Posted 5 years, 7 months ago in the wee hours by oso
My sister was happy today. Which normally wouldn’t be a big deal except that it’s the first time she’s been happy in a few weeks which has me relieved.
It all culminated on Sunday when I took her down to Influx Cafe in Golden Hill to get some homework done. She said she was distracted, that she couldn’t concentrate enough to read. “Try writing first” says I.
“I don’t feel like that either. I don’t feel like anything.”
And so we started a conversation that we should have had weeks earlier.
“I just want to get out of here. I’m sick of San Diego, sick of the people, sick of myself. I feel like if I just went somewhere else everything would be alright.”
And immediately I was sucked back in time. It was like falling backwards. I knew exactly what she was talking about, could feel what she felt. What an overwhelming weight hangs over our teenage years. I suppose that’s why they call it teenage angst.
I remember the same thought, the same sensation, which managed to turn itself into a mantra by the time I was to graduate from high school:
Happiness is somewhere else
Happiness is somewhere else
Happiness is somewhere else
But I was sure it was there, just waiting for me. Maybe that’s what Om Mani Padme Hum translates to I figured.
I then traveled far and wide and almost always alone looking for that somewhere else. Until I finally learned – and nothing pisses me off more than discovering the truth of a cliché – that somewhere else is inside, but that it too takes a lot of traveling to find.
No, this is not a self-help post.
This is me looking in the eyes of my 15-year-old sister, filled with so much sadness, her shoulders pushed down with so much weight, and thinking to myself:
Well … what in the fuck do I say?
And what can you say? Sadness is part of life … especially teenage life, but learning how to deal with it, how to be happy most of the time and cope the rest, is probably the second most useful trick in the book. Right below making a peanut butter, banana, and honey sandwich and above both touch typing and finding the clitoris.
In the end I convinced her that, yes, change is fun, but it sure as hell doesn’t last long and that if in your life you are able to find any kind of sustained happiness, then mission accomplished, don’t be greedy and let it go. I also tried to convince her that, not always, but usually there is a lurking culprit responsible for the melancholy. And that the faster you face up to it, the sooner you will feel better.
Which seemed to be what happened. Now if I can just get her to do her homework.
It also occurred to me though, that teenage misery is often just as self-inflicted as those terrible outfits we used to all wear. (baggie pants, flannels, long belts, you feel me right?)
Being happy has never been cool. Or God forbid, enthusiasm.
“Sure.” This is my sister’s word … and it belongs also to all of her friends, always accompanied with a shrug of the shoulders. “It wasn’t terrible” tranlslates into the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen.
I have friends today – twenty somethings, thirty somethings – and they are still like this. Too hipster to be happy. Cynical irony is appropriate, but anything resembling a smile or good will is unacceptable. If you don’t think this is true, try asking one of the waitresses at Pokez how her day is going.
I had always thought this was a defense mechanism. The less you admit to caring about something, the less stupid you will look when it becomes trendy or dumps you.
But James Poniewozik, in one of the best essays I’ve read in a long time, looks at it differently:
You could argue that art became more skeptical of happiness because modern times have seen such misery. But it’s not as if earlier times didn’t know perpetual war, disaster and the massacre of innocents. The reason, in fact, may be just the opposite: there is too much damn happiness in the world today.
After all, what is the one modern form of expression almost completely dedicated to depicting happiness? Advertising. The rise of anti-happy art almost exactly tracks the emergence of mass media, and with it, a commercial culture in which happiness is not just an ideal but an ideology.
People in earlier eras were surrounded by reminders of misery. They worked gruelingly, lived with few protections and died young. In the West, before mass communication and literacy, the most powerful mass medium was the church, which reminded worshippers that their souls were in peril and that they would someday be meat for worms. On top of all this, they did not exactly need their art to be a bummer too.
Today the messages your average Westerner is bombarded with are not religious but commercial, and relentlessly happy. Fast-food eaters, news anchors, text messengers, all smiling, smiling, smiling, except for that guy who keeps losing loans to Ditech. Our magazines feature beaming celebrities and happy families in perfect homes. (Tolstoy clearly never edited a shelter mag.) And since these messages have an agenda–to pry our wallets from our pockets–they make the very idea of happiness seem bogus. “Celebrate!” commanded the ads for the arthritis drug Celebrex, before we found out it could increase the risk of heart attacks.
It gets exhausting, this constant goad to joy. If you’re not smiling–after we made all those wonderful pills and cell-phone plans!–what’s wrong with you? Not to smile is un-American. You can pick out the Americans in a crowd of tourists by their reflexive grins. The U.S. enshrined in its founding document the right to the pursuit of happiness. So we pursued it and–at least as commerce defines it–we caught it.
