Happiness
Someone told me that maybe happiness is a curse- something you’re bound to pursue but never possess. And I’m tired of chasing something that’s not bound to be mine.
I’ve never been what you would call an easy and happy go lucky person. Never too happy, never too sad. Steady, although sometimes prone to making statements. But I could be uncannily tolerant. Tolerant to the point of being too condoning.
I’ve nothing against happiness. I just don’t think happiness is laughter, nor is happiness that fleeting feeling of bliss. Or maybe I don’t understand what happiness is, at all.
How people die in hot pursuit of it without succeeding totally confuses me. Perhaps it takes many forms. And talk to a relativist happiness could mean nothing or anything at all.
Take for example, falling in love. Or getting rich. Or finding contentment. Or spending quality time with someone dear. Or watching a movie or having lunch with friends. Or getting a compliment, plus cash, from your parents. Or getting a good grade. Or hearing a beggar give you the sincerest thanks. Ah, many things.
What is there to happiness that I couldn’t figure it out lately? What does it have to do with frustration? What does it have to do with being?
They said that most problems come from material inequalities. The lack and want of something. But the lack of happiness can be more terrifying, especially to a mind who has not known the extremes of emotions.
I played a really old and sad song over and over. It was a silly old love song that most people would hate, some people would like. But it was perfect for the moment. I was slowly being terrified at the idea of being a holy loner. But there is no recourse. The past few days have been full of adventures big and small. Whether I find happiness in all these voyages or mere transitory feelings of relief I don’t know. But perhaps vague is the new vogue.
Why this happiness is so elusive, I can’t tell. Why it seems more real when it is contingent and validated by another, I don’t know. Why I can’t convince myself that happiness is just out there in everything, I can’t say. But for everything that has happened one thing is for sure. I am not happy.
I look at the sunset. It casts a certain orange glow that signals the arrival of the night. I pretend that I could appreciate it, but I can’t. Somehow the feeling of comfort escapes me. I have not yet trained my eyes to see properly. Perhaps, I have not yet understood what it means to be happy.
I tell myself, though, that despite this lonely sense of loneliness that has descended upon me, things might get better. But I’m fooling myself. It can only get worse. I stare at the now darkening sky.
