Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 1 | Page 24

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Eric Wilson’s Against Happiness echoes this sentiment: ‘to desire only
happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for
unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations’.30 By chasing happiness and
social acceptance, Rick has to cover his inherent sadness, something which very
nearly kills him. The healthier alternative is to embrace his sadness instead,
accepting it as an inescapable and essential part of his life. Attempting to live an
entirely happy life is impossible and can only result in more sadness.
Ultimately, Rick and Morty portrays the search for happiness as inherently
dangerous. If you live your life trying to be happy, you will fail because pure
happiness is a non-existent construct that will arguably make you the sadder for
pursuing it. Aspiring to achive what society says will make you happy is similarly
futile, serving only to provide others with several ways to control you and undermine
your individuality. The best thing to do is to stop needing to be happy and to learn to
take things as they come. Things are never entirely happy, nor are they entirely sad;
they just are. According to Rick and Morty, we just have to deal with that.

30

Eric Wilson, Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy (USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), 6.