He’s right. Happiness has been taken hostage by advertising and ecstasy and it’s time we take it back. Could it be possible? Could happy art ever be considered cool in our lifetimes? Probably not because if it’s any type of design at all and it makes us feel good at all – car commercials, classic example (and one of my favorite genres of music) – then it is probably advertising.
And until that association changes, there’s probably not a hell of a lot we can do about it.
As it turns out, Time’s entire issue this week is all about happiness … and of course it’s filled with plenty of happy advertisements about drugs and SUV’s and Milk. My favorite is a Merck advertisement for a cholestrol drug of a happy, smiling Black woman walking under an umbrella in the rain. Side effects include “constipation, impairment of fertility, heartburn, stomach pains/cramps, hepatitis, jaundice, severe liver damage, rash, itching, blurred vision, yada, yada, yada.” I haven’t figured out the connection with the smiling Black woman.
But there are some interesting articles about new research into happiness. I haven’t read all of them, but here is one paragraph:
What Makes Us Happy
So, what has science learned about what makes the human heart sing? More than one might imagine – along with some surprising things about what doesn’t ring our inner chimes. Take wealth, for instance, and all the delightful things that money can buy. Research by Diener, among others, has shown that once your basic needs are met, additional income does little to raise your sense of satisfaction with life. A good education? Sorry, Mom and Dad, neither education, nor for that matter, a high IQ paves the road to happiness. Youth? No, again. In fact, older people are more consistently satisfied with their lives than the young. And they’re less prone to dark moods: a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that people ages 20 to 24 are sad for an average of 3.4 days a month, as opposed to just 2.3 days for people ages 65 to 74. Marriage? A complicated picture: married people are generally happier than singles, but that may be because they were happier to begin with. Sunny days? Nope, although a 1998 study showed that Midwesterners think folks living in balmy Califonia are happier and that Californians incorrectly believe this about themselves too.On the positive side, religious faith seems to genuinely lift the spirit, though it’s tough to tell whether it’s the God part of the community aspect that does the heavy lifting. Friends? A giant yes. A 2002 study conducted at the University of Illinois by Diener and Seligman found that the most salient characterisitcs shared by the 10% of students with the highest levels of happiness and the fewest signs of depression were their strong ties to friends and family and commitment to spending time with them. “Word needs to be spread,” concludes Diener. “It is important to work on social skills, close interpersonal ties and social support in order to be happy.”
I’m happy that your sister is happy. Wow, dealing with a high school kid. Suerte amigo.
Hmmmm. Well, you might think this is cheesy for me to write, but “cheddar is better”.
On a serious note though, I think we can all get in those “reflective” moments. I know I certainly do when I ‘feel’ like I am not making a big enough impact in my surroundings.
When I get into those serious, serious “pits”, I will go the “Lord’s Diner” and volunteer my help in serving the people who are hungry. (Or volunteer time towards some other needy cause).
This place, (Lord’s Diner) is way cool because when you see people who are in wheel chairs who are in line to eat a meal…….you quickly put things in perspective.
You start to appreciate the simple things in life such as your extremities functioning well….being grateful in not having to depend on a wheel chairs or others to get from point A to point B, and yada, yada, yada. When you see a man struggling to just walk…..well, you automatically become grateful. You sort of get this “whew” feeling, you know?
Some people turn bitter by watching too much negative media. I think we need to limit that.
So in conclusion, I believe if one were to volunteer time towards charities and other meaningful causes…..this helps tremendously because you are actually working towards a cause/goal, and this in turn, creates a type of self-fulfillment, si?
Making others happy, makes us happy.
i suppose i should get over the ‘grass is always greener’ cliche’ … but unfortunately for me, i think it’s likely true. it’s not so much that i think life is soooo much better everyplace or anyplace else. it’s that i’m a moderately liberal individual living in an arch-conservative area of the nation which makes daily life somewhat more difficult. if i could pick up my career and drop myself and my stuff (especially my dog) right into another, more progressive area, i think i’d be ok. until something happens, though, i’m afraid i’ll never be truly happy.
Not in the same vein as the teenage years; but I also believe that at certain times ignorance (or at the very least the ability to escape or ignore) is bliss. If you research the environment, human rights, economics/business practices, or the political process, you are going to get wore down. It is very tough to keep hope and your spirits up, when the things you care about are so far down. I find I have to take a break from information, otherwise I get overwhelmed.
For my teenage apathy/angst years I wish I knew about, and had the drive to do Naikan. I learned about it last month through the fantastic Sun Magazine, in an interview with Gregg Krech (PDF). It is probably a good thing most people in western society.
I have 3 teenagers at home, and by some grace of God I am happy and they seem happy. I have to lock up the knives though….
My sister went through a really tough time towards the end of high school. I regret not talking to her enough, being too wrapped up in my own life at the time, and not noticing that she really wasn’t fine when she said she was. I almost lost her. I guess I just want to say that it’s important to us to stay connected with our younger siblings, cousins, friends.
interestingly, i find that i am less unhappy when i’m busy. it seems if i have a lot of stuff to do, i don’t have time to think of my life or the things that might be bothering me.
