This may seem to conflict with one of my previous posts.  I hope I can disabuse you of that belief quickly.

A comment to my divorce post really struck home with me.  I’ll repeat the specific line here:

“In our culture, we have learned to be insensitive to anything but the mask of happiness.”   

In letting this thought tumble on permanent press in my brain for a bit, I think I agree with it. 

When someone is upset, we try our best to “cheer them up”.  When we are feeling low, the recommendation is to think positively and have hope/faith/belief that things will be OK.  When someone is dying, or has died, we are expected to be stoic, strong for others, mourning quietly. 

If you’ve ever seen the series Six Feet Under, the first episode draws your attention to how silly this seems. 

Do we adequately acquaint ourselves with pain?  How do we navigate the delicate balance between whining and acknowledging unhappiness? 

We tend to think poorly of those who display unhappiness or are honest about their issues - we look at them as less successful, less equipped to deal with life, less adjusted.  The moment your personal dissatisfaction affects your ability to be cheerful, you should be seeking a therapist, or getting an anti-depressant.   We use phrases such as:

• Keep a stiff upper lip
• Keep your chin up
• Look on the bright side
• Cheer up - things aren’t so bad
• Don’t let it get you down
• Think of/Focus on the positive
• Keep your glass half full
• Nobody likes a gloomy gus
• Leave your problems at the door
• Look for the silver lining

Does this incessant happy-seeking really help us?  Or would we be better served embracing our negative emotion, experiencing it, and then learning from it? 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for mass depression.  I have talked about the negative voices we deal with, and how happy people tend to think more logically, and many other things that point to happiness as being a factor in our decisions and how successful we feel. 

And it is true that even pretending to be happy can actually help you BE happier - you can trick the brain into releasing the chemicals you want.  In fact, according to Jill Bolte Taylor, neuroanatomist, we can choose a happier, more peaceful state of being (Nirvana Anyone?) by using more of the right side of our brain.

What I’m saying is that without the embracing of the bad things that happen - without being present with those feelings, accepting and recognizing them - we significantly impair our ability to be truly happy.  Instead, we are putting on the “mask” of happiness: pretending things are good when there really are issues.  Holding our feelings inside of us - or more often these days - taking a medication to feel “normal”.  Our Zoloft world is even-keel, understandable, and keeps us out of the emotional highs and lows so that we know where we “should be”.

Or if you aren’t happy, don’t try to find a way to be happy with what you have.  Find what makes you happy - at all costs. Someone realizes they are unhappy in a “must be happy” world sheds the current skin of where they are, what they do and seeks all new things, looking for happiness externally. 

Is it any wonder that relationships are harder to keep together?  If neither person knows how to deal with pain or unhappiness, when difficulties arise it is that much easier to withdraw  and discard the perceived source of unhappiness than to look within oneself and feel that pain - and work through it.  Dealing with our pain might teach us enough to deal with future issues, or recognizing  a problem too big to overcome before it infests too much of our lives. 

Perhaps the issue lies not with how much we work on our relationship, but how much we do not work on ourselves.  It was Gloria Steinem who said:

Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.”

Working on ourselves and allowing us to feel what is really there might help us to be better partners in our relationships.  Instead of the mask of happiness we currently feel is expected, we would be ok with showing our own expression.  We might be more comfortable with being authentic. 

Being authentic might just lead to lasting, fulfilling relationships.  And perhaps we might just be that much closer to true happiness.

Edit: a TED Talk regarding the nature of happiness with Dan Gilbert.  Funny that Penelope should include this in her post yesterday when I am writing about this.

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

There was a bit on This American Life about this poem, and how many offshoots it has inspired.  There are many takes on what this poem really is saying, but most agree that he is not truly apologizing, but instead saying, “I couldn’t help myself, I am not sorry, but I hope you won’t be mad.”  Or does he even care if she is mad?  And is he feigning the uncertainty about her breakfast?

It made me think that there are many things that fall into this category.  It’s like the old joke, “I’m just sayin’”.  The situation where you say, “You’re fat,” to someone and they get upset, and somehow, responding with, “I’m just sayin’” somehow indicates that it just had to be said, and it really isn’t your fault.  Like that statement makes everything cool now.

So, I might, here and there, as inspired by This American Life, occasionally post a This Is Just to Say poem about something I am going to do, or did, that I’m not really sorry about, but I really would like people to not be upset.  They may be real, or they may be figments of my imagination.  Whatever inspires me.

 And they might not even happen…so in that eventuality, I’ll start with one right now.

This is Just to Say

I have not posted
poems mimicing
his style and arrogance

Which I stated
I would post
in earnest.

Forgive me,
But this is my blog
and I change my mind
often.

“Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should…”

– Max Ehrmann

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms…”

– George Santayana

I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

-Gilda Radner

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

-Douglas Adams

So I noted I was emailing someone today with the statement, “Yeah, sorry I didn’t get back to you right away.  It’s been crazy.”

And I suddenly realized that I write that statement ALL THE TIME.  As in, at least once a week do I tell someone that my week has been crazy, or crazy-busy.  

It’s true - I have something planned for every night this week, I work full 8 hour days, and during those 8 hour days I have to often contemplate things that I must deal with in those off hours.  And something rather crazy DID happen this week in addition to the regular busy-ness. 

