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Happiness & Meaning

What Is Happiness?

Gary Cox asks, ‘is happiness a cigar called Hamlet?’, and other searching questions.

I spent my formative years being told by advertisers that ‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’. These celebrated cigar ads ran from 1966 until tobacco advertising was banned from UK television in 1991. Despite all I have read and written on the subject of happiness, whenever I am asked, ‘What is happiness?’, my reflex thought is still that slogan. Sometimes I give that epithet as my flippant answer, too; but sometimes I hold back, and resort instead to quoting from Ken Dodd’s song, Happiness.

Seriously, though, is ‘Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet’ a good or a bad answer to the question ‘What is happiness?’? This perennial question has received a wide range of answers over the centuries, and it seems unlikely there will ever be an answer that everyone agrees on.

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