DT,
I am happy that you are happy.
DD,
I completely agree. Which is why finding the clitoris is the fourth most important trick in the book.
OK, but seriously, that’s one of the things the articles in Time keeps bringing up. And it kinda touches on what Karen says too:
Of course, it can always be taken to extremes where someone is always trying to fix the problems of others only to avoid his/her own.
Myke,
I too will forever be tormented by the grass is greener bug. Like a good friend once said, “yeah, I’m happy, but I still always look up to see where the bus is going.”
Chris,
I totally agree. Or you get desensitized, which I think is what has happened to me. Naikan looks amazing, but amazing in the hindsight sorta way. Most teenagers would probably look at it and say, “dude, that looks so gay.”
Beckie,
I will admit, it sounds fishy. But you deserve a big congratulations.
Cindy,
I think siblings, cousins, and friends are especially important because they’re part of your same generation, they share the same experiences, and more like than not, they’re going to be part of your life much longer than your parents and will relate to you much better than your kids. I just saw Sideways last night and it reminded me how important old school friends and road trips in Cali are.
Karen,
I’m exactly the same way, but I don’t know that it’s healthy. The things bothering me just seem to become more subconciouss, but they’re still there and after 6 cups of coffee I might snap.
Really awesome post. Thought-provoking even.
I forget when I embraced happiness — but it was later in life than in retrospect I would hope. But maybe that’s the journey?
Still evolving…
Joe
I completely agree. Which is why finding the clitoris is the fourth most important trick in the book.
–Oso
The fourth? Or the second?
Muahahahaha!
j/k
I don’t think happiness is a “goal” or an object to be attained. When you shift your view from that, then there is no “grass is greener” because you don’t put it in tangible terms that need to be sought out.
Susannity!,
You bring up a really good point. Most of us take for granted that there is some said law that happiness is the ultimate objective in life. It is for me, but I think there are others for whom things like success, fame, wealth, power, or knowledge are more important even if it causes them to be unhappy.
I’m curious though. If happiness is not your ultimate objective, what is?
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP
Sorry I didn’t state very well. I’m not saying “happiness” is or isn’t the ultimate objective. I’m saying happiness can’t be an objective, that to give it personification and therefore treat it as attainable is the underlying “error”. You can have the goal of “making 1 million dollars by the time i’m 35″. It is measurable. You can at 35 say yes or no i achieved that goal. To say “my goal is to be happy by the time i’m 35″ is wu li.
Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Windows XP
Susannity!,
Ah, now I understand. But I’m still not sure if I agree. Part of me wants to. In fact, I remember that I first started keeping a journal because I wanted to understand what makes me happy and what makes me sad. So I’d keep a journal of how I was feeling and try to understand why.
It both worked and didn’t work. I figured out some general things. I like change. I like a sense of accomplishment and a sense of purpose. I like a sense of community and friends I can depend on.
But even keeping those things in mind, it’s not like I’ve got it all figured out. There are plenty of happy and plenty of sad days and I have no idea why. I don’t think that means there is no explanation though. Just that I haven’t figured it out.
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP
I understand the journal-keeping to help you better understand how to increase the probability of feeling happy in your life. However, events on a day that coincide with happiness may coincide with sadness on a different day. I guess that’s why I don’t think of happiness as a goal or an end result. It just is. To chase it is to chase one’s shadow. The more you chase it, the more it eludes you. However you can increase the probability of a shadow appearing through self-awareness as well as awareness of life. It is chaotic beauty and that’s what makes it so wonderful. In Taoism, there is a concept of yin and yang and that in order to recognize happiness, one must also appreciate sadness. So to search for happiness is counter to “finding” happiness. One of my favorite Shel Silverstein poems covers this topic:
The Land of Happy
Have you been to The Land of Happy,
Where everyone’s happy all day,
Where they joke and they sing
Of the happiest things,
And everything’s jolly and gay?
There’s no one unhappy in Happy,
There’s laughter and smiles galore.
I have been to The Land of Happy—
What a bore!
Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP Internet Explorer 6.0 Windows XP
Happiness is Awesome. Check out The Happiness Show; the world’s first television program entirely about happiness! View over 80 1/2 hour episodes for free! Happiness is what life is all about! It rules.
Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Windows XP Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Windows XP
Wow George … yeah, you uh, sound pretty damn happy. 80 1/2 hours of happiness. That’s 40 hours of happiness right? My god. You’ve definitely got Disneyland beat. I am impressed sir.
WordPress 1.5 WordPress 1.5
[...] least when they know that others have more. I’m gonna make an assumption – one that susanitty! has already disagreed with me on: After surviva [...]