And it is true that I tend to have things like this happening all the time - my weeks fill up pretty quickly with busy-ness, and it feels sort of crazy to get to the various things that I’ve put together.  And it feels like I always have a busy week to point to when I didn’t manage to get to the gym AGAIN.  Yeah. We won’t get into priorities here.

So, if you are crazy all the time, is that normal?  And what qualifies as relaxing? 

What qualifies in reality as crazy?  I mean, do I have to have a shower of pink frogs raining on my city to qualify as crazy?  Or can I just feel like I’ve got that wide-eyed crazed look like Howard Beale during his “mad as hell” speech? 

I don’t suppose that having too many outings with friends for drinks counts as “crazy” does it?

Can having a crazy situation occur in the midst of being busy count as a whole week of craziness?

Is the term relative to my experience?  If I feel like it is crazy, is it so?  Does one crazy event in a week make a whole week crazy from dealing with the reverb from that one event? Or do I have to have a packed schedule? 

For that matter, if I feel like work has been “crazy”, can I really carry that crazy-ness label over into my afterhours life?

Or does the craziness of my week depend on comparison to other people’s weeks for a crazy-meter rating of some sort?  Am I just purporting a crazy week when in reality my week is moderately busy compared to others?

Should I just say “Oh, I had a normal busy week,” with the knowledge that people knowing me will know that equals pretty darn busy?  Or am I trying to get drama points?  I note that I do not call a week insane unless something extremely wild or odd has occurred…like the random discovery of lypossage.

Have we, as Americans, grown too used to running around with a jam-packed day as our normal existence that it really IS “crazy” or “insane”?  Has our habit of long-hours, back-to-back meetings, fast-food nation style made us a burgeoning mad house of a country?  (I’m pretty sure Europe would give us a YES on that one.)

And does any of this give me the right to forget to call/email someone back?

What is “crazy” for you?  At what point do you start to describe your week as crazy? 

Two Crazy Quotes for you - one fitting this discussion, and one just funny as heck.

There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.
–Henry Miller

You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese, the Swiss hold the America’s Cup, France is accusing the U.S. of arrogance, Germany doesn’t want to go to war, and the three most powerful men in America are named ‘Bush’, ‘Dick’, and ‘Colon.’ Need I say more?

–Chris Rock

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

–Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Today, I’m going to write about this quote.

At first, I want to scoff at this.  There is very prevalent belief in our society that genius is something secluded to the few, the elite, the special, sometimes the insane.

Either way, it is not easily made the commodity of the common man - but rather something built into ones genes.  And therefore, we all have a cop out.  I cannot be creative or a genius because my DNA doesn’t allow it.

It would seem that, until recently, our world been punctuated by seeking limits - reasons you and I could not achieve this or that, be something.    Whether it was through our social caste, income, or genetics, we have found ways to explain why we were ordinary instead of extraordinary.

Thus we have the image of the creative genius as half mad-man, half angel.  He is neither achievable, nor accessible, and not even desirable - else you are seeking insanity, or placing yourself above your mortal existance.  Seeking godliness is only allowed through modesty.

But what if we sought godliness as something that is already a part of us?  Potential, just waiting to be released to flourish?  When we say, “Seek the divine in all things,” as part of the Judeo-Christian faith, we recognize that “god” has touched and created all things.  So, are we not a part of godliness?  And therefore, are we not possible of the divine? 

(Forgive me my extrapolations - it has been a long time since I’ve delved into any mythological lore, including one so vehemently defended as Judeo-Christian belief systems.  I do not seek to deconstruct beliefs, but instead look to find the source of inspiration.)

So, I put my scoffing aside and allow myself to believe.  Believe that we all have the potential for greatness.  Believe that all people are created equal and each has the opportunity to blossom in the direction he or she chooses within.   As Steve Pavlina mentions in his post on motivation to achieve, we have roiling deities of creation pounding the walls to get out. 

Why, then…Love certainly IS the answer. 

• Love of yourself, to trust your inner voice.  To allow that divinity to break through, even though it may trash your household and your life as you know it. 

• Love of the work.  It takes a lot of work to be creative, and to do it over and over and over means one must somehow enjoy the work in that it leads to a finished product.

• Love of the art.  There’s a tiny part of you that must die in creation.  Energy is not created or destroyed, it merely changes.  Part of you must go into that art, and to touch that divine part of you may mean you get burned by its flame.  The passion of it consumes you, giving you little option to turn away from it.  Perhaps for a day, a month, a year.  But it is still there inside you, tinkering with the inner workings, finding a path for release.

 And in the mean time, you must fight the limits.  The limits you’ve allowed to be created around your life, the limits you’ve erected like fences.  That you cannot be both a mother and a dancer.  That you cannot be a good partner and an artist.  That you cannot be super intelligent and enjoy football.  That cleaning the house is more important.  That to follow your dreams is irresponsible. 

Greatness is just an extension of the possibilities that reside within you.

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.

-Siddhartha Buddha

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
       –Henry David Thoreau

“I don’t believe in total freedom for the artist. Left on his own, free to do anything he likes, the artist ends up doing nothing at all.  If there’s one thing that’s dangerous for an artist, it’s precisely this question of total freedom, waiting for inspiration and all the rest of it.”–Federico Fellini