“When there is love, you can live even without happiness.” – Teach Different with Fyodor Dostoevsky

Transcript

 Steve Fouts (00:10)

Welcome to the Teach Different podcast. I am here, Steve Fouts, with two wonderful guests, Jarvis and Siye. Jarvis, as everyone should know, who’s been following the podcast for a while, is the inspiration behind Teach Different. He used to be a student in one of my classrooms when I was teaching US history in Chicago. And he helped inspire really this idea of the method and the quotes that we’re going to be discussing on this podcast. So happy to have him again. Siye is Teach Different’s podcast producer who lives in Swaziland, which is in Africa. And we have two people who are going to get in a really, really interesting conversation with me. This quote that we’re going to be talking about Siye selected, and it’s going to be deep. I’m going to warn everybody. And I’m going to give you the two words that we’re going to be talking about a lot, love and happiness. So if you’re not ready to go there, you might as well just cut this off because we’re gonna try to figure this out and get some insights into this. Quick review, how does the method work? We’re gonna go over the quote, we’re gonna go over the claim of the quote. What does it mean? Try to define some words if we need to, and then we’re gonna do the counterclaim or counterclaims. What’s another way of looking at the quote, which is going to take in some other perspectives about what could be true and what is true. Fyodor  Dostoevsky is our author. Okay. So let’s get ready here. I’m going to read this quote a couple of times and then Siye, let’s have you kick things off and we’ll go from there. Here’s the quote. When there is love, you can live even without happiness. When there is love, you can live even without happiness. And this is by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist, writer, essayist, and philosopher. See your thoughts to kick off the Teach Different podcast.

 

Siye (02:30)

Yeah, thank you. I think the first thing that comes to mind with this quote is the idea that love and happiness are not synonymous and you can have love without happiness. Or they can still be love even though there is no happiness. I don’t know. What does everybody else think?

 

Jarvis Funches (02:55)

Good.

 

Steve Fouts (02:58)

What’s love and happiness means? That’s what I think. Well, that’s my question. But Jarvis, you go, like, these are the words. You can have love and not happiness. Don’t we think love is, don’t you think of a smile?

 

Jarvis Funches (02:59)

Right, because it’s kind of contradicting, right? So I would say, in my point of view of this, of this quote, I would say, in a sense, love is… Love would be loyalty, or love would be devoted, unconditional love. I would want to say that. And let me clear it up a little bit. You can love something that don’t bring you happiness, right? Because you could be loyal to it. You could be devoted to it, even though it’s bringing you negativity. It’s kind of like a toxic trait until you see or until you realize that this is not good for you, you’re typically loyal to it, right? So, I don’t know what you think Mr. Fouts?

 

Steve Fouts (04:06)

I was gonna say, even if you know it’s not good for you, that might not even stop you from loving.

 

Jarvis Funches (04:16)

Yeah.

 

Steve Fouts (04:17)

That’s how powerful love is. Whatever love is. We can go to so many places with love. Love of, you know, a relationship, your significant other, love of your child, love of your parent, love of

 

Jarvis Funches (04:30)

Mm-hmm. I was going to use the short term example of an obese person. Like in love with food, you know, like you’re not happy eating, but you love it. Like you just, you can’t put it down, but you notice this is bringing you obesity, it’s making you unhappy, but it’s just every time you see it, you just can’t resist it because you just have this strong lust for it and this strong love feeling to it. You know, does it make sense a little bit? You know?

 

Steve Fouts (05:05)

Not love and lust are close as well. Siye, what do you think?

 

Siye (05:09)

So the question, what is love? I’m going to, one of my favorite authors, Bell Hooks. There’s a book that she has called All About Love. And she kind of defines it as love is as love does. So let’s say in relationships, if in order to claim you love a person, it has to be shown through action. So love is not just like a feeling or anything. It’s like, it’s a verb, right? And so when I think if we’re making this claim that where there is love, you can live even without happiness. The first thing that also comes to mind is, I don’t know if you guys know of situations or in households, right, where children are provided for, right? They may be going to good schools, they’re taken care of, they’re clothed, they’re given food, but there’s just no joy in the home, right? They probably don’t have a relationship with their parents.

 

Jarvis Funches (05:53)

Mm-hmm.

