In his new book, The Four Levels of Happiness: Your Path to Personal Flourishing, Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., PhD, discusses the unique phases in our human quest for satisfaction and peace. According to Fr. Spitzer, our pursuit of happiness proceeds, as it were, from the ground up through four distinct levels.
The First Two Levels of Happiness: Pleasure and “Winning”
The first level of human happiness, according to Fr. Spitzer, is about pleasure. Here, we are focused on satiating our physical desires. Maybe we seek delicious food, exciting experiences, or luxurious comforts. The achievement of these desires, however, is not satisfying, so eventually, we will seek something more challenging. This leads us to the second level of human happiness: “winning.” In this second level, we compare ourselves to others and consider how we stack up. We try to “keep up with the Joneses,” or better yet, win trophies and triumphs. These things soothe our egos and give us a sense of accomplishment.
However, even this second level of happiness is not satisfying, as so many cautionary tales have shown. History is littered with stories of successful people—including imperial conquerors!—whose tremendous successes only led to bitterness. (Fr. Spitzer notes how even Julius Caesar cried because he had fallen short of his idol, Alexander the Great!) Meanwhile, we are all familiar with today’s headlines about down-and-out celebrities whose great fame and wealth give them no protection from despair.
The Third Level of Happiness: Helping Others
Accordingly, as Fr. Spitzer relates, the self-centered efforts of levels one and two eventually give way to a third level of human happiness: service to others. Observation shows that humans experience genuine satisfaction from helping their neighbors. We feel a glow when we know we have truly aided someone, fulfilling their needs or making their lives more meaningful. Maybe that’s why many of the world’s most successful people ultimately pour their efforts into philanthropy, as we see in the multi-billion-dollar efforts of people like Bill Gates.
The Fourth Level of Happiness: The Transcendent
Even this third level of human striving, however, is not enough. In the end, we long for something even greater than service to others. This is when we discover an elusive fourth level of happiness—the level of transcendence. This fourth level is perhaps the most mysterious of all, but it’s also the most rewarding. And sometimes it can take us a long time—decades!—for us to realize we need it! When we do discover the level of transcendence, however, we experience new heights of purpose and peace.
Art and the Transcendent
How, though, can we be sure there really is a fourth, supernatural level of human happiness—a level of transcendence? Fr. Spitzer helps us identify five ways. Specifically, he pinpoints five markers of yearning that indicate the insufficiency of the lower three levels of happiness described above. These “markers of yearning” are present across human cultures – especially in the modern world – and they show that physical pleasure (level 1), “winning” (level 2), and even philanthropy (level 3) are not enough to give us happiness.
The five markers Fr. Spitzer discusses are these:
- Cosmic Boredom
- Cosmic Emptiness
- Cosmic Alienation
- Cosmic Loneliness
- Cosmic Guilt
This series of blog posts will focus on each of Fr. Spitzer’s five markers of transcendent yearning, specifically utilizing the lens of art. Throughout history, the arts have served as a powerful witness to humanity’s transcendent longings. Why does art perform this function? I think it’s because art is generally, by definition, 1.) non-”useful,” and 2.) non-verbal. As a non-useful, primarily aesthetic product, art points to something beyond the merely practical world of survival and power struggle. Second, as a mostly non-verbal form of communication, art grapples with elusive things words can’t quite express. That helps explain why most art throughout history was made for religious purposes, adorning temples, tombs, churches, and chapels. Meanwhile, even in secular modernity, the arts continue to bear witness to our transcendent intuitions precisely through the five markers listed above.
Marker 1: Cosmic Boredom
Maybe more than any culture in the history of humanity, our culture is afflicted by cosmic boredom. Modern technology and manufacturing place a seemingly infinite number of amusements at our fingertips, but we’re still not satisfied. A powerful, early manifestation of modern, cosmic boredom can be seen in Albrecht Durer’s famous etching, Melancolia. Here, the intellectual and artistic curiosities so plentifully supplied to the modern mind are shown—in the end—to be tedious and unsatisfying.
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Melencolia I by Albrecht Dürer / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Albrecht Durer was a “Renaissance Man,” both literally and figuratively. He lived in the time of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He traveled throughout Europe and mastered a number of art forms. He was also an amateur naturalist, meticulously studying the flora and fauna around him. Durer’s engravings were so popular that they spawned countless imitators; ultimately, they even inspired the establishment of modern copyright law!
The Large Piece of Turf by Albrecht Dürer / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
But even Durer, keenly alert to a new world of beauties and curiosities, suffered from cosmic boredom. His highly detailed and allusive print Melancolia shows a sublimely powerful figure—strong, winged, and beautiful—pouting in a studio surrounded by fascinating and beautiful instruments.
The central figure in Durer’s image appears to be a kind of angel in feminine form, but many have interpreted her as an allegory of the artist himself – and perhaps all artists. Glowering in abstracted dissatisfaction, she sits with a book on her lap, listlessly holding a compass. Nearby rest instruments like a millstone, a sundial, an etching tablet, a scale, a crucible, a brazier, and other tools used in aesthetic or alchemical arts. In the far distance, a rainbow and comet symbolize meteorological wonders. But despite these creative tools and natural inspirations, the central figure broods. The world is at her fingertips, but none of it stimulates anymore.
The history of art is littered with pictures like these. A modern example is Depression in Studio, by Conrad Felixmuller from 1927. In Felixmuller’s angsty image, a painter with sunken eyes turns away from his canvases, seemingly absorbed in a kind of inner darkness. His wiry hands grip his forehead in a gesture of quiet desperation. Like Durer’s Melancolia, this representative of observation, insight, and creative power finds his artistic pursuits intensely unsatisfying. With nowhere else to look, he seems to look within.
A Cure for Cosmic Boredom
Is there a cure for cosmic boredom? Albrecht Durer thought so. Despite the religious turmoil of his era (he lived in Germany at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation), Durer steadfastly clung to transcendent realities. One of his last works was his magisterial Four Apostles, now at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Here, the apostles John, Peter, Mark, and Paul stand with quiet intensity, holding symbols of their faith. (Peter holds keys to the church as the first Pope; John holds his gospel, and Paul holds the sword with which he was martyred.) Probably conceived as a “legacy piece” meant as his final, major statement to the world, Durer’s Four Apostles points decisively to the transcendent: Scripture, sacrifice, and the Church herself. For Durer, only the transcendent could alleviate the boredom of the questing Renaissance mind.
The Four Apostles, Saints John and Peter by Albrecht Dürer / Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
