Climate change.

Being on a plane that is about to crash.

Not being able to work.

We live in a fearful age: Brexit, Covid, global warming, cancel culture, war in Ukraine. Add in pancreatic cancer and you find me in an advanced and complex state of anxiety.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Caetano Veloso, Terry and Jo Harvey Allen, Ford Wheeler, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning. My late father.

Wow, these are big questions! Happiness, as I’ve experienced it and observed it in others, seems to be random—some of us are happy fairly regularly (I am, mostly), and some of us not as much—but there seems to be no clear explanation as to why. It comes and goes at unexpected moments, too. The graph of happiness doesn’t even seem to match what is going on in our lives. Or maybe it does and we don’t know it. Money—is there a connection between money and happiness? It takes away a world of worries and anxieties, but are rich folks all happy? Are you kidding? Donald Trump is ALWAYS scowling. That said, it’s hard to be happy if you don’t know where you’ll sleep or where your next meal is coming from. The pursuit of happiness? Where are we supposed to look? Are there clues hidden somewhere? The very act of searching and striving for it can lead to frustration and unhappiness. I suspect that happiness finds you—I’m not sure you can find a road that leads to it. Happiness is everywhere, though some cultures are, I’ve read, happier overall than others—G.N.P. be damned. Is sunshine one of those things? Are tropical folks generally happier?