Happiness Like A Shadow
What if joy is the resistance?
I have been weirdly happy the past few weeks. I tend to be an optimist anyway, but this is different. While pulling on my socks, I’ll think, “I am quite happy right this minute.” And again, sitting down to my desk, a cat following me faithfully to sit on my feet, “I’m quite happy right now.”
A lot. Painting last night with music on the ear buds transporting me to some other plane, I didn’t think in words, but happiness enfolded me. Watching the pampas grass across the ravine blow in the wind, I am touched by the beauty.
Happy.
The thing is, I feel like I shouldn’t be. The world is quite chaotic. Things are falling apart in many directions, and I feel quite powerless to do anything about that. Maybe you do, too. I mean, here we are.
Here we are.
And yet, I seem to be happy anyway. Happy in the moment. Grateful for those warm socks, for the soft body of the cat purring ever so quietly across my arches, for the bright striped orchid blooming on my desk.
A while back, I took part in a happiness quiz for research. A few times a day, I’d get a notice to answer a quiz about what I was doing, and how happy I felt. It was interesting to stop at a given instant and take the measure of my happiness and my tasks. I don’t remember if I was given a rating of my overall happiness at the end, but I do remember it was surprising what made me happy. Little things, mostly.
I said to my husband, “Shouldn’t I be less happy? Why is this happening?” And he, being the stoic said, “Go with it.”
But I’ve been quite bothered by it in a way. If I’m happy, does that mean I don’t care about the crumbling of things? If I’m happy, does that mean I am not thinking enough of the people who are suffering (or about to suffer)? If I’m happy, how am I giving enough to the broken world?
Being me, who looks for readings on everything, I found this, from the Buddha: All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows one, like a shadow that never leaves.
And according to a paper on the history of happiness, in the 18th century, the Enlightenment ushered in the notion that happiness was the pursuit of a meaningful life.
Both resonate. While I can’t say I spend my days thinking pure thoughts, I do believe that a sense of happiness stems from the ability to pursue a meaningful life. By luck of birth and many acts of generosity from others, I am lucky enough to do that—I am a creative person engaged in creating things—books and essays and sketchbook collages and paintings and meals and gardens and flower arrangements and spaces arranged for comfort and peace for the people in them (much assistance provided by the dogs and cats and plants). I live in a beautiful place. I am wildly in love with the vast night sky, which is there for the viewing every twenty four hours. I even love this little lamp lighting my keyboard, which was ten dollars somewhere I forget.
It would be churlish to be unhappy!
And while much good can come from righteous anger, there is plenty of fear and anger in the world already. Fear and anger want us to overconsume and dull ourselves by any means necessary, and keeps our physical systems dysregulated.
In that light, happiness is a revolutionary act. I will be happy to thwart the forces of darkness. I can be an immutable force of peace by standing in this place of acknowledging the very real, wild, weird joy of being alive, right now, in this day, writing this.
From this place of happiness, I have the strength to take the right actions, to think clearly about what my place in healing this broken world might be. One thing is to give rest, with my books, my photos, my softer thoughts. Like these.
Here we are. Here we are.
How do you recognize happiness, or even the opposite? How do you know when you’ve gone off the rails into fear and anger? (My husband gave me a shaking stick last Christmas!) How can you feed yourself good thoughts, good food, hope?
I would be so happy with your sense of happiness. But I am me, and you are you.
I feel that I am happy to a certain degree of contentment, just like you, with very simple things. But sometimes, when I write - I’m writing my memoir - it brings up unpleasant feelings about how things were back then, and then I need a good walk to get back into my comfort zone. Or a conversation with my husband.
I feel happiness always in my eyes :-) Then I get a little emotional because I’m so happy with my wool socks, my coffee, waking up, and the holes in the rainy sky where the sun shines through for just two seconds. That moves me. The darker moods I feel in my stomach, like something gnawing at the edges, something sad.
I enjoyed your writing. It was really good. Thank you.
The world is always falling apart. If you want to find proof, you don't have to look hard. Or you can focus on finding proof of the opposite - that you make your own happiness and it's not a crime to be happy if others aren't. I have spent too much time worrying about others' happiness. Even writing that sounds selfish - but if I don't put my mask on - I can't breathe to help others.