Conquest Of Happiness

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The Conquest of Happiness, Chapter 10
Chapter 10 (pages 113-123), “Is Happiness Still Possible?”

It is tempting to believe that it is impossible to achieve happiness in the modern world, but Russell finds contrary evidence through “introspection, foreign travel, and the conversation of my gardener [p. 113].”

Happiness can roughly be said to come in intellectual and physical (or perhaps complex and mundane) varieties. Russell’s elderly gardener finds joy in physical exertion and his ongoing struggle against the depredations of rabbits. But even the highly educated can achieve the same species of happiness, which comes from overcoming obstacles to achieve success. To bring consistent joy, success should be the typical, though not the invariable, outcome. Someone who is overoptimistic will be unpleasantly surprised by failure, so there is something to be said for modesty, in that the surprises that are likely to come your way will tend to be pleasant. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t be overly modest, as then you will steer clear of worthy challenges.

Among the highly educated classes, scientists are particularly happy. “Many of the most eminent of them are emotionally simple, and obtain from their work a satisfaction so profound that they can derive pleasure from eating, and even marrying [p. 115].” Their intelligence is channeled into their work – work which is commonly understood to be progressive and important – and hence they do not over-complicate their emotional lives. Their work fully engages their intelligence. The public applauds scientific genius, even though it cannot understand the fruits of that genius, while the same public vilifies artistic genius which produces similarly incomprehensible outputs. So scientists typically are happy and artists typically are unhappy.

Intelligent young people in the West have a species of dissatisfaction that
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