Happiness

 My friend Paul believes that most people are happy. I contend that most people are miserable. This post will be an attempt to reconcile our conflicting viewpoints.

I used to believe that only old people were sad. I mean their friends are all dead, and they have no one to talk to. But this is not sadness, this is more like loneliness. But I digress.

If the eyes are the window to the soul, then the face is the front of the house blown away by a tornado. Faces just show it all, strip it to the bone, and shine the go fuck yourself at everyone they encounter. Most people, at least here in the eastern US, bear the demeanor of the golem…that wrinkled and furrowed look of dripping clay, frazzled by the dearth of affection in their lives, and by unfulfilled dreams. They won’t look you in the eye, or engage in any manner, unless you surprise and stupefy them them with some unexpected kindness, like “Hi…how are you today”, or perhaps, a smile, if they look up long enough.

Now, I’m not saying that there are no happy people. I mean, stupid people can be happy, because they’re too stupid to know they’re stupid, but lately, the truly stupid have started to rejoice, believing that the Republicans have brought them out of the shadows by revealing to them the most ridiculous conspiracy theories purportedly designed to silence them. This is why they believe that their children have been abducted by aliens, or whored out in pizza shops in DC. The truth, unfortunately, is that their children want nothing to do with them.

But there are intelligent happy people, my friend Paul among them, but for many intelligent people, the happy has been driven out of them by their obsession with the nuances of bond yields, or the narrowness of studying vole populations in Wyoming. There is no human contact in Wyoming, and the most striking detail regarding the truly rich people I’ve met, is that they don’t have friends…they have partners and clients that they don’t really like at all.

But I am one of the lucky ones. I have been loved, and have loved, and I’ve spent most of my life trying to find within myself the unconditional love of a child. I’ve come very close, but I’m not there yet. They say its the journey not the destination. But I have discovered that love doesn’t stop…doesn’t die. I have loved many people in my life, and I still love them, and I carry that love within me. My father (and by that, I mean the man that raised me) gave me many gifts that have helped me throughout my life. His ridiculous high-pitched cackle of a giggle thought me that laughter really is a wonderful elixir. By fetching me, wherever I may have wandered off to, clad only in his underwear taught me that I needn’t give a fuck what other people think of me. Both my parents gave me a love of music, but my mom taught me to sing, and singing has brought me out of many a dark place. Somewhere along the way, blessed with laughter, song, and not giving a fuck, I came to embody that happy should be the norm, but that unabashed joy was the goal. 

Many people have shown me that goal, and let me share in it. Recently, several people have reminded me that learning new things, and writing, bring me a great deal of joy. Thank you. Maybe I can make this a constant in my life again. There is a song in my heart.