A brief thesis on happiness
Abstract: Per Lavoisier’s law of conservation of mass, matter cannot be created or destroyed. In this paper, I shall lay out a variation of this argument with regard to happiness. I will assert that happiness in the human race cannot be created or destroyed, it is merely passed on or stolen by other humans. Thus the sacrosanct American “pursuit of happiness” is a zero-sum game.
To begin, consider the following¹. A man, Citizen X, is savoring the creamy delights of a frozen dairy dessert atop a conical wafer as he sits watching the citrus sunset in a city park on a Friday evening. Being a simple man, this brings X the utmost pleasure. It is his one refuge from a mundane and comically-inconsequential existence as an accountant at a middling glue manufacturer which renders him a depressed husk of a man who requires ingesting potent Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors to simply make it through each day. To compound his existential insignificance, he is also incapable of maintaining a romantic relationship due to a crippling social anxiety coupled with, to put it colloquially, “a face only a mother could love.” To further compound this compoundation, he is unable to create and maintain platonic friendships because of the eccentricities in his personality and a deep distrust of other humans stemming from his unstable upbringing in an abusive and impoverished family². He is completely and utterly alone. This will not change until his mangled, melted corpse is dumped into a mass grave along with the other casualties of the “Greatest and best…way better than China’s…Leap Backwards…or is it sideways? No, that wouldn’t make sense. Just write down the first thing I said, sugartits. It’s my press release, goddammit! of 2032.”³ His Friday “treat” is the last thing that brings him joy in a world free of justice, compassion, or affordable real estate. Without it, he would have no reason to keep on going. X’s happiness quotient at this moment is depicted in “Fucks Not Given” (FNG), a widely-accepted measurement of human happiness, at time h in Figure IX.
Figure IX.
Notice how X’s FNG skyrockets at the moment his tongue touches the ice cream. Meanwhile, as X licks the confection in a lascivious, downright disturbing manner, Citizen R observes him from behind nearby bushes. He is clad in a ghillie suit and wields a machete bought on sale for $5 at Weird Wendell’s Wacky Weapon Warehouse down the street. Assume that R is having a “bad day.” Assume that he has just lost his job as a bathroom attendant at the Jesus Christ Church and Waterpark of Latter-day Saints due to “budget cuts.”⁴ Assume the structural integrity of the burrito he ate for lunch crumbled at the first bite, spilling the contents all over his lap, leaving a substantial salsa stain on his trousers⁵. Assume that, to add insult to injury, the fecal matter of a lone avian creature plummeted from the sky and landed directly into R’s gaping mouth⁶. Assume that the aggregate FNG quotient derived from the sum of the aforementioned assumptions is depicted at time h in Figure XXXIV.
Figure XXXIV.
To remedy his own depressive states, R derives pleasure from the suffering of others. In clinical terms, he is known as a psychopath. In layman’s terms, he is referred to as a “serotonin thief⁷.” Sensing X’s increasing serotonin levels, R makes a conscious decision to hack off X’s right arm, which clutches the frozen dairy dessert, for no other reason than to provide himself the satisfaction he desperately craves. In the span of 5 seconds, he jumps out of the bushes, much to the surprise of X, and slices all the way to X’s right subscapularis tendon but not completely detaching the arm from the shoulder blade. Dangling from the rotator cuff, the arm proceeds to drop the ice cream on the ground as it hangs uselessly at X’s side. Consequently, X shrieks in pain as a blood geyser erupts from the grotesque stump of machete-torn flesh. Meanwhile, R flees the scene with glee. We shall refer to the moment the blade meets the arm as time j. Observe the FNG quotients of X (red) and R (blue) depicted in Figure XXXXXXIX.
Figure XXXXXXIX.
