Psychorner: 'Happiness'

The quotation marks are very important.

See, I went through all the effort of drawing this.

Disclaimer: These are my personal views, I am not a philosopher, this is pure philosofapping, I love talking to people and I love coffee (so, if you want to discuss this feel free to take me for coffee- please, I really want coffee).

                If I were to summarize my current state in life I’d say that I’m currently meandering about like Goku on Snake-way, in the fact that I have a pretty clear and dainty idea of where I have to go but have no clue about how I’m going to get there, how long it’s going to take or how many exotic snake-women I’m going to meet along the way. One of the things my current lifestyle propagates are meaningless contemplations regarding life, the universe and all that jazz, though I suppose I might feel bad for those who studied philosophy considering the fact that I can take a drunken morning off to ponderously ponder things in life – like the principles and ethics behind cheese – and can call myself a ‘philosopher’ based off the fact that I just think random thoughts a lot and then try to articulate it in a way to create the illusion of ‘making sense’ and then try to put it down in word so that it all comes across as some really deep train of thought and not as something I thought about while I try to summarize my current state in life.

                So, yes… ‘Happiness’, what would you relate to happiness? If posters, media and the big metal hand that controls us is anything to go by then it’s all about: Smiles! Euphoria! Joy! Flowing hair! Your complete personal redemption! The ability to forget about root canals! That is all hogwash.

                To illustrate it in a different scenario: have you ever seen the poster of a burger? How the perfectly baked luscious buns flank a perfectly scrumptious and non-oily cutlet that promises a crunchy orgasm in your mouth, alongside vegetables so fresh that you’d swear there’s a garden growing in the kitchen. Thus you order it, but instead of looking like the Food of Paradise it looks like the Blight of Retribution. Biting into its oily carapace produces forth oil and all manners of sauces and fluids that remind you of that time you got a cold, diarrhoea, became a vampire and went for an oil massage.

                As existential as I am, I am not trying to draw some cryptic and cynical conclusion about life, but speaking more against this standardised image constructed in our minds about Happiness, and indeed also about Pain. The basic image we tend to have in our minds (and indeed I also once did) is that ‘Happiness’ is this state of permanent euphoria, where all our troubles just fade away and we can live in bliss and sip tea like tomorrow is made of puppies and rainbows.

                On the contrary, the true nature of happiness lies in the fact that it is a ‘state of existence’ and is thus intrinsically temporary, like so many other things. The important fact is that Happiness is an emotion and not a state of being – think about it, if you are asked ‘what is your current situation/how are you doing’ are you really going to be able to answer ‘happy’ or ‘pain’ without looking like a moron?

                “Hey, how are you doing?”

                “I’m doing pretty happy.”

                *backs away and activates the Bat Signal*

Or, similarly…

                “Hey, how are you doing?”

                “I am quite pained.”

                “What are you, a window?”

However, since it is an emotion it forms a legitimate answer to questions along the lines of ‘how do you feel’; though I’d still feel it’s fairly kooky to stride about saying you’re happy, but I digress.

                What do happiness, pain and fear have in common? The fact that they’re all emotions. What do emotions have in common? The fact that they, regardless of intensity and volume, eventually move on. There’s ‘motion’ in ‘emotion’ for a reason after all – it’s all due to the fact that you can perfectly apply the ‘shall pass’ frame of mind to all of them. You might think it’s rather cynical to live with the perpetual acceptance of the fact that all happiness that you feel is going to pass, but I’d argue that it’s rather comforting to live with the acceptance and knowledge that all pain and all fear will also pass.

                There’s also another problem with the crafted images of ‘Happiness’ we see around us, the fact that it creates this false idealistic state of existence to be in – one of perpetual smiles, hugs, neatly ironed clothes and bouncy hair. Which causes people to question their value, purpose and ambition in life when they are not able to ‘be’ in the state they see. I’m going to put on my serious opera mask and say that I was one of these people, looking upon these ‘happy’ people like a pantheon of gods in sky, while I spent my time wailing ‘why can’t I be happy?’ and used my tears to rear salt-water crocodiles. This doubles up for introverts since the usual ‘happy-happy’ images we see involve these things called humans and this activity called socialising – thus leading to the impromptu belief that the introvert has to ‘fix’ her/his ways and become one with the others and try to do something dangerous, like have ‘fun’ with strangers. I am in no way exaggerating when I say that the next time I go clubbing I’ll drink enough to numb all pain and then perform a root canal on myself, at least I’ll get some dentistry work done this way and I’ll avoid having to interact with those annoying humans I don’t know.

