Human feelings, however, have very little connection with reason or logic. People who have every reason to be happy are found to be miserable, while those who live under conditions which should make them utterly miserable are frequently happy. The “pursuit of happiness”, an essential element in the American dream, sounds like a fine ideal. Unfortunately this particular will-o’-the-wisp has a way of escaping all pursuit. The faster we run the more cunningly it evades us, only to appear in corners where we never expected to find it. There is a story I was told which may or not be true but which is worth telling none the less. It concerns a young French anthropologist who decided to study a hill tribe in a remote part of India. He went to live with them for two years and, in an effort to enter into their feelings and share their lives, cut himself off from all contact with the outside world.
He was immediately astonished by the cheerfulness of these people. Their conditions were harsh, although they had enough to eat, and their possessions few. Their lifespans were relatively short, they accepted–with grief but resignation–the death of many infants soon after birth, and such diseases as they contracted were usually fatal. Yet their joy was infectious. He shared in it. Since they had no access to television, they did not know that they were “disadvantaged” and thought that everyone in the world lived much as they did. They laughed often and serious quarrels were rare. After two years he returned to Paris. On the aircraft he was occupied in writing his notes but, in the airport coach, he began to look around him. He was seized with terror. It was obvious from the expressions of his fellow travellers that some dreadful disaster had occurred in his absence. There was not a smile to be seen. No one spoke to anyone else, avoiding eye contact as though afraid to face their shared grief. He himself did not dare ask what was wrong, knowing that he would find out soon enough and anxious to avoid the moment of disclosure. All that had happened, of course, was that he had forgotten the ways of his own people.
[Remembering God: Reflections on Islam by Gai Eaton, p.35-36]
