Article : Happiness

HAPPINESS

The toughest thing to understand about happiness is that it comes with sacrifice. It’s like Aldous Huxley's book, A Brave New World, where a happy society is created by cloning humans to specific levels of intelligence. If there is a need for ten thousand toll booth workers than ten thousand clones with an IQ of 80 will be created. There is nothing wrong with being a toll booth operator and earning an honest dollar, but if you want to be continually happy and believe that you have the greatest job in the world at being a toll collector, than you would need an IQ of 80.

It is human nature to perpetually want more. If we are smart enough we will strive towards our ambitions, if not we will steal its rewards. Individuals do it, corporations do it, and babies do it. If I can’t afford a luxury car, I will steal one. If we can’t create a super-chip, we will buy one to deconstruct. When is it enough? In the beginning of the computer age, not long ago, a machine the size of a room could do basic mathematics. Today you could use your phone to order a 65” LCD TV to be delivered to your condo while vacationing in Europe, guided by the mobile GPS, scanning androids in museums, day trading through the browser, running your business through email, keeping track of excel spreadsheets while keeping in touch through voice conferencing via video phone. Oh, and if you want to take the odd picture while site seeing you can do that too. How much happiness can one handle?

In 1954, the first nuclear power plant connected to the grid in Russia. In 1957, a level 6 nuclear disaster occurred when 70 tons of nuclear waste exploded into the air. The storage facility overheated at the Mayak Nuclear power plant when the cooling unit failed. The Soviet Union released little about the accident. Also, in 1957, Britain’s Windscale nuclear power plant caught fire, spreading radiation across miles of northern Europe. Again the government released little information.

In 1979, at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, a valve to relieve pressure to the reactor failed to close. Cooling water drained and caused the core to overheat. A partial meltdown occurred at Three Mile Island.

1986 saw the worst nuclear tragedy in history. Chernobyl faced a full core meltdown causing an explosion, sending radioactive material into the air. We are still paying the price for Chernobyl. In 1997 the Chernobyl Crisis Fund was established to build another sarcophagus to cover the existing one at a cost of 1.2 billion to be completed 2013. The new sarcophagus is supposed to last 100 years, at which point, it becomes our grand children’s problem.

In 1999, Tokaimura Japan prepared to restart a nuclear reactor they have not used in three years. Operators put too much uranium into a tank not designed for the highly enriched uranium. The tank had to be drained in order to stop the reaction. Three operators died and residences within a 350 meter radius were evacuated while people within 10 miles were told to stay indoors.

March 11, 2011, Japan was hit with a 9.0 earthquake. What follows seems unthinkable. The earthquake causes a Tsunami that not only washes away entire towns but disables backup generators that keep the Fukushima nuclear reactors cool in case of a power loss. Even Hollywood would not combine these disasters together, because it would be far too unbelievable of a story to tell. What follows is a series of unimaginable challenges as people sacrifice what could honestly be their lives to prevent a nuclear meltdown. The world watches in awe. With each progress there seems to arise another challenge greater than the last.  We can only hope that this will go down in history as a turning point for the world against nuclear power.

In modern society we consume happiness rather than live happily. We achieve happiness through 54” flat-screen televisions, 19” summer rims, latest iPhone and keeping up with new fashion trends. We move from one material possession to another, achieving instant gratification. All this consumption requires energy. Look around, credit is given out everywhere - "Buy now. Be happy now. Pay later." Work all week and spend the weekend shopping.

If consumption is required for happiness, than the need to consume grows exponentially. Buying the bigger house or the faster the car is not a one-time fee, everyday operating costs increases.

There are currently 442 nuclear power plants in the world today. United States, the land of opportunity, has 104. Second in line is France at 58, followed by Japan with 54. China, an industrial growing country, currently has 27 nuclear plants under construction. As with all things, at some point, there must be a reversal in course. An elastic band can only stretch so far before it breaks or springs back. The sun cannot burn indefinitely. The universe is expanding but at some point, it too will contract. Currently, the general census is that more means more happiness. But there are people out there who want less and are far happier than people who want more.

Submit your example of wanting less to achieve greater happiness. Let’s hear some inspirational stories. There are currently 65 new nuclear power plants being constructed around the world.

Words : Tobin Cheung