He closed the notebook, looked at the list again and then he said, ‘You really have done a fine job. All your lessons are very good. I have nothing to add.’

Hector was pleased but at the same time a little disappointed. He’d been hoping the old monk would provide him with a few more lessons, or at least a good theory about happiness.

The old monk looked at him again, smiling, and added, ‘It’s a beautiful day, let’s go for a walk.’

Outside, the scenery was magnificent. They could see mountains, sea, sky.

Hector felt a little daunted being on his own with the venerable old monk, and he didn’t really know what to say. But at the same time, he sensed that the old monk wasn’t expecting him to say anything particularly intelligent or wise, that he simply wanted to share this immense beauty with him.

The old monk said, ‘True wisdom would be the ability to live without this scenery, to be the same person even at the bottom of a well. But that, it has to be said, is not so easy.’

And Hector understood that he’d experienced this, at the bottom of a well.

For a moment, they watched the clouds, the sun and the wind play over the mountains. Hector wondered whether this wasn’t another lesson:
Take time to observe the beauty of the world.

Just then, a young monk came up the little path towards them. He said something in Chinese to the old monk, and went back down to the monastery gardens, where you could see other monks gardening (a special type of gardening that looks easy, but is difficult to explain).

‘Well,’ said the old monk, ‘there’s a visitor waiting for me. But I’m glad that we’ve been able to spend a little time together.’

Ever since he’d arrived, Hector had been longing to ask a question, and now he took the plunge.

‘The first time we met, you said to me: it’s a mistake to think that happiness is the goal. I’m not sure I understand.’

‘I was referring to the goals which you in your civilisation are so good at setting yourselves, and which incidentally allow you to achieve many interesting things. But happiness is a different thing altogether. If you try to achieve it, you have every chance of failing. And besides, how would you ever know that you’d achieved it? Of course one can’t blame people, especially unhappy people, for wanting to be happier and setting themselves goals in order to try to escape from their unhappiness.’

‘Do you mean that the same lessons don’t apply to everybody?’

The old monk looked at Hector and said, ‘Do you tell all your patients the same thing?’

Hector thought for a moment and said that he didn’t, that it depended on their character, on whether they were young or old, on whether they’d experienced true unhappiness or not.

‘There you are, you see,’ the old monk said. ‘It’s the same thing.’

Then Hector thought about it a little more and said that although he didn’t tell all his patients the same thing, even so there were certain basic principles that he often returned to, especially with people who were sad or scared: he helped them distinguish between what they thought, about themselves and others, and reality. Because they tended to believe that what they thought was reality and that was often not the case.