I have been happy. I hope to be happy again. But I am yet to feel something I’d call “happiness”.
As a noun, it suggests something common, recognisable and lasting; something I might purchase as a concentrate, then enjoy diluted over the decades. But for all the books, courses and festival panels on happiness, this pill is curiously utopian.
i . The Promissory Note
The vagueness of happiness is more than just an intellectual quirk. It can encourage a kind of deference. As an ideal...