Happiness.

"We'll have all the fun in the world."
"That's what I'm afraid of."

Why are we scared of having fun?

I don't believe most of us are, but some of us certainly are - the sort that take life seriously, a little too seriously.

I wonder if it's because we're scared of the fact that it will eventually stop being fun and then the higher you climb, the harder you fall will ring true. We might fear that having fun will distract us from what we hope to achieve... Not distract; we fear we'll like it so much that we'll consciously decide to ignore what we intended to do all along and go with fun, losing our way in the process and waking up one day realising that fun just isn't good enough any more.

But if having fun, being happy, being joyous isn't the purpose of one's life, then what is?

Isn't the ultimate responsibility of a human towards his/her own happiness before anything else? Maybe not. That might be called selfish. But if one thinks about it, one only really want to help others be happy for one of two reasons:
First, the happiness of others that you can attribute to yourself helps you become/stay happy.
Second, your happiness is dependent on the happiness of the other - call it care or co-dependence, I don't really care.

So, is the pursuit of one's own happiness not the ultimate goal in life. Or rather shouldn't it be?

Let's assume the aim of one's life is not that. Let's assume it is something else - maybe materialistic like seeing all the tractors in the world equipped with GPSes to automate agriculture; maybe more spiritual like helping the world embrace meditation as the most powerful tool towards self-discovery and contentment, that it is.

In the absence of such goals, does the line between happiness and contentment blur and begin to represent the same thing? Is contentment the ultimate form of happiness? A state where one doesn't need anything not already in ones grasp.

Is the lack of sorrow and worries called happiness? Or is it the presence of something else?

I don't know. I really don't.

To me, right now, happiness would equate to contentment. Contentment at being able to write a decent piece of prose. To me, happiness is not the presence of something, but the absence of certain emotions.

Happiness is sitting in the sun on a winter afternoon, smoking a cigarette and really, actually looking at the sun rise.
Happiness is looking at the tip of a leaf and wondering why you never noticed the fur on it before.
Happiness is buying an unassuming child a piece of candy and watching his face light up.
Happiness is surprising your mother with an unexpected visit.
Happiness is realising you're not perfect and being absolutely okay with it.
Happiness is realising you're flawed and cracking the best jokes about it.
Happiness is sitting next to the ocean and listening to the waves crash against the rocks. Just listening.

Happiness is the knowledge that you don't need to be 'happy' to be truly alive.

Happiness is realising that you actually chose to question what happiness is.

Happiness is a path.

Happiness is not a destination but a pursuit.

Happiness is a word someone else coined for you.

Happiness is a borrowed idea.

Happiness is a thought.

Happiness is what you want it to be.

Journal: I, me, be.

I'm writing again after a long time. It's March, that time of the year where it's a little cold at night but you don't want to le go of your blanket just yet. It's cold enough for it at night but too warm for it in the day. It's comforting yet unsettling at the same time.

It's 1 am right now and I've had a drink or two. I got out of my blanket, switched of the fan and now I'm here, typing. I mentioned the fan, something people don't really need to know, or so they think. But they do.

I turned it off and now the air is still. The only sound in the room is of the key-strokes typing out this masterpiece or complete piece of trash, it remains to be seen.

The fan that makes you comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time and the blanket that does the same are like a lot of things in life. They make you feel surrounded, distracted - like the air brushing against your arms making every hair on your body recognise its presence; the blanket making you feel encapsulated and secure but making you a little too warm for comfort, the feeling of affection and a little too much of it - either by you or towards you, comes to mind.

I feel overpowered by the thought. Everything till this point flowed smoothly but now it seems to halt; not for a lack of thoughts but the excess of them. So many emotions coming to mind that you can't distinguish one from the other or which ones they are, just 'nothing'.

You come to think of times when you are happy or sad; disappointed or proud; optimistic or cynical; drunk or stoned - at some of these times you want to hear your voice. That's what you really want. You feel you want someone to talk to, someone but yourself, but all you really want is for your voice to be heard. Not for results or emotions as outcomes of your speech, not as responses or perceived care but just as something living that would hear. Hear the words coming out of your mouth, the physical manifestation of your thoughts, the proof that these thoughts, these emotions, these insecurities exist and to acknowledge them with you.

Just the mere fact of their acknowledgement is enough to make you feel... human.

You want to express those opinions; you want to voice those feelings; you want them to be challenged, judged, questioned. You want to defend them and validate them, not to an external being but to yourself. To your own ravaging, conscious sense of self.

I called it 'sense of self' not just 'self'. It may seem weird to address yourself as just a perception or an abstractness of sense. But that is what one is.

How do you define yourself? Not define, it's too specific... describe. Think about it.

What did you come up with?
A bunch of adjectives and probably some ad verbs qualifying those adjectives - projecting some uncertainness and some concrete sureties. Let's think of those for a minute. Let's try to put them in perspective. Let's imagine a few scenarios and let's repeat the exercise.
1. You with you friends. The bunch you feel comfortable with.
2. You with acquaintances or colleagues.
3. You with yourself facing a challenge.
4. You with yourself at leisure.
5. You with yourself facing just idleness and you.

How many of these adjectives stay common? And out of those, how many convey the same meaning in all those scenarios?

Not too many or maybe all of them.

I don't believe the latter.

I might tomorrow, reading this sitting with a friend. I might tomorrow, reading this with myself. But I will not believe it in all of those scenarios put together.
I'll be a mess.

'I' will not be 'me'.

But I will still... be.


P.S. I'm trying to get back to writing again. I began this post with some other flow of thought, then it stopped. I then took care of a drunk friend and got back to it. At that point, the flow had changed - not to something specific, something I could write about but to 'nothing'. But I've decided to write it and put whatever it is - up. So I did. It's going to be more of a journal, with me writing regularly, just clearing my head for a few days. At the end of it, I'll have a less cluttered mind and maybe I'll start making sense again. Bear with me till them. Just let me... be.