The Invention & Pursuit of Happiness

Roughly 400 000 years ago, neanderthals lived on the earth. They were well built primates, physically and more muscular than present human beings. They were stronger, prominent and with a larger brain size, occupying West Asia.

They had to withstand extremely brutal weather conditions during the Ice age, which made them a generally sad species. Their brains only processed emotions such as grief due to the harsh weather, frequent burying of their dead and empathising with injured members.

They first existed before the homo sapiens appeared on earth. This was a world before happiness occurred. Everything was dull and sadness was the only feeling of expression. 

Happiness was probably invented when the later versions of neanderthals developed robust brain capability to release hormones like dopamine and serotonin. 

As they went hunting, Lucy, the youngest neanderthal started feeling opposite of the mother whenever they caught a prey. While the mother was generally sad and coping with the extreme cold in the present day Himalayas, Lucy’s heart beat faster, her teeth were out and she squealed with contented sighs. This made her mother so troubled and extremely anxious. 

The mother had the capacity to communicate in auditory, physical and complex speech like humans. She gathered thousands of neanderthals in a cave, adjacent to the mountains and gestured, raising her voice intermittently to explain how Lucy was different.

In her speech she wailed as she held Lucy in her arms. In shock, the neanderthals observed Lucy as she expressed a chilling feeling that made her lips curl and reveal her teeth. She was probably not sad like them, she had a different feeling.

 “My daughter pursued a mammoth and this is what she did when she caught it”, she shouted. 

As the neanderthals watched, they figured this was a feeling associated with going hunting and successfully catching prey, pursuit. They all groaned and resolved to be more diligent in the activity, with the hope of getting this ‘better’ feeling as a reward. Here, the pursuit of happiness was invented. 

The same feeling took place about 401 776 years later at the corner of Market and Seventh street in Philadelphia, 1776. 

At his rented boarding house, Thomas Jefferson, the third US president, felt a sudden feeling of ecstasy as he drafted the declaration of independence, announcing thirteen American colonies as independent states, having been freed from colonial rule. 

He stared at the roof, sipped his coffee in a blue mug and added the line…… “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

While the exact age of happiness is unknown, which may be be more or less than 400 000 years, one thing is certain:

For the species that developed brain capacity to produce hormones that can send neural feelings of joy, excitement, ecstasy or pleasure, the rewarding system made them pursue this feeling to avoid the opposite, which would be hurt, grief, pain or discomfort. 

Happiness was correctly drafted as an unalienable right and a universal feeling. That most people, if not everyone, is diligently seeking. 

Whether it is chasing goals, caring for loved ones, graduating from college, laughing out loud with a friend or voting wisely. 

Probably even when AI transcends our expectations and produces happiness in a machine learning model,

I hope the pursuit of what matters most will make our neural networks continue producing enough dopamine and other associated hormones to make us feel positive and content, so that 400 000 years later, the pursuit of happiness would still exist.

Ecclesiastes 3:12a (ESV): “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful’’.