 

Siye (06:10)

And they are, or like the parents are working really hard to provide for the children to a point where they just don’t have time to create that interpersonal relationship with their children that can also add to the joy in the household. So in that case, the love is still there, right? But maybe the father is scary or the children are scared of their parents that when the parents come from work, the children will run and hide in their bedrooms because they don’t feel safe in that space with their parents because they probably don’t have a good relationship with them. But everything else is provided for and the parents are doing this provision out of love. We can’t say they hate their parents because they hate their children because if they hated their children, they wouldn’t be doing anything for them, right? They wouldn’t care whether they’re in certain or not. They wouldn’t care if they’re going to good schools or not. They wouldn’t even care whether they have clothes on their back. But the one thing that they lacking in is this interpersonal thing, which creates a happy household. So that’s also just like an example that popped to mind that like the love is there because they showing up and they showing that love through actions. But maybe you can’t crack a joke with your mom because she’s just not that type of parent.

 

Jarvis Funches (07:27)

Mm-hmm.

 

Siye (07:28)

So that relationship doesn’t necessarily have happiness.

 

Steve Fouts (07:28)

That is profound. It’s like an invisible love.

 

Jarvis Funches (07:33)

Yeah, she clinked it up. I really can’t relate to that example. They love you dearly. It’s just their time cannot be exchanged for happiness. Nine to five moms, she’s always working. It’s not that I can’t provide happiness for you, but I’m always working. So I can’t give you that one-on-one connection. You know what saying? So it is no happiness, like she’s saying, it’s no joy, but we still can live without the joy because I love you. I don’t want to see you go without. You’re not going to be hungry. You’re not going to be homeless. You’re going to have the school closed. I just don’t have the personal time to trade with you, to personally walk around with you. know how it is, Mr. Fouts. With your cat, for an example. The cat, I love the cat. Sometimes, like right now, you ain’t got no time to join with him because you on a podcast with us. But it’s not that you don’t love him though. It’s just you don’t have that personal time to devote to him right now, to be able to walk him outside or give him a treat right now. But it’s not that you don’t love him though. You see what I’m saying? It’s just, I can’t give you fun and joy right now.

 

Steve Fouts (08:52)

That’s a great little example, I’m sorry, and he’s sleeping behind me. So if he gets up and he comes up and wants to get on camera, I’m gonna let him, because you just made me feel guilty. No, yeah, that’s ⁓ really, what an example. What an example. It’s really, I don’t have anything, you know what, I don’t have anything to add right now. Just continue talking.

 

Jarvis Funches (08:54)

Alright. My question would be to that is how do you know when it’s truly love? How do you know, let me just scratch that out. How do you know when you truly train your time for love versus happiness? And I mean that to everybody. When you sit down and you think, okay, I’m training my time out to be in love, but is it making me happy or is it worth it? How do you know that then?

 

Steve Fouts (09:42)

Is it worth it? That’s a good one.

 

Jarvis Funches (09:46)

Because I feel like a lot of people stay in a sense of a bad relationship. You’re not getting joy from this relationship. It’s not romantic anymore. It’s just not that spark anymore. And I’m pretty sure a lot of people probably felt that before with someone. It’s not that spark anymore. But in spite of leaving you, I stay with you to endure this even though I’m not happy because it’s a sense of loyalty to you and it’s a sense of being devoted. like, you know, like I’m not happy. I’m not really getting the joy out of what I should be getting, but I just don’t want to see you out or I’m not going to see you alone, you know? And a lot of people do stay in a lot of bad places because of lust and the so-called love. So how do you know when it’s worth it, you know?

 

Siye (10:41)

Oh, I feel like that’s a hard one. It’s a hard one because you never really know, right, if it’s worth it. it’s also, I don’t know, I think it’s also just the choice that you make

 

Jarvis Funches (10:45)

Mm-mm.

 

Steve Fouts (10:46)

It is smart.

 

Siye (10:58)

Because also the other thing is that with happiness, I feel like it’s such a fleeting emotion, right? Like you could be happy right now and sad the next one. So I think sometimes people stay in those situations just because they feel like maybe the spark will come back again. Maybe we’ll work on things and we’ll be happy again. So I’m not going to give up on this thing just because we’re not happy right now. What if something changes and next week we’re the happiest we’ve ever been? But I would also say, I’m the type of person to say don’t endure it for too long because you don’t want to stay in places that don’t make you happy for too long because then you get depressed and it’s gonna be harder to come out of that and build yourself up to experience joy in the world if you just like in a dark and gloomy place all the time.

