After two visits from gorgeous young things, I have filled in my census form. In a manner of speaking. A lovely German told me to try the best I can and enjoy the sunshine. So I did. He was so cheery that instead of ranting about Lockheed Martin and all this information already being available, I looked at the questions.
I don't know where I got the idea but I thought I was going to be asked about happiness, not heating, in the census. For last year Cameron was banging on about how we would start measuring progress not just by how our economy is growing but "by how our lives are improving, not just our standard of living but by our quality of life". That was pre-crash and, like the enviroment, I thought it had been disappeared. But no, it's back, and the government will indeed attempt to measure it. Cameron will spend £2m on the Office of National Statistics survey, which will include four questions on happiness. Only a curmudgeon could complain, so luckily here I am, ecstatic at being thus interrogated.
Actually, I know there are some good intentions behind this, and surely anyone vaguely left-wing is more optimistic than those on the right, because we tend to believe that people given power and freedom will do good things for each other. Of course, the minute you have children and realise that without socialisation we would simply bite each other, grab whatever we goddamned want and shove it in our mouths, you may become a little more right-wing. Or realistic. Or religious. The route to happiness has to be about more than self-gratification.
Serious thinkers, such as Geoff Mulgan of The Young Foundation, have been looking at these issues around "happiness" for some time. So have many social innovators. Everyone, it seems, is casting round for ideas that make things feel better but do not cost the government a penny. Self-help doesn't need subsidy.
Many are expressing concern about increasing mental illness, anxiety disorders and the over-prescription of antidepressants. New figures on youth unemployment may give us a clue here as to why a generation needs to boost its serotonin levels, but never mind. The new sciences of happiness – some real, some bogus – positive psychology and data on "well-being" is all being mined for cost-free solutions. To wade through some of this stuff you really do have to switch off your brain. Philosophers have been debating how to live well for thousands of years, but such ideas are now condensed down into dreadful "think yourself happy" manuals.
What the new organisation Action for Happiness advises is fairly standard and indisputable. It's an object lesson in what Basil Fawlty used to say would be Sybil's specialist subject on Mastermind: "the bleedin' obvious". Studies have shown that beyond a certain income happiness does not increase. More stuff does not make us happier. Doing stuff, especially for others, does. Random Acts of Kindness, here we go. It's called the Great Dream. Acronyms like this make some cheery, but they make me want to give up the ghost: Giving. Relating. Exercising. Appreciating. Trying Out. Direction. Resilience. Emotion. Acceptance. Meaning. Or: have a goal, take care of your self, connect with others.
None of this is wrong, it is simply self-help writ large, with no context whatsoever. Are men and women equally happy? Should the crackhead in my road just start jogging? Do I really want to connect with some of my neighbours? A well-balanced person should realise, of course, that happiness is to be found from "relationships" and "community", not fake tans, a 50in plasma TV and buckets of KFC. But well-balanced people have to live in well-balanced societies, and we don't. This magic realisation that the relationship between GDP and wellbeing (actually now downsized to "flourishing" by Prof Martin Seligman) was made in the Blair years. "Quality of life" and "the work/life balance" are simply ways of talking about the daily grind in a gender- and class-neutral way. Weirdly, we can't all get what we want.
Once you reach a certain standard of living, if you feel miserable, quite honestly, my sympathy is limited. Nor is it any of the government's business. Or it wasn't until now. You are the perfect target for a bit of cognitive behavior therapy and loads of think-yourself-thin/happily-married/cancer-free publications. If change comes from within, then change yourself. Don't try changing the world. Just think about bunny rabbits and rainbows. Or be a Buddhist. Ignore Wittgenstein's idea that we are not here "to enjoy ourselves" and ignore what is in front of your eyes. I do. We all do. Every day in this city I see filthy, mentally ill, addicted, bewildered people who are not thinking positively at all.
The idea that we should connect is not one I am mocking, yet every drive of this market economy makes us more self-interested and less connected. The dismantling of the NHS, the farming-out of contracts, the entrepreneurial skills needed to get to one's child into the local school are not at all about giving, sharing or doing anything at all for anyone else. The voluntary work needed to make the Big Society work would be "feelgood", but has yet to manifest.
As Mulgan argues, research and development needs to go into organisations that produce ideas and "wellness", not simply more consumer goods. But what the government is doing seems diametrically opposed to what the happiness lobby suggests. Where it can regulate the market, it refuses. When it can harangue, it does. In policy terms, poor mental health costs. Unhappiness is expensive. It makes our immune systems weaker. It leads to the young getting intoxicated. It leads to old people blocking beds. It leads to crime and punishment. Unhappiness is deepest when no expectations can be met. Disappointment is everywhere. Women on the whole are profoundly unhappy with their bodies, even when they are healthy and produce children.
We would, perhaps, be happier if we did not compare ourselves to those at the top, but we are encouraged to do so. We would be happier if we were not so bloody selfish, but we mostly are. Some people just have a gift for happiness. "A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?" asked Einstein. But we are not all Einsteins, and the institutions that bind us together are fragmenting. This makes me unhappy. And positive action as well as thoughts is what we need.
I don't want Action for Happiness. I want Action for Things to Be Basically OK. What is the point of learning to "live well" when I live right beside those who don't? Who never will, whose unhappiness is not self-contained but spills out everywhere. All the lonely people? Where do they all come from? All the lonely people. Where do they all belong?
If only we can explain to them that "Not having close personal ties has been shown to pose significant risks for our health", it will make us feel good for connecting, and it may even cheer up these miseries! Come on, don't be so negative! I am trying, really … not to despair.
