Michael: You know that phrase, "the pursuit of happiness"? It’s in the Declaration of Independence, it’s basically the American dream. What if I told you that for most of human history, that phrase would have sounded completely insane, maybe even dangerously arrogant? Kevin: What do you mean, insane? It feels like the most natural goal in the world. It’s what everyone wants, right? To be happy? Michael: It feels natural to us. But that feeling is a historical invention. And that’s what we’re diving into today with Darrin M. McMahon's incredible book, Happiness: A History. Kevin: A history of happiness? That sounds… ambitious. How do you even write a history of a feeling? Michael: That’s what makes the book so brilliant. McMahon is a highly respected intellectual historian, and he took on this daring project that few had ever attempted. The book was widely acclaimed by publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal precisely because it historicizes this thing we all assume is timeless. Kevin: Okay, so he’s not giving us a 10-step guide to being happy. Michael: Far from it. He’s showing us how the very idea of happiness was completely reinvented. Today we'll explore how it went from a tragic lottery, to a self-evident right, and maybe even into a modern burden. Kevin: A tragic lottery? Okay, you have my attention. Where do we even start with that?

Michael: We start in ancient Greece, where happiness wasn't something you felt, but something you were judged to have, often only after you were dead. The famous line from the playwright Sophocles is "count no man happy till he is dead." Kevin: Whoa. That is the bleakest thing I've ever heard. So you could be living your best life, feeling great, and the Greeks would be like, "Nope, not happy yet. Let's see how this ends for you." Michael: Exactly. The perfect illustration is the story of King Croesus, which Herodotus tells. Croesus was the king of Lydia, fabulously wealthy, the richest man in the world. He summons the wise Athenian, Solon, and shows off all his treasures, basically asking, "So, I'm the happiest man alive, right?" Kevin: A classic billionaire move. "Validate my existence, wise one." Michael: And Solon just shuts him down. He says, no, the happiest man I ever knew was a guy named Tellus, an ordinary Athenian. He lived in a prosperous city, had good kids who had their own kids, and then he died gloriously in battle. The city gave him a public funeral. His story was complete. Kevin: So his happiness was based on his life's resume, not his feelings? A good life, a good death, check the box. Michael: Precisely. And then Solon names the second happiest people he knew: two brothers, Cleobis and Biton. Their mother needed to get to a festival, but the oxen weren't ready. So these two strapping lads yoked themselves to the cart and pulled their mother for miles. Everyone was amazed by their devotion. Kevin: That’s a great story. But what makes them happy? Michael: Their mother, overjoyed, prayed to the goddess Hera to grant her sons the best gift a mortal could receive. The brothers went to sleep in the temple that night... and never woke up. They died peacefully at their absolute peak of honor and virtue. Kevin: They died! That was the gift? That's the second-happiest story you've got? This is dark, man. Michael: It's a completely different worldview! Solon's point to Croesus was that life is unpredictable. The gods are jealous. Fortune can turn on a dime. You can have everything, and then, like Croesus later did, lose your son, your kingdom, and end up on a pyre about to be burned alive. It was only then, facing death, that Croesus understood. Happiness wasn't a feeling; it was a characterization of an entire life, safe from misfortune. Kevin: Hold on, you keep saying 'happiness.' But it sounds like they meant something else. What's that Greek word you mentioned before... eudaimonia? Michael: Yes, eudaimonia. It's often translated as 'happiness,' but it's much deeper. It literally means having a good 'daimon' or guiding spirit. It implies being favored by the gods, being lucky. It’s a state of flourishing that is judged externally, based on your virtue, your prosperity, your family, and your death. It's not about your internal, subjective state. Kevin: This is so counter to everything we believe. It's basically saying, "Don't get too comfortable, the universe might ruin your life at any moment for no reason." Who could live like that? Michael: That is the tragic vision! Life was something to be endured, not necessarily enjoyed. And this idea is baked into the very language. McMahon points out that the root of our English word 'happiness' comes from the Old Norse word 'happ,' which means chance, fortune, or luck. The same is true for 'bonheur' in French or 'Glück' in German. Happiness was a cosmic dice roll. Kevin: So for thousands of years, the default human setting was basically 'brace for impact.' Michael: And hope for the best. You didn't pursue happiness. You hoped it happened to you.

