'We see the people who go to the market for their groceries, travelling about in the daytime, sleeping at night, the kind of people who spout nonsense, get married, grow old, and dutifully cart their dead off to the cemetry; but we do not see or hear those who are suffering, and all the terrible things in life happen somewhere off stage. Everything is quiet and peaceful, and the only protest is voiced by dumb statistics: so many people have gone mad, so many bottles of vodka have been drunk, so many children have died from malnutrition... And this arrangement is clearly necessary: it's obvious that the contented person only feels good because those who are unhappy bear their burden in silence; without that silence happiness would be unconceivable. It's a collective hypnosis. There ought to be someone with a little hammer outside the door of every contented, happy person, constantly tapping away to remind him that there are unhappy people in the world, and that however happy he may be, sooner of later life will show its claws; misfortune will strike - illness, poverty, loss - and no one will be there to see or hear it, just as thy now cannot see or hear others. But there is no person with a little hammer, happy people are wrapped up in their own lives, and the minor problems of life affect them only slightly, like aspen leaves in a breeze, and everything is just fine.'
Anton Chekhov, 'Gooseberries' in About Love and Other Stories, p.154.