                On the subject of Pain, there’s the little pickle in the fact that we also have horribly misconstrued views on dealing with Pain as well. The difference between Happiness and Pain lies in the fact that you generally want Happiness to run its course and take its time to fade away, but you generally want to get rid of Pain soon because it’s kinda making you miserable. Though, it is important to keep in mind this simple fact of the world: everyone is miserable in some way, shape or form – your friends are miserable, your family is miserable, the dude in the green tuxedo is miserable, those people with cherubic smiles are miserable and the happiness poster-boys are miserable – and you can draw much comfort from the simple understanding that everyone is miserable, but it doesn’t help with the fact that you’re miserable.

                The fact is that Pain is an inevitability – there is going to come a time in your life (many times over) when you begin to believe that you are in a music video with a Lana Del Ray song moaning in the background. The misconstructions lie within the typical solutions to help get rid of pain – surely we are used to the image of a pained person using drinking and partying as some mystical means of alleviation, like it creates some emotion-eating variant of Cthulhu who then proceeds to become your wingman; and contrary to what sitcoms lead you to believe, watching someone drunk text or drunk dial is not pretty.

                So, what I – ugh, I’m delving into life advice again, if this keeps up I might as well start making listicles as well – consider to be the ‘optimal’ way to deal with ‘pain’ is to off-set the pain by focusing on something else, like another source of ‘pain’. The common trend with most ‘pain’ that trots along into our lives is characteristic of the pain being beyond our control, or rather the cause(s) behind it being beyond our control, to the point that actually paying attention to the pain is rather pointless and unproductive, thus it is better to focus, perhaps, on another source of pain in our life, one with factors and variables that are within our control, essentially a ‘pain’ that you can work on. Say for example you find out that Iron Maiden is never going to come to your city, thus you are in severe pain, but paying attention to the pain (A.K.A. being pained by the pain) is not going to change Iron Maiden’s views on you – so it’s good to focus on some other pain or disappointment in your life that you could work on, for example: your inability to throw pies accurately, to deal with this source of pain you decide to take immediate action and enrol in clown school in order to perfect your ability.

                Getting back on track happily: What are the ‘sources’ of happiness? My first answer to that question would be to remind you that humanity is rather subjective in nature and that no all-encapsulating answer is possible, but I can talk about my views – which is what this is all about, really… you know, I just realised that my writing of these ‘articles’ or ‘things’ stems from the lack of people I have to talk to about such topics; mid-article introspection! Things are certainly going swimmingly.

A mere caption can't convey the joys of challenges.

                The most primal source of happiness is, of course, the overcoming of challenges. I’ve always been rather amused by the rush of excitement and joy I get after successfully hunting down and killing a pest, and I stand by my belief that it is due to my subconscious being embedded with humanity’s ancestors’ happiness procured from a good hunt. Of course, challenges and joy aren’t restricted to the killing of completely innocent creatures – challenges come in many, many shapes, intensities and forms. I’m sure everyone has felt that rush that comes with finally managing to finish something, with finally defeating something, with sticking to something and so on. That rush is, of course, happiness and can be procured from various things such as resisting temptation and not breaking your diet, winning a match of Dota 2 (or your appropriate e-sport/sport), defeating a difficult part of a videogame, attending lectures for a change, coming first in something, sticking to your goals and so on and so forth. It’s a primal happiness and is my favourite kind of happiness (if we’re picking favourites and all that jazz).

