Lately, I've been thinking a
lot about the nature of happiness. I've come to the conclusion that happiness is a myth.
A few years ago, I
was the most profoundly depressed person you could ever meet. I can't really describe it, but it was a very
oppressive kind of heaviness that almost made it hard to breathe. I felt like someone was sitting on me all the
time.
In the course of really examining myself and deciding to change my life, I realized that I identified
myself by that sadness. That is to say, I would describe myself as "a sad person." I had been sad so long, that I
came to believe that it was who I was. And since it was such a huge part of my identity, I was reluctant to part wth
it.
Fortunately, I soon came to the understanding that emotions are transitory. They come and go, much like
Ted Danson's hair or Lindsay Lohan's breasts.
What you feel isn't what you are. Let's say you want to
track Ashlee Simpson down and beat her senseless with a bag of oranges. Does that mean you're an angry person? No,
it means you're sensible.
Where was I?
Ah yes, happiness.
Now that my depression has largely
abated, or at least, stays away for longer periods [days?], I've made the surprising discovery that happiness is a
transitory emotion as well. Just because you feel happy from time to time, doesn't make you a happy
person.
So if you accept the idea that our emotions don't define us, you have to accept the idea that there
are no happy people. Anywhere. Even at Wal Mart.
This revelation is, by turns, depressing and liberating. On
the one hand, it means you're never going to be a happy person, because there are no happy people. There are
just people who feel happy, some more often than others. Which is kind of sad.
On the other hand, it releases
you from that expectation of happiness, which always leaves you feeling inadequate somehow.
I think the best
example of this is what happens to us during the holidays. We see manufactured images of truly happy people enjoyng
their families and feeling "the spirit," and it makes us feel like hell. We're not having that feeling, are we? We
don't want to knit mittens for the orphans or make snow angels in front of the rectory. We want to upend the table
and shove a turkey leg down our sister-in-law's throat. And if we don''t want to do that, well, we'd at least
like to just go the fuck home and jerk off. You know what I mean.
We think we are supposed to be happy, even
though no one truly is. Other people seem happy, why aren't I? What's wrong with me? Look at that girl in
the commercial. The one whose husband flies her whole family to Italy as a surprise, then gives her a 3 karat
diamond and tells her she still makes his dick hard after three kids and a second mortgage. She's
happy.
Yes, the girl in the commercial is happy. For 30 seconds.
Of course, the actress who plays the
happy girl is probably living in a shithole in Van Nuys, making herself vomit after every meal and wishing she
booked that Correctol commercial so she could keep her health benefits.
If you accept the idea that nothing
will ever make you a happy person, because the idea of "happy people" is a myth created by advertisers and other
groups trying to sell you shit, you can stop thinking there's an answer. You can put away your growing lists of
disappointments. You can stop measuring yourself against what appear to be all those happy people out there.
They're not out there. They don't exist.
Now this is not to say that happiness itself doesn't
exist. It does, like any other emotion. But like all other emotions, it is fleeting. It marks a moment in time, not
the quality of your life or your character.
Chances are, if I asked you when you were your happiest, you
would relate to a single moment or an incident. Because that's what happiness really is. A hamburger. An orgasm. A
winning hand.
You might relate to a period, like, "I was really happy when I was in college," but that would
be an idealization, a romanticism that would not be accurate. Because no matter how much you loved those days, there
were many nights you ate Ramen off a crappy hot plate, thinking, "Jesus, this fucking sucks ass."
I have to
go. Dr. Phil is here with my enema.
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