The Pursuit of Happiness

Live Happy

The title character of Naguib Mahfouz’s book The Journey of Ibn Fattuma is a man who is on a perpetual search for the utopian society. Unfortunately for him, it is not to be found in the contents of the book. It is left to the readers of the book to decide for themselves if Ibn Fattuma eventually made it to the mythical land of Gebel, but, as in most fictions regarding travel, the destination is overshadowed by the journey. A hero’s quest isn’t about the end result, but the events that led to the conclusion. Ibn Fattuma goes from land to land in order to find a place of enlightenment, but as a result of his travels he comes to a deeper meaning all on his own.

Qindil Muhammad al-Innabi sees a progression of societies and examines their relative merits and shortcomings. He sees a primitive pagan society, a divine right monarchy, a democracy, and a communist culture during the course of his travels, but never feels completely at home in any of them. It is his self-proclaimed mission to find a society that he can use to remodel the values of his homeland. He is unsuccessful in this quest because he never finds a place that he prefers. He lives his life with the hope that he will eventually find something better somewhere else in the world but just can’t seem to find it.

I think that far too many travelers go in search of that “something better” just to find disappointment. This is especially common in our modern world where the media is constantly projecting the message that traveling is the only way to find happiness. People are often presented in the media as unhappy in their day-to-day lives, further perpetuating the idea that the average person is unhappy. Our society tells us that we are unhappy and we believe it. Maybe, if the media didn’t tell us that we are so miserable, we would be happier.

Qindil discovers along the way to Gebel the enlightenment he thinks he will find there. He learned to accept life as it happened to him and to be fine with the results. His acceptance of himself is the kind of higher meaning he was searching for, and by so doing, he created his own perfect reality. It just goes to show that anyone can be happy as long as they set their mind to it. Happiness can seem elusive sometimes, but that could simply be yet another propagandist idea from a culture that creates discontent in order to sell products. By rejecting these ideas, one can learn to be happy at home, without a lifetime of searching. I don’t think that Gebel is necessarily a physical place as much as it is a state of mind.