I try to stay out of controversies about conversions. While I think that no religion I’ve encountered is intellectually sustainable, I also recognize that human beings are not reasoning machines. I recognize that some people feel the need for things that religions can provide, like overarching senses of purpose, or the esthetics of worship, or the sense of community and shared identity, and so on.

Fair enough. We all scratch where it itches, but we all itch in different places. I know that many people would find my life far too stripped down for their liking, and would find me spiritually dead. But they don’t have to live my life, and as long as they’ll permit me to live it as I see fit, then I have very few problems.

But sometimes, talking to people who have these itches, I sometimes get the feeling that we exist in separate worlds. Particularly when they make sweeping pronouncements about the nature of the universe, or of humanity or of life. I frequently find myself blinking rapidly, wondering how they reached that conclusion.

Bad Catholic gives me a good example in a recent post where he reflects on “Why I’d Make a Bad Atheist.” By the second paragraph, I just get the feeling we’re not experiencing life in even remotely the same way.

The desire for happiness is naturally oriented towards eternal happiness. When I am happy, I have no desire for that happiness to end. Such a thing would be inconceivable, directly contrary to the very nature of happiness. Thus we never see a man who, when happy with his wife, can’t wait for the next turn of marriage misery.

To my way of thinking, happiness is always bounded. It’s a moment stolen away from your day where you evade responsibility, it’s an afternoon with no obligations, it’s an evening with my wife and no errands to run. It’s a moment that rises above the quotidian chores of the day, like a project that offers a challenge and a chance to learn,

But there has to be something for it to rise above. To me, eternal happiness is a contradiction in terms. Without something to ground it, something to surround it and define it, happiness is just emptiness. Happiness cannot be context-free; it must be something you feel in relation to other things you feel during less pleasant moments.

One doesn’t have to be a Buddhist to recognize that change is eternal. What makes you happy now will cease to make you happy in an hour and will make you miserable in a day. Happiness cannot be unchanging and eternal. For me, that’s part of what gives periods of happiness their zest: they’re fleeting nature gives them a rarity value, but then it’s time to move on. If they stayed around, they’d get tiresome.

And it’s not a choice between misery and happiness; the world is not that polar. There is a great variety of sensations and emotional states that make up our lives that cannot be slotted into the categories of “happy” or “miserable.” Some states are pleasant, some not, some impossible to say.

I’m pleased to say that none of my twelve years of marriage contain any misery, but that’s not to say we’ve always been happy. Often we’re bound up in the daily grind without much chance to take pleasure in the relationship. And there are other times – exciting times, joyful times, times of growth and development – which can only be glimpsed briefly but make the word “happy” seem pallid in comparison.

All of which is a rambling way to say: contrary to Bad Catholic’s suggestion, I do not desire eternal happiness. Frankly, it sounds impossible, pointless and dreadfully boring all at once.