In September this year, I joined the Abbey as Deputy Head Academic from Magdalen College School in Oxford. It has been a fascinating first few months in what I have found to be a busy, warm and welcoming environment, not to mention of course, joyful. Fascinating in terms of experience, yes, but also in terms of my own journey and by this I mean, how I have responded emotionally and mentally to the challenges of a new job in a new school, with a new commute and all the things that go with it.
I have been asked many times: “Are you enjoying it?” and I feel now might be an appropriate time to apologise to a number of people for perhaps what was an overly reflective and caveated response. Minded as I have been to not provide the inquisitor with the awkwardness of a negative, I have listed a series of lovely and positive experiences whilst acknowledging the obvious challenge. Perhaps, I should have simply replied with the more gratifying: “Yes, of course!”.
It is not that the experience to date has been a negative one, more accurately perhaps, it has not been easy. It is this idea which I have felt has required further explanation to those kind enough to check on how I have been feeling. Not easy; not only is it not a negative, but I have the sense that it is an intrinsic part of my own version of happiness.
Happiness is an idea/concept/goal (choose your noun) on which I regularly reflect. It was on this topic that I spoke in my first assembly address to the pupils at the end of September and something which I attempt to co-opt into my own decision making on a regular basis. The Abbey’s joy speaks of a pure and perhaps simple aspect of happiness which most closely links to the classical idea of hedonism. Aristippus is credited with the idea of hedonistic happiness, opining that the ultimate goal in life should be to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. The sensory driven and temporary form of happiness we know as hedonism. Importantly, it also identifies the value of living in the moment, ‘for future pleasures are uncertain’. Or, perhaps a straightforward interpretation from a more recent ‘philosopher’ could be: “Don’t worry, be happy”. Surely too, we can view the modern framing of mindfulness as tending towards this idea.
My concern over the hedonistic idea of happiness is that in its fleeting state it is easy to overlook its importance. Eudaimonic happiness (Aristotle – and as a Biologist, I am well and truly outside of my comfort zone now!) with its long term association with striving to meet one’s potential linking to purpose and meaning, is surely more important. Thus the value of joy and hedonism can be dismissed as frivolity. Is it not also ‘childlike’ to place value on fun and hedonistic pursuits?
I have two children, six and four. The youngest in particular is seemingly driven purely by the pursuit of pleasure. Sugar, play, mischief and TV. She laughs and smiles (and cries) dozens of times a day. She is a fantastic emotional yo-yo and whilst exhausting, there is something very reassuringly human and grounding about her company.
Children have a total grasp on the value of happiness, as grown-ups, I think it is easy to forget.
The point I am edging towards is that simple, joyful happiness is an innate part of being human and that the more sophisticated eudaimonic grown-up happiness is strongly influenced by our environment; it is also both complicated and personal.
Importantly though, one is not more virtuous than the other. Moreover, my view is that one actually relies on the existence of the other. Your ability to overcome challenges, set goals, strive and achieve, all depend upon a healthy, positive mind-set. Which in turn is greatly supported by exposure to joy. Fun is important – my four year old shows me this every day. Important because it enables us to be in the moment, creating a mental outlook that allows us to see challenges as an opportunity to experience and overcome; failure as a chance to learn and future ambitions as achievable. For my inner scientist, a simplified equation might be: Joy + Ambition = Success.
Returning to my answer to the question: “Are you enjoying it?”
By listing the positive experiences (HMAD, Art Scholars’ Tea party, almost all of my lessons with Lower V, to list but a few), I am, I think, identifying the value of joy in my answer. The challenges in that context will thus surely build towards that eudaimonic happiness, for which we all strive.
Wishing everyone a relaxing and joy-full Christmas break when it comes.
Colin Pearson, Deputy Head Academic