 

Jarvis Funches (11:56)

For sure.

 

Steve Fouts (11:57)

And it’s different than your first example with the kid in the family, because the kid isn’t really choosing this lack of love. They’re not seeing the love behind the scenes. They’re just experiencing the lack of happiness, perhaps. But again, they’re not in control. With relationships, you do ideally just have two people who are making these choices.

 

Siye (12:00)

Hmm.

 

Jarvis Funches (12:17)

Yeah.

 

Steve Fouts (12:26)

And it’s, you know, the bloom is off the rose. We’ve been together. We’ve been together. And, you know, I want to be loyal to you. I’m not happy, but I know I can be happy. And let’s work this out. And I’m going to read the quote again. When there is love, you can live even without happiness. When there is love, you can live even without happiness.

 

Jarvis Funches (13:01)

That guy must be miserable. You gotta be like, cause like I get the quote, like you can live without happiness, but like at the same time, like what’s the point of doing something that doesn’t make me happy? Like, isn’t that the point of living is to do things.

 

Steve Fouts (13:02)

I mean, what’s the, yeah, what? And I think you’re chipping away, you’re chipping away at the counterclaim right now because I think he’s saying, hey, if you got love, you don’t need happiness.

 

Jarvis Funches (13:26)

All right.

 

Steve Fouts (13:34)

This Fyodor Dostoevsky, I know this much about him. He was depressed almost all the time. And his writings reflect, I mean, notes from the underground. He’s referring to a very low place where he’s coming up with his ideas and his philosophies. But evidently he’s saying, when there is love, you can live even without happiness. I’d love to know what he meant by that, because I think he’s trying to say love is so great that it makes happiness not as important.

 

Siye (14:14)

Maybe that’s it, right? Maybe that’s the idea that like, so now I think I’m going back to what I thought the game was, that maybe the idea is that there is happiness in love. So maybe there’s all these other things. Love is like so great. It has all these other big things, including happiness. So you don’t necessarily need to be in search of just happiness, right? You must go in search for something deeper, which is love, because it’s all encompassing.

 

Jarvis Funches (14:50)

I was listening to you. I’m kind of trying to think, like maybe he was saying like, if you love something, it brings you happiness. So maybe you can live without happiness. As long as if I love something, it’ll bring me happiness in some shape or form. I don’t know. mean…

 

Steve Fouts (14:59)

Maybe. Maybe. And maybe we have to redefine happiness, you know, cause again, when there is love, you can live even without happiness. It sounds to me like he’s saying love and happiness are different. And they could coincide, hopefully, but they’re different. So I…

 

Jarvis Funches (15:11)

At that point. Yeah. Yeah. This kind of goes, you remember Mr. Fouts? You remember we had the last podcast, like with the right and the left and how things is all about the point of perspective like maybe he is looking from a point of perspective that I can’t catch right now because I’m really still stuck on like with disagreeing with it because like me personally, everything I love, it brings hurt. And it also brings happiness. And so it brings me both. Like it’s sweet but sweet, it’s sweet but bitter at the same time. it always brings a sense of happiness. and I feel like, right. And I feel like just, period. Like just off being human beings, like period. You’ve been placed on this earth to enjoy and to, you know, flourish to your highest potential. Like nobody’s meant to just be like, oh, I’m going to stay here because I love you and I’m loyal to you, but I’m just going to let you throw dirt on me. I just keep going back to that sense of a fact because like, don’t see like, like besides the kids, right? We not giving out happiness, okay. But we still loving you in a sense of a fake, but you a child. So you don’t understand the love that I’m giving you right now. You see what I’m saying? So that’s why you not happy. Like you said, that’s more sensible. But summing it up, this is like me loving a flower. I love mother nature, but it brings me happiness. I’m lost in a way. I love Mother Nature.

 

Steve Fouts (17:03)

See it? What do you think? No, I know, I know, I know. Because it’s like, does, what do you think in see it? These are big words.

