Issac Asimov
 
 
By Vijay Phanshikar :
“Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else”. 
- Issac Asimov,
Scientist and prolific 
science-fiction writer 
VERY profound ! -- and quintessentially 
spiritual ! 
 
 

This is actually the very essence of being -- of being oneself. Though the words are simple, and anybody may feel tempted to call this statement mediocre in import, the depth of its meaning is actually amazing -- if one chose to get to its core. Of course, even when he wrote literally hundreds of science-fiction books, Issac Asimov often loved to express himself in the simplest of words. He also believed that basically science, too, is a simple natural phenomenon that can be understood by anybody. So, even as he wrote sci-fi books on complex issues, Asimov often chose words that appealed to common human comprehension.

 

 

This expression -- Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else -- needs a very deep consideration, so to say, to be understood completely. As he writes these words, Issac Asimov talks of a universal reality of human nature -- to look for validation of his/her thought and action from others. And, invariably, almost every human being is also looking at others for how they handle issues of life. And on countless occasions, each and every human person -- barring only a handful icons -- says at least once in a lifetime, in effect, that he/she could be better off if he/she were somebody different, something different. But then, that is the sure-shot key to unhappiness, as Issac Asimov states unhesitantly. For, when I would want to be somebody else, or I should have been somewhere else, or I should not have been doing the thing that was engaging me at a moment, then I am the unhappiest of souls (profoundly unhappy with the condition in which I find myself trapped). True, anybody can be in such situations some times in life. Such moments are of intense weakness, immense dismay ! But the ones with a strong inner core find meaning in their situation almost immediately and face reality as it is and try to overcome the difficulty to emerge head and shoulders above the surface.

 

Such people earn the right to breathe freely -- without any encumbrance. Such people are good candidates of happiness -- for human happiness reaches its full height only when the individual person finds meaning and purpose in whatever he/she is doing for whatever reason. In that state of mind, comparisons melt, validation by others becomes redundant, and a supreme sense of self-assurance rises to illuminate one’s core, one’s inner sanctorum. This is, of course, easier said than achieved. For, in most people’s case, the reality is rather grim. For, everybody seems to look over one’s shoulder -- in doubt and also seeking validation (from somebody, anybody, who may matter). The definition of happiness Issac Asimov offers, thus, has many a proviso.

 

Happiness -- or its layered perception -- may depend on what global view one may possess, what the person’s ultimately-sought destination is, or whether that person is clear -- or confused -- about what he/she ever wants to achieve, where he/she wants to end up! Answers to all these issues are complex -- and most human individuals are found almost always struggling to make some sense out of their being at a place and at point of time or life. And since definitive answers are only rarely forthcoming, most humans remain tentative in their sensing of happiness. The issue, of course, appears simple, but its resolution is complex -- thanks to the mercurial human mind embedded in the inner sanctorum of each of us, loaded down with self doubt.