My subject this evening, ladies, gentlemen, ladies’ ladies and gentlemen’s gentlemen, is the pursuit of happiness. It’s a subject which has been on my mind in one way or another for a while now because I’ve never felt particularly content or fulfilled in life for any length of time. I can remember in my teens realising that the extent of my happiness or otherwise depended on what I chose to enjoy, and I’ve followed that rule pretty much ever since- if I choose to take pleasure in my own company, in reading in the park or going for a walk, I’ll be more contented overall than if I decide that I’d rather enjoy expensive shopping trips to London, which I can only do once a year or so, thus making myself miserable for the rest of the time. In fact, there was a time when I was about sixteen or so, when I had so many interests and so little time to pursue them, that I had to give about half of them up because I was stressing myself over not being able to do everything. Since then I’ve had plenty of goals: some of them I’ve achieved and some I haven’t, but a major change happened two years ago, for a couple of reasons. Firstly I had a health scare, which was never completely sorted out so I still have to watch what I eat, and secondly I turned 30. The net effect has been to make me more at home in myself- I can accept my weaknesses and the things which frustrate me about myself more easily now, because I think I can see myself with a little more maturity and in three dimensions. If something makes me happy, does me more good than harm and doesn’t hurt anybody, then I’m getting better at just letting go and doing it.

I think the first thing I want to say is that it’s impossible to set out in life with the intention of being happy. Nobody can set out on a course of action and say "If I do this, this and this, I’ll be happy". Human beings aren’t built that way. We’re changeable and we have short attention spans. You might say that a big lottery or pools win would make you happy, but after you’ve bought the nice house and the flash car, what will make you happy? People need the stimulation which comes from variety in life, and even living in the lap of luxury and never having to cook another meal or wash and iron your own clothes ever again will eventually become boring. One of my own worst characteristics (and probably one of the reasons why I’ve never had a long-term relationship) is that I get bored with people very easily. It particularly happens when I start to get close to somebody and you start making small talk in between discussing the issues of the day- I just feel that we’ve said everything that needs to be said and need to spend a week or two apart. It particularly used to happen with my old school friend John- we’d see each other a couple of times a week in the first couple of weeks of the holidays and then perhaps once or twice until September. I can’t help feeling that I probably carry that around with me, consciously or unconsciously, and i’ve no doubt that it does stop me getting close to people, but I think I just have to accept that I do have a low boredom threshold when it comes to conversation.

To my mind, it comes down to the way human beings are designed. We’re built, physically and psychologically, to be able to do a lot of different things- to build, to envision, to design, to analyse, to question...without going all Gene Roddenberry, there’s very little human beings can do. We can put together a complex society like the one we have now, and then we can take it apart and analyse it so that we can make it better. But in order to do that, we need to have challenges. The people who have had a real effect on human history- from Martin Luther to Alexander Graham Bell and even Bill Gates, have been people who could see a better way. We need motivation- something to get out of bed for in the morning- and having worked in an office where there was no motivation whatsoever, I know what its absence can do. But happiness will always by definition be elusive. The French word heureux can mean either "happy" or "fortunate", which captures the sense of happiness as something beyond seeking and out of the control of the individual- one can be satisfied or content when one’s plans work out and goals are achieved, but happiness will always be something fleeting, tied to a particular time and place. Contentment, however, is more realistic, and yet it’s also a discipline. When we think of contentment, we perhaps think of elderly couples enjoying their garden and the slower pace of life which comes with retirement, but it comes with self-knowledge, understanding what will give peace of mind and setting out to achieve that rather than a succession of momentary thrills.

As the son of a depressive, and the grandson of a depressive and a neurotic, I’ve also seen what the absence of happiness can do. I’ve sat alone in my room at university, with no friends and no money, at one point almost willing a breakdown on myself so somebody would have to do something about the way I felt. But then again, I also knew somebody who tried to hang himself over Easter in his final year, and realised through him that I couldn’t give in to that as long as there was some chance that things might work out. I’ve always looked at suicide in terms of percentages- no matter how bad things are, there’s always a chance that they might get better, even if it’s only 1%. It’s you against them, and suicide seems to me like setting the odds 100% against yourself- you guarantee that you lose and they win. I think it comes from being the offspring of two very pragmatic families of survivors- we’ve handled unemployment, affairs, divorces, pregnancies, financial crises and come through it all. We know how to live one day at a time. What’s interesting, though, is that the Cragg men all seem to have this depressive-creative streak; my grandad, although I never really knew him, edited his cycling club magazine with a wicked sense of humour, and my dad recovered from his depression in part through photography- his railway photographs have at times graced the covers of national railway magazines. But I think I’ve also inherited my mum’s practical approach- the worst very rarely happens and there’s usually a way of coping with any situation which tends to involve love, talking, humour and a trip to the chippy. No situation is so bad that it won’t look better after either a good night’s sleep or a cup of tea.