an argument against happiness
A
casual glance at an orchestra in performance usually reveals a group
of mostly phlegmatic individuals going about their business. To the untrained eye, stoicism appears to be the order of the day, but the astute observer can mark a variety of attitudes and emotions
among the musicians. During a single concert it is often possible to
observe everything from rapture to despair, disguised either
cleverly, or not at all. Even when the general mood of the ensemble
is good and spirits are mostly high, it is almost always possible to
find at least one individual who is scowling or otherwise showing
signs of being under a dark cloud. Conversely, when spirits are
generally low, there is always someone who seems to be happily
playing away, either oblivious to, or immune from the general malaise
around them.
One
entertaining pastime to consider during an otherwise un-engaging
performance is to look for the player onstage who seems to be
enjoying themselves most of all and then to seek out their
counterpart, the one who is suffering. This is easier than it seems
at first for, interestingly, these individuals are often seated right
next to each other. Having observed this phenomenon over a number
of years, I've struggled to determine if this antipodal relationship
is causal or correlative. Is this a coincidence? Is
it Schadenfreude - a happy individual taking pleasure in the
low spirits of another? Or is it something else? Why do individuals
in close proximity exhibit such discordant emotional responses to the
same performance?
In my
experience, the overly happy player is more often than not at least
partially oblivious to their surroundings, and therefore probably
incapable of experiencing Schadenfreude. On the other hand,
the unhappy individual, possessed of a keener sense of
discrimination, possibly sharpened by years of discontentment, is
more acutely aware, sometimes painfully so, of what is going on
around them. Maybe this boils down to something like the bumper
stickers you see occasionally that say “If you're not outraged,
you're not paying attention.”
For a
while I postulated that there might be a limited supply of happiness
available during any performance, and the happy player had siphoned
off more than their fair share - the “I drink your milkshake”
theory. But later on I began to wonder if that viewpoint might have
been overly simplistic. The supply of happiness is most probably
variable; happiness can be created or destroyed. But is the creation
of happiness equivalent to the destruction of unhappiness? This got
me to wondering if the happy player, through the reckless enactment
of their enjoyment, might actually be creating unhappiness in those
around them.
The
subject got rolling around in my mind
again when I
recently came across the term Gluckschmerz,
a made up word with a mysterious etymology.
Gluckschmerz,
while not its exact opposite, is a good complement to Schadenfreude.
My small understanding of these two terms is that they both have
something to do with a sense of justice and with group dynamics,
which make them both apt for talking about the orchestra. More than
simply the enjoyment gained from witnessing someone else's suffering,
Schadenfreude
is
the feeling of satisfaction that arises from knowing justice is being
done when a transgressor receives their well-deserved comeuppance.
Likewise, beyond
being suffering caused by the joy of another, Gluckschmerz
is
the unhappiness felt upon witnessing someone deriving pleasure from
something that is ill-gotten, illegitimate, or otherwise undeserved.
When an acerbic conductor calls out a certain musician, players may
experience Schadenfreude
if
they feel the criticism to be merited.
When the criticism is not forthcoming they might feel disappointment,
which, when the undeserving player then gambols and frolics through a
concert in an unaware and unconscious state of bliss, curdles and
becomes Gluckschmerz.
On
the one hand, there is something profoundly depressing when
considering how joy and misery are sometimes dependently linked. I
can imagine Messrs. Schadenfreude and Gluckschmerz as two grizzled
old timers, long time stand partners at the back of a string section
in some godforsaken orchestra. Like two petulant children on
opposite ends of a teeter-totter, one can only go up when the other
comes down; they are hateful of, yet dependent upon the other.
Conversely, there is cause for optimism, for as we are especially
reminded during the holiday season, we are, all of us, sinners. As such, when we fall, as we all do, inevitably, we might be able to take solace in the fact we might be generating happiness, at least somewhere. At
any rate, this dark underbelly to happiness is something to keep in
mind over the next few weeks.
