Prerequisites
The reader should be alive.
Let's start
Things like this one are hard to write. This is usually because there is no clear and structured way to address these. I cannot split these up cleanly into sections and subsections. The text is just a flux of my thoughts.
My thoughts flow from my mind down to my fingers and to my laptop's keyboard, and from there to the keyboard buffer. Every now and then, the buffer feels the urge to push its contents out onto the screen, and that's how this text appears between HTML tags. But due to this pipelining of thoughts, how much have they morphed, really? Think that's a question for a later time.
I thought initially of writing this using Markdown, since the HTML tags obstruct the flux of thoughts, but then I settled down with HTML anyways. No particular reason for that.
At this point, the text probably appears like a monolithic manuscript. I should probably split it into sections even though I have no clear demarcations.
Psst.. I tried, but it didn't work out. It obstructs the flux of thoughts.
But why am I so conscious about writing this? Perhaps I find joy in the process of writing this. Every <p> tag I open, I have something new to tell. It is exciting to see my thoughts on a screen, even if they are morphed ever so slightly. That makes me think about why I started to write this in the first place. The initial "goal" was to start this so I could finish this. The goal was never to start this so I could enjoy the process of writing.
What will happen then, when I have written till completion? Contentment of finishing what I started, but also the absence of joy I felt when writing. The contentment of completion will be short-lived, as my mind will soon find something else to start, with the purpose of finishing it.
I want to verify my thought. I picture this, and in fact, let's picture this together: you pick up a task to do, you start it, and you finish it the instant you start it. There's contentment of completion, but no joy of actually doing the task, since it was finished as soon as you started it. Now your mind has found something else to start and finish, and the contentment of completion is gone.
Perhaps the above thought experiment shows (using an "induction-like" methodology, but not quite induction) that perpetual joy is in the process of achieving completion, not the instant of completion. We all have set up goals for ourselves, and are actively working towards them, but when they're eventually achieved, we will set even higher goals for ourselves, and start pursuing them. Such is the nature of the human mind. It is stuck in this never-ending pursuit of happiness.
If one defers their happiness to the instant of completion, it will be lost some short moments after completion. Instead, if someone enjoys the process, the happiness will stay for much longer. Same goes for you. You set your goals so you can actively work towards them, but the actual joy is never to achieve them. The actual joy is actually working towards them. The actual joy is now.
Now that we're on the topic, feeling joy in the present possibly has more positive consequences. Since our joy was ever in the process, and we did not defer it to the instant of completion, it will not matter to us much, whether the task was successful or not. I would like to think that, in an ideal scenario, the success and failure of a task should not affect the joy at all, but there's a reason I say it's an ideal scenario.
There's this story of Sisyphus from Greek mythology which comes to mind. He was punished for his wrong-doings in what is called the "eternal punishment". He was tasked to roll up a boulder towards a steep hill, except that when the boulder nears the summit, it will fall back down again. His task was to carry out this procedure indefinitely.
A 1942 philosopher, Albert Camus, notes that Sisyphus is an "absurd hero" and that he acknowledges the futility of his task without the despair of surrender. In other words, he is content with his task. Hence, Camus notes that, in order to enjoy the process and place your joy in the active work towards completion, rather than the completion itself, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy".
When I first heard about this, it appeared absurd to me. How can one, who is tasked with a seemingly meaningless task of pushing up a boulder indefinitely, be ever content with the process? It must be boring, tiring and a thousand other not so pleasant things all at once, and the feeling when you're just near completion, but the boulder falls back down, must be devastating.
However, as I progressed through my life, I understood that this claim was not as absurd after all. One can be happy in such a situation. My realisation is something I cannot express through this material pipeline of thought, as this pipeline morphs it enough to not make sense, but it is something that can be realised on our own.
This reveals an interesting dynamic, that joy can exist independently of the goal. That's a stronger hypothesis than the one formed earlier, that joy must exist in the process, and not the completion of the goal. After all, if joy can exist independently of the goal, why should one have goals at all?
But is it really so? Did Sisyphus really have no goal? Certainly, his goal was to push the boulder up to the summit, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to do so for an indefinite amount of time. Still, there was a goal he was working towards. So it is certainly important to have goals. Goals are what propel you to undertake a task, and eventually find joy in it. As soon as we achieve a goal, we quickly set a new goal for us, so we can again enter that state of joy of the process. In other words, we forever remain trapped in the aforementioned never-ending pursuit of happiness, but this time, the happiness is in the process itself, so it's more of a never-ending happiness than a pursuit of it, which is a bold claim to say the least, but that is what the hypothesis points towards.
I think we have reached the point where we can make our conclusions. Joy can exist independently of goals. Hence, one does not necessarily need a goal to experience happiness, but a goal incentivises activity of achieving the goal. When one does pursue a goal, one must find joy in the process of achieving it, rather than deferring the joy to the instant of completion.
It appears like this piece has come to an end. The process of writing this was enjoyable, and I certainly am happy to have finished it, but I know that this happiness is short-lived, and I will set some other goal for myself to continue enjoying the present.
Farewell!