The Hackney Smile Maker

It is a bright morning in Hackney when I arrive to interview a local specialist in human happiness. She has no qualifications, business plan or online following. Her methods appear to involve walking, sniffing and looking at strangers until their faces change.

The Hackney Smile Maker is also a dog.

What follows is a lightly fictionalised interview about purpose, authenticity and the human habit of turning being alive into a performance review.

In brief

• Purpose may be expressed through the quality of our presence rather than a job title.
• Genuine states affect other people without needing to be advertised.
• Human self-consciousness creates enormous freedom and an equally enormous capacity for unnecessary misery.

Before the interview

The Smile Maker greets me with a stretch and a yawn, then settles into the cushions at the end of the sofa. Indoors, her languor is almost feline. The impression disappears when somebody mentions chicken.

Once comfortable, she radiates the soft, unguarded attention for which dogs are famous. There is no visible concern about how she is coming across or whether this interview will advance her career. I turn on the recorder.

Would you say you have the best job in the world?

Smile Maker: That sounds like a human question.

Interviewer: Because of the word “best”?

Smile Maker: Because of the word “job”. You seem to need everything to become work before you can take it seriously. I do not wake up thinking, “Another difficult day of making people smile.” I wake up because I am awake. Then I go outside and things happen.

Interviewer: But you do make people happy.

Smile Maker: Sometimes. That feels good. But it is not a target. If I started counting smiles, I would probably become anxious and begin staring at people in a very unsettling way.

When did you first recognise your gift?

Smile Maker: As a puppy, the world was too new for career planning. Every smell was an event. Every path led somewhere astonishing. I was occupied.

Then one day I discovered a strange creature attached to a man’s shoe. Long, thin, apparently alive when he moved and completely still when he stopped. I chased him through the park and caught it.

Interviewer: A shoelace.

Smile Maker: That was his theory. I was conducting my own investigation. He looked down with a frown, then his whole face changed. The eyes softened, the mouth opened and he made the sound humans make when they briefly stop defending themselves from existence.

Interviewer: Laughter?

Smile Maker: Exactly. I had not tried to cause it. That was what interested me.

Why do dogs have this effect on people?

Smile Maker: I wish we had as much power over humans as you imagine. There would be more chicken and fewer unnecessary baths.

Perhaps people respond because we are not usually pretending. When I am pleased, my entire body is pleased. When I am frightened, I do not post a photograph suggesting personal growth. When I love somebody, I go to them.

Humans possess extraordinary minds. You can remember the distant past, imagine futures that do not exist and become people nobody in your family has been before. But you can also compare the present with 40 imaginary alternatives while missing the present completely.

Interviewer: So happiness comes from thinking less?

Smile Maker: Not exactly. I would not want you performing surgery or building bridges with the intellectual equipment of a spaniel. Thinking is one of your gifts. The trouble begins when thought becomes the place you live instead of a tool you use.

You speak a lot about being yourself. What does that mean?

Smile Maker: For dogs, it is not an achievement. We do not have enough imagination to maintain a false self for decades.

You can imagine how you appear from outside, which allows manners, art, moral reflection and all sorts of impressive things. It also allows you to construct a person and spend your life asking whether everybody believes in it.

Interviewer: Humans need roles. We cannot just follow every impulse.

Smile Maker: Of course. I am not proposing that Parliament be replaced by a park. Being yourself does not mean doing whatever occurs to you. It means the person making the choice is not entirely lost beneath the performance.

Does making people smile create responsibility?

Smile Maker: I am responsible for some things. I should not bite the postman. I should not eat food that belongs to another dog simply because the opportunity is excellent. But I am not responsible for completing every stranger’s emotional journey.

I can offer attention. They decide what to do with it.

Humans often turn purpose into a burden because you attach worth to output. If the work goes well, you are good. If it goes badly, you become a bad being. That seems exhausting.

Interviewer: What should we do instead?

Smile Maker: Keep the responsibilities. Lose the idea that your right to exist depends on performing them perfectly.

What have you learned from walking around Hackney?

Smile Maker: People are rarely where their bodies are.

They walk while looking into small glowing rectangles. They stand under trees and think about emails. They reach the park and discuss where they need to be afterwards.

When they notice me, they return for a second. That is why the smile arrives so quickly. I have not given them happiness. I have interrupted the conversation taking place in their head.

Interviewer: Is that your actual technique?

Smile Maker: Technique is your word. I look at them because they are there.

Do you never worry about the future?

Smile Maker: I worry about immediate evidence. A suitcase appears and I become concerned. Thunder happens and I review my position on the universe. But I do not spend Tuesday suffering because Friday may contain a disappointing walk.

Interviewer: Humans have to plan.

Smile Maker: Yes. Plan on Tuesday. Do not move into Friday and abandon Tuesday entirely.

What is your advice to people searching for purpose?

Smile Maker: Begin with what happens to the space when you enter it.

Jobs matter. Building, teaching, healing and protecting are important. But purpose is also carried through state. Some people make a room more frightened. Some make it more competitive. Some allow everybody to breathe.

You may not know the title of your purpose, but you can notice its effect.

Interviewer: And your effect is smiling?

Smile Maker: Usually. Occasionally sneezing. It depends on the person.

The lesson behind the joke

A dog’s philosophy cannot be transferred wholesale to human life. We require reflection, restraint, planning and the ability to become more than instinct has prepared us to be.

But those capacities become destructive when they produce permanent self-surveillance. The Smile Maker does not need to build a brand around joy. She attends to the person, scent or patch of sunlight in front of her, and the effect follows.

Perhaps that is why strangers smile. For a moment, they meet a creature who is not negotiating with her own existence. Then they remember what it feels like to stop negotiating with theirs.