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I used to think happiness was a magnificent thing to earn—wherein it should never be contemplated nor questioned since it's mostly life's merit, granted by universal consideration. Though, there I was, all bothered by the concept.
It is the twelfth day of September when my wandering began. I was trying to finish Ursula K. Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas in my leisure. The novel was not that long of a read; twenty-six pages would not take a whole day to decipher. However, I seem to have spoken too soon. Before I knew it, my seconds turned to minutes, turned to hours—all as I sunk myself analyzing this allegory of a utopian society.
I was puzzled. The narration of the story seemed to imply that joy was an unappealing venture. "How can that be?" I wondered as even its former description stated the following:
The location was festive. It was filled with participation, harmony, and tranquility. Children were free to race beyond the landscapes of a so-called 'water meadow' for their entertainment. Adults got to dance with the rhythm of the shimmering gongs and tambourines. Everything was so alluring that it resembled a procession of some kind. Moreover, within its walls, Omelas is built to be limitless—no rules, no slaves nor masters, no brutalist-economy, and no complexities. Just the pure existence of bliss that fills individualistic desires.
So I asked within the back of my mind,
Shouldn't this be enough for people to be contented?
However, as the story went on, the more I got disturbed. The analysis of merriment made my stomach churn. With this, I made my hunch. The account is building up to reveal an illusion—that it is all a sham, an idyllic fairy tale where its characters are conditioned to condemn delight like an archaic smile. It was also inviting me, as a stranger, to discern the life within Omelas, to pursue imagination, to lose consciousness, and abide in a world of no restrictions.
For a while, I fell into the narrative's trap. Until a specific scenario made me glimpse reality.
Under the public building of the city was a basement. Which homed a feeble-minded child. Its circumstances were laying to live by malnutrition, fear, and neglect. All while confined in a trashy cellar that reeks the stench of mops and omits a murky atmosphere.
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This must be the part that I had been anticipating—the revelation of Omelas' inner ruins. How this city is rotten to its core. Moreso, by the end of the novel my suspicions were proven right as cemented by this line:
To exchange all the goodness and grace of Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of happiness of one; that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.
I was seething with the fact that the characters knew the child's predicament, yet they still maintained to never do anything greater for the lone soul of the basement. Acknowledgment of this proverbial skeleton in the closet would tarnish their bliss. After all, for a utopia to prosper, dystopia must exist.
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It was 11:23 PM when I decided to abandon the pages; I could no longer continue to the afterword of the book. Dismay took over me. I was supposed to hit the hay and let my mind rest, but I couldn't. My consciousness rang my awareness. It kept my eyes strained, my mind running in moral conflict, debating just how fictional this philosophical fiction is.
My thoughts were relentless and I was irked to think happiness was just an illusion. Were all the things that we claimed fulfilling just a way for us to escape the sufferings and evils of life?
Were we born from the predisposition to think that merriment is solely satisfaction? That our ultimate beginning and end was to soothe pain and pleasure and nothing more?
How accurately does this encapsulate the whole history of humanity? Are we all in the phase of scapegoatism? Where we to deflect any ounce of nuance to maintain the stature of greatness?
Especially in today's technological landscape. Media's coverage of injustices, from violence, assault, racial discrimination, incompetent health care, and political disparity—all accessible in a single virtual screen. Are we to become bystanders behind the comments, reactions, and posts? Were we made to comply with the silence that replies, "it's not my choice to deal with it myself?"
Is that our reality of happiness, to lay back with the prestige of comfort; to laugh with great satisfaction because we couldn't care less; to ground ourselves with the misery of other people—all of which is "enough" to maintain wealth, power, and greed of the few, but repays with the price of exploitation, violence, and death of many?
Is this happiness all along?
I could only settle my despair with a deep breath. I was naïve, disgusted, and utterly disappointed in myself for viewing happiness like the citizens of Omelas. If time was to turn back, I wish to never depict such romanticization. However, as the present occurs I can only catch myself rethinking in a whirlwind of how catastrophic "happiness" meant in this world.