Kevin: Okay, so if that was the default for thousands of years, how on earth did we get to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"? What possibly could have changed? Michael: A revolution in human thought. We jump forward to the 17th and 18th centuries, the Enlightenment. This is where the entire script gets flipped. Thinkers like John Locke started to fundamentally rethink human nature. Kevin: Locke, the philosopher. What was his big idea? Michael: He argued that the primary driver of all human action is the desire to avoid pain and seek pleasure. He called it "uneasiness." And at the far end of that spectrum of pleasure is what he called "happiness." He essentially reframed the pursuit of happiness not as arrogance against the gods, but as the most natural human impulse, hardwired into us. Kevin: So the Enlightenment is like the ultimate software update for the human brain. It uninstalled the 'fate and tragedy' program and installed the 'you can be happy, and you deserve it' app. Michael: That's a perfect way to put it! And it was utterly revolutionary. Suddenly, happiness wasn't a rare gift from the heavens; it was something you could and should build right here on Earth. It became, in the famous words of Thomas Jefferson, a "self-evident truth." Kevin: And that's where the political angle comes in. The Declaration of Independence. Michael: Exactly. Jefferson, drawing heavily on these Enlightenment ideas, enshrines the "pursuit of happiness" as an inalienable right, right alongside life and liberty. The French revolutionaries did the same in their Declaration of the Rights of Man, aiming for the "happiness of all." This was a seismic shift. Governments were now being judged on their ability to provide the conditions for their citizens to be happy. Kevin: But did they mean 'happiness' like we do today? You know, feeling good, personal satisfaction, getting what you want? Or was it still tied to that older, Greek idea of virtue? Michael: That's the million-dollar question, and McMahon shows it was a messy, fascinating mix. For many, like Jefferson, happiness was still deeply connected to public virtue, contributing to the common good, and living a rational, upright life. It wasn't just hedonism. Kevin: But it opened the door. Michael: It blew the door off its hinges. By declaring it a right, the Enlightenment made happiness a personal project. It democratized it. No longer was it for the lucky few. Now, every man, woman, and child was told they could, and should, be happy. Kevin: And I'm guessing that came with some unintended consequences. Michael: You have no idea. That open door leads us straight into the modern world, and the paradox we all live with today.

Kevin: A paradox? What do you mean? We got the right to be happy. That sounds like a good thing. Michael: It is, but it has a dark side. McMahon argues that the right to pursue happiness has slowly, subtly, morphed into a commandment to be happy. It's no longer just an opportunity; it's an expectation. Kevin: I feel this so much. You scroll through social media, and it's a non-stop highlight reel of everyone else's perfect, happy life. It creates this immense pressure, this feeling that if you're not happy, you're somehow failing at life. Michael: You've just described the modern burden perfectly. McMahon calls it "the unhappiness of not being happy." It's a uniquely modern form of anxiety. The ancient Greeks worried about the gods smiting them; we worry that we're not living up to our potential for joy. Kevin: And this is where guys like Freud come in, right? He wasn't exactly Mr. Sunshine. Michael: Not at all. Freud was deeply skeptical. He basically said the "program of becoming happy" which the pleasure principle imposes on us is doomed to fail. The universe, our own bodies, our relationships with others—they are all sources of inevitable suffering. For Freud, the best we could hope for was to transform "hysterical misery into common unhappiness." Kevin: Wow. So the goal of therapy wasn't to make you happy, but just to make you normally unhappy? Michael: Pretty much. To equip you to deal with the unavoidable pain of existence. This is the great irony. The Enlightenment promised universal happiness, and in the 20th and 21st centuries, we've seen an explosion of depression and anxiety. The more we chase it, the more it seems to flee. Kevin: It’s like that old saying, happiness is a butterfly. The more you chase it, the more it eludes you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. Michael: That's a beautiful summary of it. And it's a sentiment echoed by thinkers from John Stuart Mill to the Romantics. Mill himself had a breakdown because he realized that even if he achieved all his goals for social reform, he still wouldn't be happy. He concluded that happiness is only found by not making it your direct end. Kevin: So what's the takeaway from all this? Should we just go back to the Greek model and be miserable until we die, hoping for a good eulogy? Michael: Not at all! I don't think McMahon is arguing for that. But his history gives us powerful perspective. It allows us to step back and question our own modern assumptions. It frees us from the tyranny of this commandment to be happy. Maybe happiness isn't something to be relentlessly pursued like a career goal. Maybe it's something that arises when we're focused on other things—on virtue, on connection, on purpose, on losing ourselves in a meaningful task.

Kevin: So, this whole journey from fate to a right to a burden... it really feels like we've engineered ourselves into a strange corner. We've made happiness the ultimate goal of everything, but the direct pursuit of it seems to make it vanish. Michael: That's the core insight of the entire book. Darrin McMahon shows us that our modern obsession with happiness is a historical invention, not a biological or spiritual fact. And by making it the ultimate prize, the sole measure of a successful life, we've ironically made it more elusive and created a whole new layer of suffering. Kevin: The unhappiness of not being happy. Michael: Exactly. The book suggests that maybe the ancients, for all their bleakness, were onto something profound. Happiness isn't the goal of a good life, but perhaps the byproduct of one. It's the result of living virtuously, of building strong relationships, of contributing to something larger than yourself. It's the echo of a life well-lived. Kevin: It leaves you with a big question, then. What if we stopped asking ourselves every day, "Am I happy?" and instead started asking, "Am I living a worthwhile life?" Michael: A powerful thought to end on. And it shifts the focus from an internal feeling to external action, which is something we actually have some control over. We'd love to hear what you all think. Does the pressure to be happy ever make you feel the opposite? Let us know your thoughts and join the conversation. Michael: This is Aibrary, signing off.