Six of One, Half-a-Dozen of the Other

It is better to be happy than famous. If we wish to be famous, it is because we imagine that it will make us happy. But if there is a way to short-circuit the process, and obtain happiness directly, then that is the path we should choose.

I remember meeting a fellow Jewish intellectual who told me that Man Ray, the famous artist, had come out of the shtetl in Williamsburg, his admiring tone suggesting that he had improved his situation thereby. Mindful of French anti-Semitism, I doubted aloud whether it were better to be fêted in Paris by those who wish you dead behind your back or to have a nice family and gather at home around the table every Shabbos.