I recently came across an article that ranked every state
based on happiness.
I love that kind of thing.
Partly I love it because ranking a location by happiness is
about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of.
For one thing, happiness is physically unmeasurable by any scientific
gauge and secondly, everywhere I’ve ever lived (including places that made me
very happy and places that made me very sad) was full of both sad and happy people.
But it’s such an attractive idea isn’t it? The idea that somewhere, perhaps in Nebraska,
lies a community of people walking around with moronic smiles plastered across
their faces, eating sponge cake and
practically peeing themselves with excitement over the upcoming season of
Extreme Makeover.
I also enjoy this sort of article because I sort of have a
running joke with one of my best friends.
You see, about 6 years ago, I moved into a house about 4 blocks away
from them here in Maryland and then two weeks later they moved away…… to Ohio. So
I am always on the lookout for articles that scientifically prove that Ohio is a stupid place
to live and that, therefore, I am smarter….. and better looking.
So, I was pleased as punch to see this article which ranks Maryland #6 for happiness and Ohio
#47, just above Mississippi, Kentucky
and West Virginia
(ouch!)
http://channels.isp.netscape.com/homerealestate/package.jsp?name=fte/happinessbystate/happinessbystate&floc=NI-ntk1
Now to be fair, this survey didn’t really make any
sense. It didn’t actually measure
happiness, instead is measured things that are supposed to make you happy such as
income, good schools, a healthy populace and the presence of gay people (I
don’t know why gay people are supposed to make you happy…. it’s in the
article. Gay people happen to make me
happy, but I’m not sure they really are the best happiness barometer. But what do I know? I’m not a scientist.)
So anyway, I emailed off the article along with a note about
how bad I felt for my friend to have to live in a state that was only slightly
less miserable than a state where only about half the people over 60 have any
teeth (true fact, look it up)
He responded with a defensive note about how this article
was a load of crap and how he was sick of people picking on Ohio
and he was tired of being dragged down by loser cities like Cleveland.
(His words, not mine. I think you
Clevelandites are awesome!)
Anyway, I chuckled and moved on, keeping an eye out for the
next survey that would rank states based on obesity or inability to clear snow
off the roads.
But, lo and behold, I came across another scientific ranking
of states based on happiness.
Delightful. There’s
nothing like adding a little salt to a Cincinnatian’s wounds.
However, this survey didn’t work out so well for me. In fact, it looked a lot like the last
survey, but turned upside down.
In this one, Mississippi
was 6th, but Maryland
was (gulp!) 40th! (although
still ahead of poor sad Ohio
at 44th).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091217141314.htm
As I began to look at these rankings a little more carefully,
I began to notice some really peculiar differences. Many of the states that had been in the top
10 of the first survey – Maryland, California, Massachusetts
– Were in the bottom 10 of the second survey.
And many of the states that were in the bottom 10 of the first survey (Mississippi, Louisiana)
were in the top 10 of the second. Mississippi alone went from 48th to 6th
(#6 was Maryland’s
rank dammit!)
What is that about?
Well, it’s a little hard to tell and I suspect the most
likely answer is that researchers are kind of stupid, but the main difference
that I was able to discern is that in the first survey researchers looked at
objective data that is supposed to lead to happiness (income, good schools,
long lives) and ranked states accordingly and on the second survey they just
asked people, “are you happy?”
So, basically people who live in places where they should be
miserable, i.e places that are poor, have bad educational systems and
everyone’s fat and dies early are every happy.
And people who live in places with a high quality of living and lots of
smart people who exercise regularly are sad.
Great.
There’s a very large part of me that finds me highly highly
depressing.
Of course there are places where people live in lovely,
educated, healthy places and are very happy (Hawaii) and people who live in backward, poor,
unhealthy states and are very sad (like, say, Ohio) but for the most part the
people who are supposed to be happy aren’t and the people who should be
miserable aren’t either.
What’s going on?
Well, I have a theory, a sad little theory.
If you compare these charts to a third chart, you’ll see a
further correlation. This chart is a
list of states by number of people who have received a bachelor degree.
http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Ranking/2003/R02T040.htm
In this survey, 9 of the highest educated states are also in
the bottom 15 of the happiness chart.
And 8 of the least educated states are at the top 15 of the happiness
chart.
