The Crazy Apes: A Satire of Human Society

The Pursuit of Happiness

The pursuit of happiness is everyone's dream: it's the American dream! But what does it really mean?

Is the pursuit of happiness really the pursuit of wealth?

The following dialogue is between two chimpanzees named Abu and Mabu: I use A and M to distinguish the speaker.

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M: Are you happy?

A: What do you mean, am I happy? Is this a new notion you picked up from humans?

M: Happiness is something they talked about a lot, during my captivity, but I don't quite understand it. It has to do with feeling good.

A: You mean like when we're hot and have sex?

M: Yeah! But I thing it's more than that.

A: You mean like when we go looking for food and find a tree laden with luscious ripe fruit?

M: Yeah! It must be a whole bunch of things like that.

A: How about you, Mabu, do you think you're happy?

M: Well, I'm healthy; I feel good; I have enough to eat and drink; I have a shelter; I have friends and family to keep me company; and I get my share of sex. If that's what humans call happiness, then I'm happy!

A: It seems to me that humans obsess about really strange notions!

M: It's interesting that you should say that because they have this weird phrase, the pursuit of happiness, that I also don't understand.

A: How can they pursue happiness?

M: I don't know. I believe the concept of happiness is confusing even for them. They also have another expression – money can't buy happiness – but everybody wanted lots of it to spend. They're so full of contradictions!

A: If money can't buy happiness, then why do the rich amass so much of it? And why do the masses work so hard to have more of it?

M: It's a mystery to me. They work so hard to earn money and then spend it on frivolous things. I got the impression that life for them was all about money and spending it.

A: So, that's it! Money is happiness! It can buy the things they want to satisfy their cravings.

M: Perhaps the sage who coined the phrase – money can't buy happiness – wasn't fond of material things, or maybe he or she knew something that the masses haven't yet learned.

A: Maybe their happiness comes not so much from the things they buy, but from the action of buying?

M: It could be. I often heard them say, let's go shopping. And when somebody said that, they would dash out of the house full of smiles. It seemed they never tired of shopping.

A: What about humans with little or no money, can they be happy? They can't go shopping for things, or not as frequently. Maybe the phrase – money can't buy happiness – was meant only for them: to make them feel better!

M: You could be right. In any case, I can tell you that when they returned from shopping they were elated, but the good feeling didn't last long. I got the impression that shopping was an addiction for them, just like smoking. A smoker feels good while puffing a cigarette, but soon after is miserable again until the next puff.

A: If shopping is an addiction, the old sage must be right: it doesn't buy long-term happiness! Maybe that's why some humans are poor: they stopped pursuing money because it doesn't buy lasting happiness.

M: It's possible that some are poor and happy because they stopped pursuing money, knowing that it doesn't buy them long-term happiness. They're probably the smart ones!

A: If they hadn't created money in the first place, they wouldn't have this addiction problem. I'm glad we haven't fallen into that trap!

M: And what a trap it's turned out to be!

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Perhaps they're right: the concept of happiness is confusing even for humans.

I live in a comfortable house with all the modern conveniences. My neighbour also lives comfortably, but his house is smaller than mine. Is he less happy than me? My other neighbour has a bigger house than mine. Is she happier than me? If we're all equally happy, why have houses more than tripled in size in the last fifty years?

When I was young, ten of us lived in a small house. It was a bit of a squeeze, but those were happy days because we were a lot closer as a family. Now, five of us live comfortably in a much bigger house, and sadly, bigger hasn't made us any happier. The only significant difference is that this house uses a lot more energy and pollutes more: much, much more on a per capita basis.

Are we destroying Mother Earth because we have an addiction that we can't break? And like any other addiction, we need more and more of it, and the more we have of it the more harm it causes.

Is our misguided pursuit of happiness, which drives us to overconsume, the Achilles heel of our biosphere?

Eventually, an addicted smoker will pay the price, but that cost is borne largely by him or her. Sadly, every living thing on earth, many of which have already been driven to extinction, is paying the price of our overconsumption. If only we could be a bit more like our distant cousins, living in harmony with nature, rather than destroying it!

Those recently extinct animals are not just statistics; they have names: Tasmanian Tigre, Pyrenean Ibex, Baiji White Dolphin, West African Black Rhinoceros, Tecopa pupfish and the Caribbean Monk Seal, to name a few. They all went the way of the Dodo Bird, but unlike the Dodo Bird that disappeared long time ago, these disappeared as a direct result of human activities.