Bertrand Russell, the great philosopher, in “The Conquest of Happiness,” once wrote that it is not the object of love, but the act of love, that brings us happiness.
In the 1989 film “Dead Poets’ Society,” a young prep schooler named Knox Overstreet, played by Josh Charles, falls in love with a high school beauty. He goes to her high school, and delivers to her in her home room, a rather bad poem that is a tribute to how much he loves her.
When he got back to the prep school, his fellow students asked him if she liked it. And he said: "I don't know. But I did it." And no character in any film had more joy on his face than did Knox Overstreet in that moment.
It is not the end of the journey but the journey itself that brings us happiness. How hard it is for us to remember that simple truth.
