Pursuit of Happiness

As we discuss The Namesake in class, the topic inevitably seems to shift towards Gogol's happiness.  However, we always focus on certain aspects of his life that may contribute to this happiness - namely, his relationships with women, his cultural conflicts, and his parental interactions.  We seem to neglect the fact that Gogol's satisfaction need not derive from this short list of factors.  Take, for example, his job.  Why can Gogol not find fulfillment in life (the fulfillment that we so badly want him to achieve) due to his successes in the workplace?  I think he could.  I think, through success in his working life, Gogol could sort out a lot of his internal problems and lead a better life.

I recently began reading the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.  This book examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success in life, as well as how that success impacts people.  For example, Gladwell looks at Olympic level sports teams - on the Canadian hockey team, an inordinate percentage of the players had birthdays between January and April.  The cutoff to play in a particular "year" of hockey falls on January first.  So children with January birthdays have an enormous advantage - as the oldest on their teams, they have an advantage in terms of size, thus they play better, join better teams, practice more, and receive better coaching.  Children with December birthdays have no hope.  Gladwell makes a similar argument for success in any field - external factors other than genetic skills or intelligence play a significant role in achievement.  He first points out the weak connections between I.Q. scores (beyond the 110-120 range) and success, and then shows the strong correlation between the affluence and cultural dynamics of a family and success.  Thus, the innate abilities one possesses only go so far - the rest depends on the individual's environment and upbringing.

Gogol obviously possesses the innate abilities that success requires.  He does well in school, attends Yale and Columbia for his higher education, and generally seems very intelligent.  So his family situation will separate him from his peers.  Unfortunately, Gogol's family moves from India to America before his birth.  This not only interferes with the family's wealth (Ashoke and Ashima could have lived comfortably for free with their parents in Calcutta) but also their culture (the conflicting cultures of America and India add a great deal of unnecessary stress to Gogol's life).  Despite this upbringing, Gogol still goes on to a fairly successful career as an architect.  However, he never really reaches his potential - he moves through the field slowly, ending the book working at a small architecture firm.  I cannot help but imagine the potential differences in Gogol's life if his family had not moved from India to the United States.  Although it meant a lot to Ashoke and Ashima, it probably hurt Gogol in the long run - with a more positive upbringing (without the cultural conflict that caused disagreements with his parents, rebelliousness in college, etc.), Gogol may have found even greater success as an architect. 

Though I cannot accurately say how such success would change his life, I can make predictions.  Success as an architect would allow Gogol to pursue his dream of having his own firm that designs buildings and homes independently.  To achieve such prosperity, his family would have had to remain in India for the aforementioned reasons (Gladwell's connection between family situation and success).  This would, in all likelihood, eliminate a great deal of stress from Gogol's life, as he would not conflicting cultures to deal with and would have fewer problems with his parents and his name (his grandmother could name him).  Overall, this adds up to a very happy, fulfilling life for Gogol.  But his parents just have to ruin it.