The Pursuit of Happiness

PERTH PRAXIS: The Pursuit of Happiness
7pm Friday the 9th of October
Earthwise, 317 Bagot Rd Subiaco

This week's Perth Praxis will feature trade unionist, social justice activist, artist and teacher Ian Bolas.

Ian will be discussing the pursuit of happiness as well as elaborating on the formative experiences that have shaped his political thinking.

The Pursuit of Happiness

The United States Constitution guarantees the right to “the pursuit of happiness.” Thomas Hardy in The Mayor of Casterbridge says that happiness seems to be “but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.” Across most of the world, people are much less concerned with pursuing happiness than they are with pursuing their next meal.

We in the contemporary West assume that:

*happiness is achievable as a continuing state
* that the path to happiness is through the acquisition of things (including fetishised relationships)
* that there’s something wrong with you if you’re not happy.

We hold these assumptions despite the fact that demonstrably we are not happy, and all our striving and buying doesn’t make us so.

When a culture is obsessed with an idea, especially one which is so distant from reality, there’s a fair chance that there’s an ideological agenda at work. What is the real content of the pursuit of happiness, and how does it work to keep us unhappy and unfree?

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Perth Praxis aims at bringing a wide variety of progressives, artists, radicals, activists and free-thinkers together to share experiences, networks and knowledge so that we may build a culture and community of resistance and change. If you are sick and tired of being a frustrated spectator and want to be part of the solution – please come, bring your ideas, questions, family and friends.

As with all Perth Praxis events some food will be provided but please bring along a dish for all to share (if we ALL bring something none of us will go hungry).