Boethius, The Consolation 2.14

. . . “Yet consider this further, that you may be assured that happiness cannot be fixed in matters of chance. If happiness is the highest good of a man who lives his life by reason, and if that which can by any means be snatched away, is not the highest good (since that which is best cannot be snatched away), it is plain that Fortune by its own uncertainty can never come near to reaching happiness.

“Further, the man who is borne along by a happiness that may stumble, either knows that it may change, or knows it not. If he knows it not, what happiness can there be in the blindness of ignorance? If he knows it, he must live in fear of losing that which he cannot doubt that he may lose. Wherefore an ever-present fear allows not such a one to be happy. Or at any rate, if he loses it without unhappiness, does he not think it worthless? For that, whose loss can be calmly borne, is indeed a small good.

“You, I know well, are firmly persuaded that men's understandings can never die. This truth is planted deep in you by many proofs. Since then it is plain that the happiness of fortune is bounded by the death of the body, you cannot doubt that, if death can carry away happiness, the whole race of mortals is sinking into wretchedness to be found upon the border of death.

“But we know that many have sought the enjoyment of happiness not only by death, even by sorrow and sufferings. How then can the presence of this life make us happy, when its end cannot make us unhappy?”

—from Book 2, Prose 4

We will surely all admit that happiness is the best thing we could ever have, and if it is indeed the best of things, it will surely also be the most reliable of things. If understood rightly, it will, by definition, not be subject to failure through anything beyond itself.

Things will certainly admit of different degrees of goodness, some of them less complete, some of them more complete. Yet that which is most complete, or that which is perfect, admits of no degrees. It will be the maximum, that from which nothing is lacking.

Allowing my life to be dependent upon chance and circumstance can, of course, never provide such a certainty. I can never say that I am happy, and be content to have enough, when I always want to acquire more. I can never say that I am happy, and be content with who I am, when who I am depends entirely upon what is done to me, and not upon what I do.

I think of all the foolishness and vanity I have somehow managed to put myself through. This career, or that honor will make it right. This success, or that friendship will resolve everything. This possession, or that achievement will finally be enough. But it will never be enough, because it doesn’t fulfill who I am as a human being, and it will never make it right, because it has so little to do with my own act of living rightly.

Of all the striving, grasping men and women I have known, the ones who promote and sell themselves in the marketplace that passes for a decent human life, I have never, not once, known any of them to be happy.

Now that may seem to be quite an extraordinary claim, because it seems to say that I know the depths of their hearts and minds. I don’t, and I would never claim to do so. All I know, from the evidence of my own senses, is that they always ask for more of what they have, and that they are always afraid of ending up with less of what they have. That tells me everything I need to know.

Some people have absolutely no clue about good and bad, about right and wrong. Such ignorance can hardly be the source of a happy life. Other people may, in some sense, understand the fragility of their lives, and so they must live in constant anxiety about gain and loss. There can also be no happiness in such restlessness either.

Now we might conclude that this means there can never be any happiness at all. I would only think this, however, if I define the measure of my life by the state of my body, which is always passing, controlled by things beyond myself. The state of my soul, of that which remains without condition my own, is quite another matter.

One of the strangest, and perhaps most wonderful things, I have seen is those people who find their happiness even in the face of bad luck, hardship, or suffering. I am even more amazed by those people who find their happiness in the face of death itself. This suggests to me that Fortune had nothing to do with their contentment. There was something else, something unassailable.

As a child in Austria, I was taken to visit the Riegersburg, a mighty medieval fortress, built upon a steep hill, surrounded by massive walls, and protected by many imposing gates. I was told that for many centuries, through all the wars, through all the invasions of Magyars, Turks, and so many other enemies, the fortress never fell. It provided safety for all of those in the region who came for protection. The danger came, and the walls held. Those inside remained safe.

A truly happy life, one that demands upon no more than what is within it, one that need fear no threat from what is outside of it, would be much like the great Riegersburg. We need not assume that this is beyond our power to achieve. 

Written in 7/2015