 

Siye (17:10)

I don’t know, I think I’m going back and forth. It’s a hard one, honestly. I keep changing my mind on everything that I’ve said so far, because now that I think about it, I also feel like maybe it’s going back to the idea that maybe love is more fixed than happiness, right? So happiness is fleeting, so it can come today and be gone tomorrow and you can always find some things to bring you joy and happiness, right? Whereas when you have love, it’s kind of like it stays forever. It endures forever. So even when I’m not pleased with you right now, but because I love you and there’s love in the room with us, I can still honor the fact that we’re not happy right now because I’m not pleased with you. And then the power of the love, that even in moments where there is no happiness, because we have love, we can enjoy everything. I think about like, even in families, like sometimes your family members can be a pain in your butt, but because you love them you still kind of, you know, it’s not, it’s like we’re getting on each other’s nerves right now. And maybe we’re not seeing eye to eye, maybe it’s just a prolonged tension at home or whatever. But because we have the love, then we can overcome those moments where there is no happiness. So we are able to live even in those moments together where there is no happiness, knowing that we still love and care for each other very deeply. And it’s not changed by the fleeting state of our emotions.

 

Jarvis Funches (19:03)

Yeah, I think I’m gonna stick with that one, Mr. Fouts. That’s as clear as it gets for me.

 

Steve Fouts (19:10)

Yeah, it’s like love is a heavyweight and happiness is a lightweight. You know, they’re both there, they’re both important, but one of them is primary. And I think that that is absolutely his claim, right? We’re just, we’re making this up. We’re trying to figure out what he’s trying to say. When there is love, you can live even without happiness. I feel like he’s on love team. There’s something about love. I want to know who he was in love with or what he loved. This person, literally, that would say this. That’s kind of my question, I guess. I think it would reveal some things.

 

Jarvis Funches (19:41)

That’s a good question.

 

Steve Fouts (19:59)

You know, cause you can love, can, know, Michael Jordan, he loved basketball. You could love writing. There are plenty of people out there that have loved a career or loved a work or loved an artistic ability so much that they got rid of their friends, that they got estranged from their family. You can love God so much that you can look at your family in a lower importance. So it’s really that, is a power, love is, I’m gonna agree with him that love is more powerful than happiness. I’m gonna give him that.

 

Jarvis Funches (20:41)

Yeah, for sure. It was a rattle, but now y’all two cleaned it up. It makes perfect sense. Love do endures a lot more than happiness. It do. It does.

 

Steve Fouts (20:49)

Yeah. Can you survive? Go ahead. See it.

 

Siye (20:59)

I think I have. Yeah, no, my essential question would probably be for how long must you live without happiness? Is it like forever or is that for a week or a month or?

 

Steve Fouts (21:17)

You were on the same thing I was. I was like, you can’t do it forever, can you?

 

Jarvis Funches (21:22)

That’s right, that’s what I was saying.

 

Steve Fouts (21:24)

What is love if you’re depressed all the time? All the time.

 

Siye (21:30)

Exactly.

 

Jarvis Funches (21:30)

I your love is going to be filtered to be a lit. If you are depressed all the time. But that’s a good question, though. That’s a good question.

 

Steve Fouts (21:40)

Sorry, sorry Jarvis.

 

Jarvis Funches (21:41)

Nah, I would tell anybody listening, if it get to the point where you start to get depressed, take some time out. Take some time to yourself to evaluate the situation. Recuperate.

 

Steve Fouts (21:54)

How about this? How about this? Let’s say you’re depressed. You’re not happy. You know the world is not all loaves and the fishes. You gotta go through stuff. But the question is, how do you know when your depression or your lack of happiness is worth it? Because there’s lots of things in life I could point to about being unhappy, depressed, whatever. And it means get the F out, switch up your game and get away from these people, get away from this situation, get away from these addictions. know, like, how do you know when it’s worth it to go through unhappiness because you don’t want to run from unhappiness and then, you know, date someone for instance. And then the minute you have a bad day, I’m gone. No, but so, so that’s my question. Like, how do you know when it’s worth it to bear unhappiness?

 

Jarvis Funches (22:58)

Right, right, right.

 

Siye (23:08)

Yeah, what if we flipped the word love and happiness in the quote, right? And said, when there is happiness, you can live even without love.