So, is ignorance bliss?
Does being smart make you sad.
In one, quick word:
Yes.
I know that this is a terrible truth to have to come to
terms with, but I think that the answer is an unqualified: Absodoobalutley!
Now, it’s not surprising that the least educated are
happy. They usually don’t travel much or
spend much time contemplating life outside of their community. They tend to have a straightforward belief
system of clear cut rights and wrongs.
They are often surrounded by people who are similar to them and believe
many of the same things as they do.
They also never had to read James Joyce.
These are all recipes for sweet joyful happiness.
On the other hand, the more educated you are, the less the world makes
sense. The less things are clear
cut. These college educated folk from
Hah-vud have travelled more and seen disparity in the world. They recognize that the truths that they grew
up with may not be as straightforward as they once believed. They understand that there are no easy
answers and a study of history will reveal that we, as people, probably get it wrong
more often than we get it right.
Plus educated people read depressing things like the New
Yorker and the Stock Market report….. and James Joyce.
I believe that there is comfort and joy in a simple life,
and not just a simplicity of possessions or activities, but a simplicity in how
you view the world. Children tend to be
happy because there are a clear cut series of rights and wrongs, love is
something given not earned, and being good and doing the right thing rarely
encompasses more than eating all your peas and cleaning up your room once a week.
Whereas the older you get and the more educated you become
and the more of the world you see, the more you come to realize that life is
rarely lived in black and white, but instead in a muted complex arena of
grey.
The things we were told by our parents and the television would
make us happy (getting A’s on our report car, buying a new car, owning a
KIMBALL Piano!) rarely do.
The simplicity of right and wrong in our small homes in our
small home towns, doesn’t always translate to the confusing wrongs we see if we
travel to the inner cities, or to other nations, or even read the newspaper
where those who cheat often seem to succeed and those who try to make the world
a better place are often met with roadblocks.
Right after college I spent several years teaching in some
of the poorest corners of our nation – Mississippi,
Detroit, Newark,
Washington, DC. I saw people living in what were little more
than shacks. I saw 15 year olds having
babies and leaving them to all but raise themselves. I saw young girls being taken advantage of by
the men in their lives. And I saw a
society where even the bright and hardworking were limited by the failures of
those around them.
Spending that time has forever changed my life. I see the world differently now and I see it
far differently than if I had never gone to college or never left the small Tennessee town I grew up
in.
My wife and I were talking recently and we had the
revelation that we would have probably been happier people had we never spent
those years living in those various places.
We would have known less of the horrors of the world and it would have
been easier to pigeon hole people and circumstances into boxes of right or
wrong and the world would have made more sense and been a little less sad.
That doesn’t mean that I regret those years, nor does it
mean that I wouldn’t do it all over again, but there is a sense of mourning for
the simplicity and ignorant joyfulness that came before hand.
So, ignorance really can be bliss and knowledge really can
be a burden.
So should we all yank our kids out of school and move to a
commune where we all live a life of blissful simplicity concerned only with
those around us and never having to worry about complicated things like poverty
or algebra?
Probably not.
And, of course, I’m not suggesting that all people without a
bachelor degree are ignorant or unaware of the pain in the world. But I am suggesting that, often, learning more
creates more questions than it does answers and that it can make the world more
foreign instead of more understandable and that this complexity can rob us of
some of that sureness and joyful clarity that came with youth.
Ok, it’s pretty clear I’ve drawn some pretty broad sweeping
conclusions without much convincing data.
Which is, to say, that I am now a scientist and should publish my observations
in an academic journal.
You see, that’s what those pointy headed academics are
trying to do. The more they learn, the
more disorder they see in the world…. and it makes them sad. So they try to clarify it. They try to create order where there is
none. They try to rank states based on
happiness. They try to quantify the
unquantifiable. To draw order from the
chaos.
It makes them happy.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid this blog hasn’t made anyone
happy. After yesterdays’ turgid soul
wrenching diatribe, I had really hoped to write something happier today. I’m not quite sure how I ended up here. I was sure that writing about stupid happiness
rankings and making fun of various states would be funny.
It turns out it is not.
Which I guess is why I should be #6 for happiness, but am,
instead, #40.
But, hey, at least I don’t live in Ohio.