The two men wore ties and slacks. Their youthful faces and confident strides marked them as college students or young professionals. With a quick, whispered discussion, they approached the older gentleman on the park bench. It was late afternoon. The light streamed heavily through the leaves. Two squirrels chased each other up the maple beside the bench.
The older man was watching the squirrels when the two young men stopped in front of him.
“Excuse me, are you Dr. Landis?” one asked.
Dr. Landis looked at them with his watery blue eyes. “You two from the university?”
“We wouldn’t bother you, sir, but we were doing some research and your name came up….”
Dr. Landis laughed softly. He put the book down that he had been holding but not reading. “Yes?”
“The Happiness Equation, did you really have it worked out?”
Dr. Landis studied each of the men separately. “You have names?”
“Sorry. I’m Jason. This is Randolph.” The other greeted him timidly.
“The Happiness Equation was my career,” Dr. Landis said. “Thousands of test subjects, thousands of interviews. Work in psychology and social science and neurology. What does everyone in the world, in every culture, in every time period, want? To be happy. It is the great human aspiration. That was the goal of my research: how can a man best be happy? What situations, goals, circumstances would provide for the greatest possible happiness during our short lives? I wanted to give him a blueprint, a method for maximizing his happiness.”
“We know,” Jason said, not impatient, just wanting to show that they had not come uninformed. “We read all about it. But where is the Equation? Did you finish it?”
“We can help,” Randolph said, “if you are still working on it.”
“Sit down. It’s much more comfortable than staring down at me.”
Jason sat beside Dr. Landis on the bench, leaving Randolph to sit in the grass on the other side.
Dr. Landis waited thoughtfully after that, looking sometimes at the two young men, sometimes at the trees and grass that surrounded him. The young men remained silent, out of respect, though Jason fidgeted with his phone and Randolph started picking at the grass.
“Forget the Equation,” Dr. Landis said. “Go study something else. Find something you love and work on that.”
“But what’s greater than helping others enjoy life?” Jason asked. “That’s what we want to do. That’s why we hunted you down. It wasn’t easy to find you.”
Dr. Landis smiled knowingly. Then, glancing again at them, he spoke: “The Equation is finished.”
“Does it work?” Randolph was on his feet again. “Have you tested it?”
“We thought that’s what you’d been doing these last years,” Jason said. “What are the results?”
“Misery,” Dr. Landis said defiantly. “Absolute misery.”
“Then the Equation isn’t right,” Jason declared. “I mean, I’m sure you know that, sir.”
“It’s right,” Dr. Landis said. “It’s perfect. Everything a person can dream of for self-fulfillment, matched to their personality and psychic profile. It works. That’s why they’re miserable.
“Think – remember a time you waited for something, expected something, desired something more than you’ve desired anything – an accolade, a vacation in Europe, a road trip with friends. When it was over, after you graduated or finally got married or published that book, were you happy? Satisfied?”
“I remember sitting in my car, wanting to cry, two days after I won the Science Decathlon,” Randolph said.
“Why?” Dr. Landis asked.
“I don’t know. It was…there was nothing after it was over.”
“Nerd,” Jason said.
“So we keep moving to the next thing,” Dr. Landis continued. “To the next big movie, the new car, the new girl. We keep moving. But suppose I promise you perfect happiness, and a scientifically verified method of obtaining it. Item after item, a 70-year checklist you keep chasing until you die. What do you think that would feel like?”
“Emptiness,” Randolph said.
Dr. Landis nodded. “Disappointment. Time and time again. Depression and desperation.”
“Can we still see the data?” Jason asked after a silence. “I–I’d still like to look at it. I’ve sort of dreamed of helping – you know, save the world, that kind of thing.”
“No,” Dr. Landis said, “I’m afraid not.”
Randolph stood looking down at the scientist. “Then what’s the point? Don’t people just want to be happy? What if we can’t give them that?”
“I think we don’t give it. I don’t think we can – that’s the real error in the Equation. Time. Time and eternity.”
“I don’t understand, sir,” Jason said.
“It’s not a closed system. When are you really happiest? Happiness sneaks in on a rainy day, or five minutes before the alarm rings in the morning. It ambushes you with a phone call or a memory. It snuggles against you in the evening on the couch with a friend. Some people who should hate life seem to have happiness stored up somewhere secret. I assumed it came from experiences and possession we could arrange just right. I was wrong. It comes from somewhere outside.” He laughed self-deprecatingly. “I found this in an old book: ‘Everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil – that is God’s gift to man.’” Dr. Landis’s eyes shoe. “That’s a beginning to an answer, I think.”
Jason stood now. He and Randolph communicated through a glance. “We are sorry we bothered you.”
“Think on it,” Dr. Landis said. “Maybe take a walk and talk about it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jason said.
“Visit again, if you want.” Dr. Landis stared after the young men who wanted to change the world then returned to the book he had set down some time before.