Happyness.

"It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?"
-Christopher, The Pursuit of Happyness

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”
- Albert Einstein.




Okay, so I admit I wasn't thinking about the Declaration of Independence. I've actually been really down, which shouldn't make sense. I was actually really happy until about well, 9-something last night.

Reasons to be happy: Winning a story competition. Getting into Crown Choir. Having done all my homework. Having holidays in two weeks. And the kicker, getting a very funny, self-esteem lifting phone call from a drunk friend of a friend. Which is also something to be sad about, if I think about it too much.

Reasons to be not happy: The usual things. My Macbook being confiscated at like, 10pm every night. And someone not doing something that I wanted them to do but they don't know, or at least they're pretending not to, or something equally convoluted.

And not being happy has made other things crap as well. I was in a bad mood this morning, which meant my mum got mad at me too, which led to a ten-minute rant on how I was unappreciative and a terrible person in general.

So what is the deal? We're studying 'Brave New World' in English, and it's set in a futuristic world where everyone is conditioned to be happy and to never feel pain or even slight discomfort. And well, then I was trawling an LJ community for quotes, and I found this:

"I for one am afraid that our American culture’s overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I further am wary in the face of this possibility: to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations. I am finally fearful over our society’s efforts to expunge melancholia from the system. Without the agitations of the soul, would all our magnificently yearning towers topple? Would our heart-torn symphonies cease?"
-Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, Eric G Wilson

Which makes me think that maybe this constant angst and insanity and lack of happyness might be alright in the end. But then again, would I rather be happy? Maybe. Probably.

And then, I've been listening to Into the Woods, a Sondheim musical. There's a song in it, where everyone has their happily-ever-afters, but they're still wishing for other things.

What was the point of this? Well in my pursuit of happyness, I've decided to largely forgo instant gratification and time wasters such as Facebook and MSN. I've actually deleted MSN from my computer, shock horror. And I'm going to concentrate on goals. Good for me. Now for some Methods homework.