Happiness in the Human Experience

“Life is sacred, that is to say it is the supreme value, to which all other values are subordinate” –Albert Einstein.

Last week in my intercultural comm class we were asked to write about a cultural documentary that really opened our eyes to the world around us. My classmates did their paper and presentations about California gang bangers (Crips and Bloods), sex trafficking in India (The Day My God Died), dieting fads in Utah (Fit2Fat2Fit) and the stories of Ethiopian women devastated by childbirth injuries (A Walk to Beautiful). Each presentation was incredibly inspiring and eye-opening, so much in fact, that I couldn't wait to tell Jace everything I'd learned. My paper though, was quite different than the others. I chose to speak about a topic much more broad than my classmates, focusing on a documentary that I would highly recommend on a universally-sought topic: the search for happiness.

Cliff and Jeff Azize were just trying to fit in in life. They didn’t fit in at home growing up, and they didn’t have the sense of security so many enjoy. Recovering from a devastating family life, Cliff and Jeff moved to a halfway house in Brooklyn, New York, where they formed the kind of family they’d always wished they had. Like the Azize’s, the young men living at the St. Francis House did not enjoy easy childhoods. They were moving on, however, and together the band of brothers decided to give themselves an opportunity to find out who they were. “We had a desire to see the world through someone else’s eyes,” they said. “We would learn about every race, religion, color and creed.”

They would call it The Human Experience, traveling the world in search of the burning questions: Who am I? Who is Man? Why do we search for meaning? Their adventure began in their own backyard—the concrete jungle. “We would join the thousands who spend winter living on the streets,” they said. “We would live homeless without money or food in NYC, attempting to find hope among the cities’ most hopeless.” And they did. Cliff and Jeff quickly learned how best to survive. Other homeless people advised them to sleep by a church—it’s safer from the cops, they said. They would gather cardboard boxes, creating ‘houses’ of sorts and simply doing their best to preserve natural body heat. At 5:30 in the morning, though, the cops kicked them out of where they were sleeping. It was five degrees.

Cliff and Jeff felt vulnerable. They felt humiliated and embarrassed. But one homeless man lifted their spirits with appreciation. “At least you’re willing to get to know us, to try to understand us. We have a mind, and a spirit, and a soul.” One homeless woman the boys interviewed told about an extra cold week where she witnessed a small pack of dogs wandering a park. Immediately people began calling their friends, snatching up the small dogs and taking them home. “Those people took the dogs so they wouldn’t freeze to death. They let me stand there. I just don’t understand that. When you see your brother, or your sister, you help them.” This mentality is so different than many cultures in the U.S. We learn to look out for number 1, and we often forget just how much we need our brothers and sisters, and just how much they need us.

A counselor they interviewed gave very sound advice. “No matter how bad it is, people know deep down that life is a treasure. Life is worth living… just because it is. The nature of life is to be hopeful!” The counselor spoke to a man years ago that jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in an attempt to take his own life. He realized halfway down that he shouldn’t have done it. He survived, but he lived a very important lesson: Life is worth living!  Experience can be a generous teacher or a cruel teacher. Whether it is good or bad, you can always learn something from it.  Cliff and Jeff said their first experience living with the homeless left them feeling completely humbled. “My whole heart feels different,” they said. Later we learn that Cliff and Jeff spent the coldest week of winter on the streets.

The brother’s next experience was spent in Peru, volunteering at a children’s home. Parents who could not afford medical care could leave their little ones at the home where they would be treated until they became well enough to be sent home. Cliff and Jeff called them the lost children of Peru. They would learn quickly that many children were very sick, others missing limbs and even more with serious illnesses or medical conditions. One exceptionally happy boy had only one limb—a leg that he would use to eat with and brush his teeth. “Most people don’t understand how children can be so happy, despite their infirmities,” they said. “But it’s not what you give them; it’s what they give us.”

“Nothing could prepare us for what was about to come next,” the brothers said. In their third experience, Cliff and Jeff traveled to West Africa, right to the heart of the AIDS epidemic. With bugs the size of small birds and their beds collapsing under their weight, I knew I would be in culture shock if I had been with them. But for Cliff and Jeff, it was a search for peace. “My mom died of AIDS when I was seven,” Jeff said. “I never had a chance to speak to her before she passed away. Although this experience will be hard, I’m hoping that through their peace, I’ll find peace.”   One native said he sees at least two people dying of HIV every week. It was their perspective though, that really shocked. “The most important thing,” one native said, “is to have God in your hut. If you have God in your hut you have a very strong thing. You have everything.”

As the conclusion of their third experience the brothers visited abandoned lepers in the forest of Ghana. “We went into the forest knowing we weren’t the same skin color as them, we weren’t the same culture as them, in fact there were more differences than similarities,” they said, “but there was one thing that united us: Our humanity. They have all these problems, and yet he’s explaining to me that he’s excited to see me. They accepted me because I was a human being.” The documentary showed many lepers with missing arms, legs, and sometimes both. Others had cloudy and/or missing eyes from the disease. “They are missing everything on the outside, but they have everything on the inside,” Cliff said. “They are happy.” The brothers said they learned more than ever before that it’s not what’s on the outside that matters. They went into the experience wondering “What is this person really made up of?”

 This documentary has hung in my mind for days. In every one of these cultures, these people experience a certain deficit in their lives, whether it is money and a home or health and wellbeing. Yet in every one of these cultures these people show us that they do have a reason to be happy. They have a reason to live. Later the Azize brothers said of the documentary: “We wanted to see what life is through other’s experiences. It’s about the beauty of life. Because whatever happens in life, life is still good.”