 

Steve Fouts (23:23)

Beautiful.

 

Jarvis Funches (23:25)

Mmmhmm.

 

Steve Fouts (23:26)

Beautiful. I think there’s people that chase that.

 

Jarvis Funches (23:30)

Yeah, for sure.

 

Siye (23:31)

Mm.

 

Steve Fouts (23:31)

They chase happiness. The love they gave up on, why? Probably got rejected. They probably got hurt because love is deep. That’s where anger lives. When it doesn’t work out. I love that. When there is happiness, you can live even without love. True or false?

 

Jarvis Funches (23:36)

Mm-hmm. Wow. I feel like happiness is a drug too. I feel like it’s a drug in a way, because it releases a fume in your brain that has you feeling a dopamine. Right. So it releases a dopamine into your brain, which has you high off a feeling. It makes you in a good way of high. Like, oh, I like this. And maybe that’s the reason why people are in…

 

Steve Fouts (24:02)

The chemical is dopamine.

 

Jarvis Funches (24:21)

love period because they chase the happiness first and happiness gradually grows into love.

 

Steve Fouts (24:29)

That’s the hope, right? That’s the hope. But then what ends up happening is not every day is happy. And then all of a sudden, know, whatever, things get jeopardized or what have you. Siye, do you have any thoughts on your, you know, the counterclaim? You flipped it up. You flipped it. This is really good.

 

Jarvis Funches (24:32)

Yeah, for sure.

 

Siye (24:56)

I think that would be a sad way to live. Without love? I would pick living with no actually. I don’t know what I would pick, but I just think living without love would suck. And I don’t think I’d want to feel happy all the time. I wouldn’t want to chase happiness. I think I would want to, for things to happen organically and to feel a whole spectrum of emotions and feel sad when it’s time to feel sad and be mad when it’s time to be mad and be happy when it’s time to be happy. I don’t think, I think a life chasing happiness would, I guess what addiction, it leads to addiction because if you constantly like chasing that feeling and then you might find yourself in weird situations where it’s kind of harmful, to be in. And yeah, I don’t think that’s a priority for me. But of course I want to be happy. if, yeah, if I want to be happy, so if something happens and I’m happy, then I want to feel that fully,

 

Steve Fouts (26:05)

Yeah, you’re closer to the claim. There’s a right type of happiness. I don’t know. I’m just throwing it out. Like, you know, someone who’s strung out on drugs, when they finally get that drug and they take it for those 10 minutes, they’re happy. You know, but think and compare that to lots of other better ones, right? So

 

Jarvis Funches (26:18)

Right.

 

Siye (26:19)

Yeah.

 

Jarvis Funches (26:37)

Right, to it like this. It’s safe to say that we’d rather live with love. Because let me tell you, I’ve been sitting right here thinking, happiness, like she said, is a leaving, it’s a coming and going emotion, right? But love is a little bit more stable, right? So if it was up to me, and from my own personal point of view, I would rather go with love because I’m not perfect, okay? And I probably can’t wake up and bring you happiness every day, right? But I wouldn’t want you to feel that I was any less valuable because of me not making you happy, right? So I would say I would take my love because love, like she says, it does make you wonder like, maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow, you know? And it always keeps a sense of, a sense of thought that maybe you could do better or maybe things would get better. So I would live with love because happiness could lead to depression too if you’re not getting the right happiness.

 

Siye (27:45)

Yeah.

 

Steve Fouts (27:46)

Tough love, I think that’s where we got that phrase. You need tough love and that’s kind of back to your original point to see about the invisible love from the parents. Those kids might not have that connection that you would associate with being happy and feeling like understood and loved. There’s some tough love there. There’s some tough love and they’ll only see it and feel it maybe and later in their life, you know, but again that shows how powerful love is to be able to appreciate it later and realize that it was there even when you didn’t know footprints in the sand. One of my favorite biblical footprints in the sand.

 

Siye (28:30)

Yeah.

 

Steve Fouts (28:35)

Thank you, Siye. Thank you, Jarvis. We want to get you back again as soon as we can. And we’ll hopefully have Dan next time as well. For now, Teach Different podcast episode concludes and we will see everybody as soon as we can.