A Bear and Nozick Teach Happiness

          The Waldo Moment is a Black Mirror episode in which a cartoon bear, voiced by a man named Jayme, began as a comedic enterprise ended up running for an election. To be clear the cartoon bear, named Waldo, ran for office not the man behind him. If you are wondering how could this happen, basically the people became disenfranchised with their current politicians and believed they were not really cared about by the government and voting for a cartoon bear could vent their anger.
          The episode struck home with me because of how startling close the people in there and the people out here areand also how it portrays how a person thinks. For example it can be assumed that Jayme more than likely had a lot of money due to the fact of how successful Waldo was with the public. Even though he is not directly famous, Waldo is and thus he can reap the rewards that Waldo produces. Now having money does not necessarily mean happiness it also does not necessarily dwindle it either. But what we see at the end is that Jayme was tired of the success of Waldo during the election and was incredulous at why the people were voting for a cartoon bear. He sacrificed all of his potential success to make a stand for something he believed in. This just goes to show how the human mind works, and that happiness is not always the most important thing to a person. This point is also pointed out in "The Experience Machine," by Robert Nozick. In his thought experiment he states that humans want experiences of connections with others that bring about happiness rather than happiness in it of itself. We as humans would rather have fluctuations of happiness rather than happiness all of the time because it helps to contribute our life's meaning. I would personally rather live a thoughtful life with meaningful shared connections with other people rather than constant feelings of pleasure. We enjoy the internal feeling of pleasure as a response to something that we did. It makes it more meaningful to us.
          This episode put me in perspective and made me think what happiness was and how important it is. Now I personally believe that it is vital to a person and people should pursue it, just not in way in which it separates them from their common man. It is like the example of higher pleasures and lower pleasures. It may take a while and unhappiness to achieve those higher pleasures but when you do it makes all of the difference. Nozick quotes John Stuart Mill in his experiment when he says," it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied."