I want to write about happiness. Which is quite a thing to try and write about. Its absence can be easily done, and even writing about striving for it isn’t all that difficult. But it’s presence? That’s a different matter.
In a song about something else, a love song, Jimmy Webb once said “All I have to do is catch some lightning in a bottle“ to describe the miracle he was trying to pull off. And that’s a fair description for me too. I’m going to try and catch some lightning in a bottle here.
So here goes.
And rather than confuse the issue with a long preamble, talking about, say, theories of happiness, a methodology for achieving it, and then a genealogy of the word, including the obligatory cross reference to Ken Dodd’s song, I’m just going to jump straight in and write about happiness happening to me.
Which was two weeks ago now. I’ve been happy for precisely two weeks, and the happiness happened the moment I decided to stop doing the PhD I’d been working on for most of the last three years. In the moment I decided to stop it was like the heavens paused, a celestial hand pointed at me through the parted clouds and the voice of God, kindly of course and in a Scouse accent, said to me “Good lad“ and then I was happy, having done the right thing.
The right thing which I’d kind of known I was about to do for weeks, and maybe for most of this year. But had kept backing away from. Sheltering behind reasons like “not yet“ and “I’m not sure.“ But I was getting more sure all the time, really. Through all those long walks of my thinking from Springtime to the beginnings of Autumn. So that when it eventually came my moment of deciding felt mostly like a moment of permission, from me to the happiness that was queueing up to come flooding into me. With a voiceover like the voice of God saying “Good lad.” And it was good.
And has stayed that way for two weeks now.
Two weeks of lightness, possibility, peace, expectation, curiosity, freedom and saying no. No, I won’t change my mind and no I won’t reconsider. Then I walked away.
And wrote the previous piece on here, about expectation, as if some replacement activity to the university stuff might be about to happen. Something I said I was “working up the nerve for” like a next big thing.
But maybe these were mere temptations? Temptations to carry on being the busy I’d got used to, like “The temptation of the reconsideration“ followed by “The temptation of the next big thing.” Temptations resisting a quiet wish from inside my happiness to be, in fact, not busy at all. A wish that over this past week has proved to be stronger than a mere wish and to have now become a decision.
The decision that for now and as long as I choose I won’t be busy at all. Nor will I be waiting for the next big thing, because the big thing has already happened. Which was the stopping of the wrong thing that wasn’t making me happy. The letting go of which, in itself, has made me happy. And for now I’m happy to stay with that.
Besides which what I’m doing is hardly nothing. Listening to music, reading anything I want and walking around Liverpool, sometimes with Sarah, then occcasionally writing about the walking and the contemplations on here. Hardly nothing. And yet I’ve waited all my life to be able to do it and be happy with it.
This nothing, this miracle, this lightning in a bottle.
And here’s Glen Campbell, singing Jimmy Webb’s lovely song, his “Lightning in a bottle.” My walking around song of the moment.
So pleased you're happy with your decision. I had a lot of fun in the early stages of my PhD - immersing myself in reading and ideas, gathering evidence, doing fieldwork, none of which I regret. But while the writing up is many things, there is very little joy and happiness in it (until you pass). And joy and happiness are a lot more important. Enjoy your freedom - school's out!
When I was struggling with post-grad study my lovely supervisor said something to me that helped a great deal: "Some of the best people I know don't have PhDs..."