Fahrenheit 451 - 1

On page 59 Captain Beatty says to Montag,

"Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these."


I believe our culture lives by this same aphorism, today. What people seek above all else is happiness. They say if they are happy, then they have lived a good life and that's what they are striving for. But what does happiness really accomplish? Does it help you in your life after you die? Certainly not. Does happiness ever actually get you where you want to go? Not that I have found to be true.


What absolute thing can happiness even help with? People justify that it makes you feel good and that it gains recognition of others. But what does it matter if others notice that you always seem to be "happy", if all you live for is some misconstrued, false sense of happiness that never satisfies. The metaphorical high that we seek from happiness will always let you down. Happiness has no bearings on reality, it is a lifeless thing which is completely inanimate. It will never satisfy as so many of us hope for. No matter how hard we try to grasp at happiness as our saving grace, it will never prevail. When we put all of our hope and faith into happiness, it will only leave us with an empty and unsatisfied feeling inside.


I believe that in all of our hearts, there is an intangible hole. There is something within us that is missing. We all try to fill that hole so that we can feel whole, as we should. Most people in our culture try and fill that void with happiness and pleasure. They fill it with things like money, and sex, and drugs, and friends. All of those things can seem so right and so satisfying, at first. But soon the alluring nature of these things fades and again, we are left unsatisfied and empty.

What is that hole, and what can possibly fill it so that we can be whole inside? I believe the hole that is in all of our hearts is a God-shaped hole. What I deem to be true is that every single person has a longing and desire for God in their heart. He is the only thing that can truly satisfy us and quench our thirst for the happiness we are seeking. He knows the desires of our hearts, and if we live as his children, he intends to fulfill those desires.


Bradbury, Ray. "The Hearth and the Salamander" Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. 59. Print.