Happiness comes at death

Happiness comes at death

Simon Critchley

Athens: Just when you thought it couldnt get any worse youve lost your job, your retirement portfolio has been exfoliated, Bernie Madoff has made off with your money, your pet cat Jeoffrey has left you for a neighbour and economic recession has become psychological depression you discover the awful truth: youre going to die.
Somehow, it was always expected, always certain, along with taxes. Youd even smiled weakly at that old dictum. Now and then you had heard times winged chariot drawing near, but had put it down to street noise and returned to your daily round of labour, leisure and slumber. Now, stripped of the usual diversions and evasions of life, the realisation begins to dawn: no matter how healthily you eat, how much you deny your sedentary desires in the name of fitness , no matter how many sacrifices you make to the great God of longevity, you are going to die.
What, then, might be the relation between happiness and death As is so often the case, the ancient Greeks had a powerful thought, which to us seems counterintuitive: Call no man happy until he is dead. What is the meaning of this remark, often attributed to Solon, but different versions of which can be found in Aeschylus and Herodotus
The idea here is that one can only be sure that ones life is happy when it has come to an end. No matter how nobly one might have lived, however much courage one had shown in battle, however diligently one had served as a public citizen or privately, there was still the risk that life could end badly. One could die ignominiously or even worse in a cowardly or ludicrous manner: Heraclitus suffocated in cow dung; Xenocrates died after tripping over a bronze utensil in the night; Chrysippus died laughing after seeing an old woman feed figs to an ass. For the ancient Greeks, a life lived well was a life rounded off, consummated even, in a noble or appropriate death.
This means that happiness does not consist in whatever you might be feeling after death, of course, you might not be feeling much at all but in what others feel about you. It consists more precisely in the stories that can be told about you after your death. This is what the Greeks called glory , and it expresses a very different understanding of immortality than is common amongst us. One lives on only through the stories, accounts and anecdotes that are told about you. It is in this that happiness consists.
Happiness does not consist in what you are feeling, but in what others feel about you. This has a very peculiar consequence for societies like the United States, so singlemindedly devoted to the pursuit of happiness. We assume that the question of happiness is a question of my happiness or, more properly , of my relation to my happiness. But why Why doesnt it make much better sense to live in such a way to act kindly , fairly, courageously, decently in such a way that happiness is something that others might ascribe to you after you are gone
I am often asked the question, Do you believe in the afterlife After mumbling something stupid on a few occasions, i have now learned to reply, Yes, of course i believe in the afterlife. I believe in the life of those that come after , those we love, who are few in number , and those we dont even know, who are obviously many more, a great many in fact. People rarely seem impressed by this answer.
But why should we assume that the question of the afterlife must always be answered with reference to me Isnt that just a teensy bit selfish What is so important about my afterlife Why cant I believe in the afterlife of others without believing in my own NYTNS