Something About Happiness
‘Love is not vain because it is frustrated, but because it is fulfilled. The people we love turn to ashes when we possess them.’ — Marcel Proust
‘Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to the meaning of the earth! . . . Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings. . . . Lead, like me, the flown-away virtue back to the earth—yes, back to body and life: that it may give to the earth its meaning, a human meaning!’ — Nietzsche
‘It is like a lighted torch whose flame can be distributed to ever so many other torches which people may bring along; and therewith they will cook food and dispel darkness, while the original torch itself remains burning ever the same. It is even so with the bliss of the Way.’ — Buddha
Much of my thinking and writing in the past three months has been concerned with well being—why? I didn’t feel that I had it, and so as one does, one hyper fixates on what one doesn’t have, in the way that unathletic men tend to be the most ardent supporters of their football team, or in the way young boys lacking self assurance find pick up artists to be almost otherworldly… to those who simply ‘have it,’ whether that ‘it’ is a decent build or charisma with women, this sort of interest strikes one as almost unnatural, if not off putting altogether…
And yet have you ever met someone who, without reason, practice, or even self-awareness simply had a sense of well being, of happiness and undisturbed joy? These are no Bodhisattvas, mind you, I’m not talking about someone who goes through all of the known motions towards joy, but rather simply rolls out of bed with a pep in their step, who is always on the borderline of a smile, and unwittingly just feels that everything is alright—perhaps they have not even learned that God is dead! I don’t hate these people, nor do I envy them, but I remain somewhat mystified by them.
I am somewhat happy to say that I have made considerable progress on the territory of Joy, and I have some thoughts to share on it—but first we must clear some weeds.
Now, it is clear to me that most people are looking for joy in all of the wrong spots; I have said as much with the recent articles. If you are looking to a career, relationship, family, or accomplishment as a thing that will permit you to be happy, I think you will bite into the fruit and discover it to be already rotting. I cannot spare you that truth, you will taste it for yourself one way or another. This does not mean that they are worthless, useless, or even necessarily inferior things—but it is important to discern the difference between a sense of joy and these arrangements in the material world, otherwise you might spend your life in one long, mad attempt to reorganize all of those things in just the right manner so as to finally feel alright—and what a disappointment if at the end of a long life you do not find it after all.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Good Propaganda to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.