I go through life thinking I’m pretty smart, fairly quick on the uptake, yet I had to listen to the tune 3,827 times before it hit me: I know that song. They changed the words, but it’s the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written by Julia Ward Howe in 1861. The abolitionist song became very popular in the North during the Civil War between the United States and the Confederate States.Howe’s lyrics go, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on.”
Our toy repeats the first line, which has no resolution: “The more we get together, the happier we’ll be, the more we get together the happier we’ll be”…on and on, over and over, one of those rare occasions with home electronics when you wonder why modern batteries last so long. Can you un-invent rechargeable batteries?
The American Declaration of Independence says the unalienable rights of man include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But why should we be happy, anyway? What’s the big deal? My two-year-olds often pay no attention to me; they do not obey me at all. I say don’t hang off the back of the chair, it will tip over and you’ll break your head. They say, “No!” and keep right on doing it. Do such imps deserve to be happy?
Yesterday one child was eating at the table and her twin sister climbed up on the same chair to sample the fare; she lost her grip on the chair but held on to the bowl. I stood right there, not quite close enough to save her. Fortunately she didn’t land hard, didn’t get hurt. But her hand as she fell swung the porcelain bowl down on the wooden floor.
Your mind works fast in an emergency, time slows down. I was happy to see how she had been able to save herself and at the same time not spill the food. Of course the bowl exploded and pieces of china flew everywhere, but the food stayed right there, quite a physics demonstration. I wasn’t so happy to realize that I had two barefoot two-year-olds in a room full of broken glass.
Thus I put them on the sofa and told them to stay there under penalty of death if they should even think of getting down. The explosion helped focus their minds, for they stayed put. Unfortunately that stupid toy was on the couch so while I cleaned up the mess I had to listen to how happier we’ll be the more we get together.
The comedian George Burns said, “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” Now I wouldn’t go quite that far, but I will say that my in-laws live on the other side of the Bosporus, and it’s a shame that the heavy bridge traffic makes the trip so forbidding to them.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.” I looked up a happiness quote from Friedrich Nietzsche and found: “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier and simpler.” My German blood must draw me to those German thinkers.
Yes, the song got to me. The skeptic in me thought it must be a Chinese conspiracy, for all toys come from China these days. Imagine my surprise to see Made in Japan embossed in the plastic. I looked up the “Battle Hymn” again and found that Yodobashi Camera adopted it as its theme song, which it plays over and over in the stores. The war is in Japan, aimed at getting customers out of the store fast. I am only collateral damage. I am happy.