                Another common source of happiness is relationships (not just of the romantic kind). This is based off my belief that all satisfactory (and ‘ideal’) relationships are based and built on two Ds: Dependable and Dependant. Yes, relationships are a bit of an interesting paradox because in one you want the other party to be both: someone you can depend on and someone who depends on you (essentially giving you the feeling of being needed), which is (in my opinion) the ‘core’ of a relationship (if we’re segmenting things and all that jazz). A fine example of a relationship that perfectly encompasses both these Ds is that with a pet – you can depend on your cat or dog (or gerbil or squirrel or snake or goldfish or alligator or hamster or turtle or whatever) to be there to be fuzzy and stupid, and they in turn depend on you as their main source of food (thus making you their God-Emperor (though I’d say that cats probably believe in democracy considering their lack of respect and over-enthusiasm regarding your existence)). You can depend on your cat to be fuzzy and passive-aggressive while your cat depends on you to pour out a bowl of chow for it. Similarly in romantic relationships you can depend on your significant other to be fuzzy and passive-aggressive while your significant other depends on you to – oh wait, this is a terribly dreary joke.

                Then there’s a reason behind the image of indulging excesses (drinking, partying, etc.) to alleviate ‘pain’ – because indulgence is a source of happiness. I’ve spoken (err… written (err… typed)) about this in my Addictions article/thing, so I won’t drop a monolith of writing on you. Simply put, indulging an addiction is gratifying and just feels good, ergo it makes you very happy for a very brief amount of time.

                Lastly, despite my preference for usually carrying around a rake to ensure minimum distance, people are another source of happiness. Being around and with people you know and so on is generally a rather pleasing activity, even though the occasional person-I-don’t-know-and-find-annoying comes along and tests my ability to not-rake-their-eyes-out, and may I dare say, let me put a bucket below my mouth, that seeing other people happy tends to make you happy. Indeed ‘tis true that ‘happiness’ is generally contagious (I find that it is not always so, especially when rake-worthy strangers abound), though the same isn’t true with pain/sadness as it is not ‘contagious’ but you might repress your happiness out of this little thing called ‘politeness’.

                Then there are misconceptions surrounding happiness and its sources. First is the wrong impression that many carry that ‘Art=Entertainment=Happiness’ wherein many believe that a work should bear the purpose of making you feel happy or strong or empowered in some way, shape or form – and this line of thinking is about as aggravating as the definition of a ‘mature’ work being ‘sex, blood, tits and edgy language’.

Personally, my relationship with people is much like that between Gordon and Antlions.

                Another misconception is this belief people hold that others can seemingly flip a switch and just be happy for no reason. “C’mon, have fun” is the sort of line I’d hear at a club (ugh), to which I’d like to adjust my monocle and reply “I’m sorry that I can’t have fun by having rhythmic spasms, while I am thoroughly unable to interact with the people I came with, while perfectly rake-worthy strangers repeat the word ‘fun’ like it’s black speech that will summon Cthulhu of Fun, while nobody respects the rake distance, and the guy at the entrance took my freaking rake.” Of course I can’t say any of this because the music is blaring so loud that it seems to force words back down my throat, and to make things more pleasant it’s the kind of music that make me want to stick scalpels in my ears.

                But what is easily the biggest misconstruction is the misunderstanding of things like depression. You see, depression isn’t an emotion, it’s a state of being, someone with all the ingredients to be ‘happy’ can still be depressed. Hell, they can still be happy even when they are depressed (obviously depending on the nature of the depression and so on). Of course, most of us jolly folk misconstrue depression in both ways, on both the happy and sad/painful ends of the spectrum. No, you can’t help a person out of depression by just telling her/him to get over it and be happy – you’re just being a prick. Similarly, you’re not depressed if you take a bit of pain and stretch it, in your mind, to the point of personal tragedy and melancholy – you’re just being a prick. Similarly, the opposite side to depression is contentment – wherein your life is over-coated with a sense of satisfaction and movement, but you can still feel happy or feel pain. I say this, and have an understanding of this because I spent a part of my life depressed; or rather I THOUGHT I was depressed when in reality I was just being a prick.

                Talk about meandering… I’d say that everything you just read above it an example of me on a keyboard with a subject just meandering about.