CALVIN

nine: the happiness paradox

"If you had one night to spend with any teacher, who would you pick?"

Schneider was standing in the living room. I was sat on the sofa, with my laptop.

"Oh my God, Schneider," I said. "You can't get drunk at 2pm on a Wednesday."

"If you answer the question, I'll leave you alone."

"Somehow I don't believe that."

He caressed the armrest of the club chair and sat on it gently. He folded his hands in his lap, then lost his balance and fell into the seat. He laughed at himself.

"Don't you think Ms Vecoli is hot?" he asked. 

"Ms Vecoli has no tits," Nikita said, swaying into the living room with  a bowl of ramen. "Flat as a board. She walks like there's a stick up her ass, too."

Lounging in the club chair, Schneider looked dismayed. "Yeah, but, the reason why she's so hot is because of how intelligent she is," he argued nobly. "She's so fucking amazing. I'd let her bear my children."

"Why don't you do that, then?" I mumbled, putting an earphone back in. "Ask her to bear your child."

"You don't have to be salty about it," he said, still in a cranky mood.

"I'm not sal - "

"Just let me have a dream, Elias. Let me dream about Ms Vecoli's flat chest and butt-stick walk - " he added louder, so Nikita could hear it from the hallway.

"No one wants a woman with a stick up their butt!" Nikita yelled back. "That butt needs to be empty so you can put a stick up there!"

"I really need noise-cancelling headphones," I muttered.

"Elias," Schneider said, sounding exhausted, "do you think Ms Vecoli walks like she has a stick up her butt?"

"I don't really pay any attention to the way Ms Vecoli walks."

"Do you think I have a chance with her?"

I gave Schneider a look. "Ms Vecoli is married. She has a child. She's forty years old."

"But besides that," he said. "If she was our age and didn't have a husband or child. Do you think...?"

"Jesus, Schneider, I seriously am not qualified to have any sort of opinion on whether or not you're compatible with my English teacher. Also, I'm trying to watch Modern Family."

"Who watches Modern Family at 2pm on a Wednesday," he said, turning away from me. 

"Someone who isn't an alcoholic."

"Do you think," he said promptly, causing me to sigh in annoyance and take the earphone out again, "that people can get happy."

Schneider was in such a position that he was looking at the ceiling. I hadn't realized that he had a beer bottle with him in one hand. His thumb circled the lip of it.

I peered at him until he continued. 

"It's like, you're not happy," he said. "And everyone tells you that it won't be that way forever. That someday, you'll get happy. And I don't know what the tipping point is. I don't know if the thing that'll make me happy is some new hobby, or some person I haven't met yet, or the love of my life, or a holiday to a new country that I haven't been on yet, or university, or having a family, or a show. I don't know what the click will be. And... and..." he scrunched up his forehead, "...I don't think there'll ever be a click. What if people are sad forever. What if people just don't get happy?"

"There's no fucking click," I said. "What the fuck are you talking about? There's no switch for happiness. Some people have to fight for a long time to get there. Years. Decades. And the people who fight hard for it, their standard is miserable unhappiness. And the people who find it easier, their standard is a mediocre sort of neutrality. And the people who don't have to fight at all to be happy, their standard is just happiness. I don't know if that makes any sense. I don't know if that's even relevant. Did it help, though? I'm making a mental survey of if my advice helps people."

"What is help?" he asked.

"Good point," I offered. "Is your standard miserable unhappiness?"

Schneider didn't answer me for a moment. "Nope," he said, and briskly stood from the club chair. "I think my standard is just a normal kind of happiness."

...

"Do you think you're happy, Patrick?" I asked him, that night.

He waited a moment before he looked up from his economics textbook.

"I think, most of the time I am," he said. "But everyone gets sad."

"But, what is your happiness?"

"What do you mean?"

"How do you know that you're happy? Maybe you're sad, but it's the best feeling you've ever known and so you think you're happy."

"I'm pretty sure happy for me is just happy," he said. He grabbed a mandarin from the corner of his desk and started to peel it. "But you have a point. What is happiness? Is it different for everyone? How do you know you're happy when you are happy?" he thought about this. "I know I'm happy because I have food on my table, a warm place to sleep and a state-of-the-art education."

"That's not enough for everyone."

"You're right. But you see, that's my happiness. When I have those privileges, and I get my work done and I shower at night and I have a few good friends that I talk to sometimes. That is why I'm happy."

"Low maintenance," I said. 

"What?"

"Low maintenance. Like keeping a praying mantis as a pet. Or a rock. You're so content."

"Contentedness is different from happiness."

"But are you content?"

He sucked on a crescent moon of mandarin. "Yeah, I guess."

"Rock."

He ignored me, and went back to his textbook. I continued.

"Like a diorite. That's the most boring rock there is. Patrick Diorite Schlemmer. That's what your stupid politician father should have named you."