Note a pattern resembling an inverse relationship between the happiness of X and R at time j. There is reason to believe there is correlation with regard to their respective FNG quotients, perhaps even outright causation. According to data culled from Dr. Rachel Ardmore’s All Right Now: Examining the Effects of Limb Removal on Human Happiness, there is significant data demonstrating having a limb brutally mutilated can result in increased unhappiness and/or irritability/general discomfort in the immediate aftermath of the incident. In Dr. Ardmore’s experiments, it was found that 99 out of 100 subjects⁸ described their mood as “extremely unhappy” after having their extremities forcibly removed. This would explain X’s astonishing decrease in overall happiness after having his arm hacked off by an agricultural tool indigenous to Latin America. Meanwhile, given his predilection for human suffering, R’s happiness skyrockets upon completion of his sadistic task. Note the happiness equilibrium at time p. This point in time denotes the moment when the balance of happiness begins to shift, with all of the happiness transferred to R in a parasitic exchange of mood. As Newton asserted in his third law, “for every action or force in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The previous evidence provides reason to believe this is applicable to the emotional wellbeing of humanity. Therefore, happiness cannot be created or destroyed but merely transferred among the human race to maintain a stable emotional equilibrium across the globe.
Q.E.D.
¹The people mentioned in the ensuing anecdotal data have chosen to remain anonymous due to undisclosed reasons. Their real names have been replaced with pseudonyms.
²His mother, Q, was addicted to C²¹H²³NO⁵ while his father, H, was a part-time dirt salesman who enjoyed screaming obscenities at confused livestock on a nearby farm in his free time. They both worked as circus clowns at the nearby fairgrounds and would often beat X after work, still dressed in their clownish garb. This horrifying but tired juxtaposition of violence with cheerful clown makeup would lead X to forever associate the clowning arts with sustained misery.
³My colleague at the Walmart University of Chicago, Dr. Professor Seymour Wigglesworth, PhD, MD, LSD, WWE, wrote a compelling yet unsparing account of this moment in history which I would highly recommend entitled “Help! Help! We Are All So Fucked!: A Comprehensive Examination of the Trump Doctrine and Its Implications on American Domestic Policy in the 21st Century.” Unfortunately, he would be subsequently burned at the stake along with the published books as, per the McConnell-Graham Act of 2022, it is now illegal to read, write, and/or adhere to standards of basic human decency within the borders of the continental United States.
⁴Assume these expenditures were now being used to fund the waterpark’s new baptismal water slide.
⁵Alas, he had forgotten the napkins.
⁶Assume R was staring at the tantalizing naked figure of a voluptuous woman, V, on the 5th floor, room 19 of a nearby apartment building who had neglected to shutter her blinds as she changed into a flattering red dress in preparation for a dinner date night with her bashful boyfriend, B, who may or may not be preliminarily proposing the pleasing performative proposition of pledging perpetual passion in the presence of a pious priest as it is the 10th anniversary of their first date and they are going to the finest Appalachian establishment in town, Chez Cletus, where the specialty confection is a scrumptious deconstructed crusted pumpkin crumble constructed with gumption for careful consumption served by constructive country bumpkins who operate without dysfunction. Thus explaining R’s gaping expression at the time coinciding with the falling excrement caused by aerial avian defecation. It is no coincidence that V’s feelings of excitement and joy in this moment coincide with R’s misfortune.
⁷The United States is home to the highest number of serotonin thieves per capita as capitalizing off the misfortune of others is significantly incentivized and even encouraged in its political, economic, and social institutions.
⁸The lone outlier professed to feeling “extremely happy” after having his left arm removed, even experiencing a gargantuan erection and succeeding climax during the proceedings. He then offered a considerable sum of money to have his other arm forcibly removed, citing a transcendent feeling of sexual euphoria. This phenomenon was further explored in Dr. Ardmore’s subsequent book, More Than Just the Tip: Examining the Effects of Limb Removal on Sexual Pleasure. Furthermore, my colleague Dr. Philbar Blendigglebury explored the economic implications of these deviant sexual amputations in a journal article entitled, “It’ll Cost You an Arm and a Leg: How Mercenaries Displaced Prostitutes in the International Sex Market.”
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