hey there. it's been a few months. the summer, you know. on with it...
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the over-compensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.
-- Brave New World
i reread the above (the book, not just the quote) over labor day weekend.
that quote is far and away my favorite bit. the book itself is one of those which, though i'm glad to have read it, is not necessarily on my top 10 list.
that being said, the quote's just the tops. even more than the phrasing, what i love about it is what it implies: that happiness can be -- and, in fact, is -- simple, subdued, private; and that a lack of happiness can be (and often is) glamorous, sensational, thrilling. of course, an extension of the former half of that implication is the basis for the whole hellish societal system huxley's writing about, and the latter half is what gets people like myself with a penchant for hemingway and the beats and such in all sorts of trouble.
(can anyone actually read my writing, by the way? i've just reread that last paragraph.) for the record, i'm not trying to say that happiness is boring, or that unhappiness is, by definition, exciting. i disagree with the designation of actual happiness as "squalid": i'm all for the quiet, peaceful, understated life, which i find "grand" in its own way. and i'm not about to start wishing for some part of my life to fall apart just to shake things up a bit (though a younger -- and, it could be argued, stupid -- me might have). what i will say is that it's come to my attention over the course of several years that, to paraphrase my dad's description of a similar phenomenon is his life, the things i bitch about the most are the things i love the most. this may be true of everyone, or maybe just libras, or maybe just only children, or maybe just me and my dad. point being, i believe there's room for that quote to be both true and false. it runs alongside the same river as "you always hurt the one you love" (or, avenue q-style, "the more you love someone, the more you want to kill them") -- our most profound sources of happiness are also the things that cause us the most frustration, and the things that complicate our lives are also the things that give us a measure of peace and stability.
which is the whole point of the book, i suppose, even if huxley didn't mean it to be: if human beings are capable of anything complex, it's rationalizing paradox. we can't be satisfied with just being "happy" any more than we can be satisfied with being miserable. we need challenges to our happiness to make us happy. it's like the rationalization your parents gave you for having to leave your best friend's house after a super-fun play date when you didn't want to leave: if you don't go now, you'll never be able to come back.
it's 2009 and we don't have flying cars or world peace, and C, X and Q are still included in the alphabet (see #16). but for most people our (my) age, the first action in the morning is checking something computer- or internet-related. when i wake up in the morning, before i'm capable of speech or fully opening my eyes, i can still type my laptop password (which is upwards of 10 characters) in about a second. and i'm not exactly a technology person.
i was shown a different version of this at a conference a few months ago. most of these things don't really surprise me -- a fact that decisively places me in a certain age group -- but it's kind of intense to see them all in sequence. (there's sound, but it's just background music.)
maybe this is bad (?) but i'm less interested in the question -- what does this all mean? you know -- than the facts themselves. i don't know that it all has to mean anything. i just want to know what's coming next. or what effects the reality of these facts have on people now: ones that now or soon will feel disconnected, and ones that are being born into this culture. because this isn't exactly a cultural shift. the culture shift already happened. i think the culture in which we exist now is one of continuing shift itself. so instead of saying we are at a moment of transition, i think we can now say we're a culture of transition itself. with so much connectedness and communication and increased speed and numbers of people, maybe "developed nations" don't have the time or space for stages anymore. that's the ultimate form of individualism, really: if everything is constantly changing and moving and transitioning, one person can only ever be at the same stage as him or herself. alone in a crowd, as it were. which also makes all the communication and connectedness both increasingly important and increasingly moot.
[i'm resisting the urge to make a pitch for summer camp here. suffice it to say that this kind of spiralling mental logic is one of the major reasons i enjoy closing my laptop for the summer and having no cell phone service.] i think this is also why "our" generation (whatever that is) has so very much difficulty with rebellion. a lot of us grew up in a sort of, i'm sorry to say this, fight club mentality: that whole bit about having no great war, no great depression, no scars. nothing in which to participate or against which to rebel. the early-mid 90s suffered from severe 60s envy, but by the time the shit hit the fan (lots of it, and a very big fan*), it was a new millenium and we had become too jaded to carpe that particular diem. at least most members of our parents' generation waited until their mid-30s to sell out. we barely made it through high school. * see: 9/11, war on terror, iraq, afghanistan, energy resource depletion, global warming, economic crisis, gay rights, the entire middle east, etc. and on that note, i'm leaving my computer and going outside to frolic in the sunshine.
it's one of those days where it looks like i'm a reclusive blog fiend because i've posted two entries, but really i've been out and about and productive and exciting all day (and will continue once this is done). but i wanted to share this.
in high school we read "In Praise of the Humble Comma," and it remains one of my all-time top five favorite pieces. i don't know why i thought of it today, other than i've been writing a lot lately, and the last sentence keeps popping into mind. sigh. my hero.
