"One solution would be a collective agreement to limit the race of all against all," writes the British economist and member of the House of Lords, Richard Layard, in his book Happiness.
In this book, he argues that we are going to experience nothing less than another revolution this century. We will rise up against social Darwinism and discover that the need to compete all the time turns us all into losers.
It sounds good, a little bit like Christianity without the Christ. But hopeful.
When I met Mr. Layard in London last week, I asked him, "In your book, you claim that in order to be happy, we need above all a stable relationship, in other words: love. Is there enough love in the world for all of us? Isn’t there also a competition going on for love?"
It was the only time during the interview that he fell silent. He sat there for almost two minutes, thinking, smiling, coughing. Finally he said, "Well, love is not always about giving and taking. Sometimes you just have to give."
I translated that into: sometimes you just have to love by yourself. Let’s take, for example, the waitress at the cafe around the corner. You love her silently and modestly, and you are grateful when she once a week utters, "Thank you for the tip, my friend."
In his book Layard quotes Gore Vidal, “It’s not enough to succeed; others must fail.” I like Layard much better than Vidal, but Vidal is, I’m afraid, closer to reality.
Succeeding is simply not enough.
P.S. Full Disclosure: When I had my own publishing house in the Netherlands fifteen years ago, I did publish a novella by Marek Hlasko, the subject of my last blog entry. It got good press and sold 80 copies.