Our natural state

From very early on in Quinn's life, he seemed to be happy unless he had a need to be tended to. Well, "happy" might not be quite the right word at the beginning, but "neutral" at least. He has since learned to smile and is doing so with great regularity now. It is such a great smile - an all-consuming glow that makes his eyes twinkle and his head wiggle from side to side. It seems to be the purest happiness.

It makes me wonder whether our natural state, when all our needs are taken care of, is to be happy. Or, is it to be 'neutral' and 'happy' is just a positive excursion on the graph? When Quinn was born did he just not know how to express 'happy' in a way we could see, or was he really just 'neutral'? Has he learned what 'happy' is since that time, and how to express it?

Parenting books talk about colicky babies and there is much speculation as to why it occurs. It seems to boil down to two schools of thought - either they're just "like that", or they have an underlying imperceptible condition. Well, what about happy babies? Are they just "like that" or is it a condition brought on by external factors? At least one book I have read referred to smiling as a "socially conditioned response". It's certainly true that we can encourage it more once it does occur, but I honestly believe that what I've seen in Quinn in his first smiles was unprompted and unconditioned happiness.

There are always needs, some real and some imagined, some naturally occurring in us and some imposed upon us. The complexity of the human condition adds conflict on small and large scales. The social nature of humans adds needs beyond basic food, water and shelter. The sum total of it all is that as adults the underlying happiness can seem hopelessly obscured sometimes, but I choose to believe that underneath it all we are naturally happy and that it is embodied in the purity of an infant's smile.