Happiness. I write, often, as a way to give voice to my inner workings…. the battle between thinking and doing, the tug of war that lives in the very word between (love and hate, joy and pain, feeling and reflecting). I write (and read) in search of my interpretation of a good and meaningful life. There are mornings when I get absolutely sick of the subject and the search and the constant deep dives. On those days, I write to keep the practice going. When my fiancee, Bree, left, I got out of practice with exercise – moving to Memphis only made it worse. I know how hard it is to re-establish habit, so I write in an effort not to break the habit. Much of what I write is garbage – I’m ok with that. Much of what I write is only a slightly different take on the thing I wrote about yesterday or the day before that – variations on a theme. There are mornings when I say we’d all be (or at least I would be) better off just living a bit more and seeking, thinking, a bit less. This is a primary concept in Zen teachings, desire leads to dissatisfaction which, in turn, leads to unhappiness. Be present. Be in the moment. Live life.
Last night a woman texted me “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living, we live ourselves into a new way of thinking. We all have our unique thought ‘disorders’ that create more suffering and stuckness. Your freedom won’t look like anyone else’s!” I don’t disagree – but I think it’s more nuanced than that. We think our way in to doing and we do our way into thinking – the actions are a dance, another example of the space in between. I read, frequently, the plethora of articles put out by the not so small and not so cottage industry that has sprung up around the concept of teaching happiness…. We are increasingly becoming a sick culture obsessed with our own unhappiness. All of this information and advice leads to mornings, like this one, where I don’t know if I should be grateful, or allow my feelings, or really just walk out and enjoy the sunshine (there’s no sun here in Memphis today). This morning I read an advice column “Ask Polly” from The Cut. “I Have Everything, But I’m Still Sad and Angry” The person seeking advice referred to her unhappiness as a little asshole monster. Polly’s advice was allow that monster space. Don’t chastise yourself for being unhappy and having desires. Tell gratitude to fuck off. She’s right, to some degree… we should, at the very least, listen to those little monsters inside us – allow for them to have a voice because it is part of our voice, part of our multitudes, part of our barbaric yawp… and I’m going to backtrack on the word should. In a world that allows the little monsters to speak, it might be best (another tricky value judgment like should) to banish words like should. This is another statement of in between, a rabbit hole of “what if my little monster is one who wants to use words like should?” How do we deny ourselves nothing without denying ourselves the right to deny ourself…? and so the world collapses in to a single point and with the small popping sound of one bubble wrap bubble, disappears.
*Pop*
I talk to a lot of different people – through work, in bars, through online dating apps. I necessarily have to limit what I take in. The woman who sent the text last night is a therapist in the never-ending process of reinvention. I joked with her the other night that I too have my own practice. It usually involves meeting a client for a drink or dinner and then one or both of us deciding that it’s not a good fit, followed by me going online looking for my next client…. oh wait, that’s dating. I sometimes think I seek out, or at least befriend, those souls who yearn to be heard, not because I want to date them or save them, but because some days I’m not yet ready to jump in to the emotional deep end with anyone. I know how to swim. I love swimming. I want everyone to be able to swim. Maybe this is a way for me to help other people learn to swim without actually having to get in the pool. Maybe the water isn’t to my liking just yet. Maybe through teaching others, I’m also trying to teach myself. This woman and I were talking about sleeping on your side or back or stomach. She said she couldn’t sleep on her side with her back to the door unless someone else was with her. I tried to imagine someone else next to me, and could only think of my ex-fiancee – it just felt that natural when we were together – felt like it would be forever. I told the woman about this feeling – she said she understands all too well.
The thing is… I think if you read this blog, start to finish, you might walk away thinking I’m perpetually unhappy. That’s not the case at all. I choose to think deeply about these things (happiness, desire, love, loss) because I believe they are the things I wish to dedicate my life towards… I want to understand people better, and that necessarily begins with understanding myself better. On the about page, and in the post “Putting It All Out There” I share how writing is a deliberate attempt to get more comfortable with my own thoughts – to give space for the little asshole monster inside… a small act of hiding in plain sight. I try to think about my life a year ago, my time with Bree, and I think about how there was very little internal struggle (for me). I didn’t spend much time thinking or reading about happiness – I was living it. Most days, I was happy to live and do without much thinking. What I regret, among a few different regrets, is that we let the day to day grind of traffic and work and the shitty Philadelphia weather bog us down. We let the annoyances of who was running late or who wasn’t being heard or valued get in the way of all of the really simple things that we both enjoyed. When there was a disagreement, we had learned to disagree about how to disagree. And the entire world collapsed in to a single point and with the sound of a solitary bubble of bubble wrap…..
*pop*