until mid-afternoon, i didn't even know that the show was happening, so i didn't have much time to get myself in the concertgoing mindset -- or the CMU campus mindset, for that matter. so it was uncomfortable for a while, in the sense that we were older than a lot of people there, and that your typical drunk college floozies were dancing a little too emphatically for the amount of space available (not to mention Tallest Guy In The World, Tallest Girl In The World, and Very-Much-In-Love Tallest Couple In The World, all standing, obviously, directly in front of wherever you are). expected, but still distracting from the loveliness.
i understand it's carnival, and a concert, and i should have been prepared for all the accompanying characters, but i was still verging on exasperation when who should materialize behind my right ear but Loudest-Singing Guy In The World. right at the beginning of mass romantic. i glanced over, like you do. here stood this scrawny-looking, extraordinarily nerdy guy, no taller than myself (though probably 26), with a look on his face that said, "this is the song that saved my life," belting out the lyrics with all the tone-deaf power his little lungs could muster.
immediate, complete 180 from irritated to delighted. good for you, guy. the rest of the show i was on a cloud.
pop quiz: how are your new year's resolutions going?
a few months ago, i set forth some of my resolutions for public observation. given that we're over three months in now, and given that the number one issue with new year's resolutions is that we tend to immediately forget about them, i thought i'd take this opportunity to be self-critical in a public forum and see how mine are working out.
i'll be going about this via my absolute least favorite of feedback tactics: the oreo cookie method. (as someone said at a tri-state session, "even if you don't know what it is, someone's probably used it on you." gross.)
one: i will (continue to) pay more attention to my physical wellbeing. waking up and going to bed at vaguely reasonable hours, exercising (read: walking around squirrel hill instead of driving), flossing. not difficult. four years of acting like i'm indestructible is probably enough.
i'm pretty pleased with this one, actually. the bedtime/wake-up hours, the flossing, the walking more -- plus yoga, and running around after/restraining/lifting small children. muscles. and, since i have an actual schedule during the day, i've been eating at regular times. gold star. downside: daycare = disease. i've been sick, on some level, since i started. the first week of february.
two: i will read more, and more often. for pleasure, i mean. this doesn't count textbooks and news and things i read to edit. if you're wondering, i'm going to reread house of leaves, followed by the subtle knife, and then... we'll see.
oh my. yes, i've been busy, and yes, i did read those first two. but, again with the vague directions leading to me just sort of abdicating responsibility. just because i enjoy reading doesn't mean it should be put off completely. this is the same logic that created struggles with english homework in high school. i always did chem or precalc first because they were awful and felt more like suffering (and, therefore, productivity), and then i'd run out of homework time (or fall asleep) and have to improvise in class when discussing the plot of... i don't know... what did we read in high school? MY POINT. i shall redouble my efforts. list to appear soon.
three: i will write more. or create more, or something. translation, painting, whatever. i think part of the reason college has been such a torturous experience is that i've been desperately trying to play academic for the past four years, and i truthfully just don't enjoy it that much. i'm a writer. i've been a writer. i will be a writer. granted, writers tend to be really exquisite liars (and by that i mean we're all in denial), but by not doing what i know i'm supposed to be doing, i've allowed my capacity for writing to atrophy. it's much more difficult now than it was two years ago, let alone four, let alone six. the backsliding stops here.
i still get lazy. i haven't written here in a while because Real Life is happening in full force, and sometimes it's hard to find time, or an internet connection. but, at very least, i've been diligent about keeping a writing utensil in hand. even if i'm not writing an epic novel or a collection of sordid pseudo-autobiographical short stories featuring warped versions of everyone i know (and don't think it won't happen someday), i make sure to embrace any bursts of inspiration. spending upwards of eight hours a week sitting in coffee shops helps. if nothing else, i'm confident in my progress.
not terribly shabby, if not fantastically excellent. i'll take it.
right. here's the question: if i am fulfilling my responsibilities to myself, my family, and the community, and also doing what is well-suited to my abilities, and living a productive and just life, and drawing on the linguistic stylings of plato, does not the universe, then, have some obligation to respond in turn? obviously not, but i like to imagine a reality in which it does.
so, 2009, here's the deal. i'm working and taking care of myself and embracing the positive. i'd like a little something in return. maybe we're just getting all the bad and crazy out of the way early so the rest of the year can be smooth sailing. but it's a little much. and don't think i don't appreciate the good things that have gone on this year so far -- i truly do, and there have been plenty. it's just hard to maintain a sense of perspective when all the tests present themselves at once. i'd like it if we could meet halfway on this. i'll keep up my end of the arrangement, and you just consider easing up on the havoc-wreaking. please. love, susan.
