The other day, I wrote on Facebook:
"So incredibly tired of happiness being touted as the natural state in life, as fundamental to your spirituality, as being indiscernible from joy. What I find to be true, in almost every case, is that Happiness seems to come from focusing only on positive things, effectively denying, or at least ignoring, the bad in life. Unquestioning positivity whitewashes, refuses to acknowledge, and does NOT prepare you for terrible, difficult, grey, doubt-ridden situations. This form of happiness also denies empathy, feeling the pain of others, simply because THAT'S NOT HAPPY. Well, I am not a happy person. I worry that my friends will make good decisions. I wrestle with doubt. I sorrow with those experiencing loss. And, from time to time, I suffer. I acknowledge suffering as a fundamental human condition. Which requires hope and love to keep from becoming despair. I learn to cope; I learn joy. And while you tell me to smile more, I hope your Happiness can stand up to the pain of living. But if not, I'll be waiting with a shoulder you can cry on."
Since posting and reading the responses, I feel a need to unpack my position a bit more. Because of my belief in the perniciousness of Modern America's Portrayal of What Happiness Should Be™, I find I react very strongly to the suggestion that MAPWHSB™ is one of the most desirable states that you can strive for. Which is not to say I hate happiness. But the plastic, consumer-friendly version has got to go. And I think I make a decent, concise case for that in my FB post.
What I didn't go into then was the underlying problem, which is more about emoticons and ebooks than about a particular emotion or state of being. The problem is both one of attention span and language.
CHALLENGE: Find a single internet post by someone under forty (yes, I am including myself in this) that describes the poster's emotional state as something other than: Happy (MAPWHSB™), Sad, Angry, or Bored. (We're going to say that confusion is the 'sometimes Y' of emotions, as it is often an intellectual state.)
You may find what at first appear to be variations, but are really just a clever use of synonyms. For example: "Feeling blessed!!!!!!!!" is a religious way of saying "MAPWHSB™!!!!!!!!" Which is not to say that acknowledging blessings is any worse than being happy, but this statement is just a repackaging of the same idea. Upset is a synonym for Sad and/or Angry. And with very few exceptions, that is the sum total of society's ability to describe emotional states in depth.
In a society driven by our neuroses, where virtually everyone has been in therapy at least once, how have we lost our ability to name, and thus understand, our emotions? ill tell u. We live in a world of instant gratification. But that isn't the problem. Instant gratification is wanting to read Bram Stoker's Dracula and downloading it to your Hitchhiker's Guide without having to leave the couch. The problem is the rate at which we want to be gratified. Instant per Instant gratification if you will. Each moment must be something new and pleasing, and it isn't the fault of text messaging or the internet or television. It's our fault, the Matrix just makes it easier. Just like fast food makes it easier to get fat.
But impulse control simply blazes the trail to where the root of the problem lies: reducing everything to a sound bite. Because sound bites boil down:
"In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you,
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
"So incredibly tired of happiness being touted as the natural state in life, as fundamental to your spirituality, as being indiscernible from joy. What I find to be true, in almost every case, is that Happiness seems to come from focusing only on positive things, effectively denying, or at least ignoring, the bad in life. Unquestioning positivity whitewashes, refuses to acknowledge, and does NOT prepare you for terrible, difficult, grey, doubt-ridden situations. This form of happiness also denies empathy, feeling the pain of others, simply because THAT'S NOT HAPPY. Well, I am not a happy person. I worry that my friends will make good decisions. I wrestle with doubt. I sorrow with those experiencing loss. And, from time to time, I suffer. I acknowledge suffering as a fundamental human condition. Which requires hope and love to keep from becoming despair. I learn to cope; I learn joy. And while you tell me to smile more, I hope your Happiness can stand up to the pain of living. But if not, I'll be waiting with a shoulder you can cry on."
Since posting and reading the responses, I feel a need to unpack my position a bit more. Because of my belief in the perniciousness of Modern America's Portrayal of What Happiness Should Be™, I find I react very strongly to the suggestion that MAPWHSB™ is one of the most desirable states that you can strive for. Which is not to say I hate happiness. But the plastic, consumer-friendly version has got to go. And I think I make a decent, concise case for that in my FB post.
What I didn't go into then was the underlying problem, which is more about emoticons and ebooks than about a particular emotion or state of being. The problem is both one of attention span and language.
CHALLENGE: Find a single internet post by someone under forty (yes, I am including myself in this) that describes the poster's emotional state as something other than: Happy (MAPWHSB™), Sad, Angry, or Bored. (We're going to say that confusion is the 'sometimes Y' of emotions, as it is often an intellectual state.)
You may find what at first appear to be variations, but are really just a clever use of synonyms. For example: "Feeling blessed!!!!!!!!" is a religious way of saying "MAPWHSB™!!!!!!!!" Which is not to say that acknowledging blessings is any worse than being happy, but this statement is just a repackaging of the same idea. Upset is a synonym for Sad and/or Angry. And with very few exceptions, that is the sum total of society's ability to describe emotional states in depth.
In a society driven by our neuroses, where virtually everyone has been in therapy at least once, how have we lost our ability to name, and thus understand, our emotions? ill tell u. We live in a world of instant gratification. But that isn't the problem. Instant gratification is wanting to read Bram Stoker's Dracula and downloading it to your Hitchhiker's Guide without having to leave the couch. The problem is the rate at which we want to be gratified. Instant per Instant gratification if you will. Each moment must be something new and pleasing, and it isn't the fault of text messaging or the internet or television. It's our fault, the Matrix just makes it easier. Just like fast food makes it easier to get fat.
But impulse control simply blazes the trail to where the root of the problem lies: reducing everything to a sound bite. Because sound bites boil down:
"In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you,
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made from, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself."
to:
:(
I don't think internet communication is destroying the English language; I think our lack of patience is. Because how can we know when we feel melancholic, serene, piteous, chagrinned, smug, impertinent, disgraced, bewildered, entranced, irked, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, enraptured, or even contented, if our working vocabulary only allows for four emotions? And if we aren't comfortable enough with the definitions to use such words in our spoken conversation, why would we choose a state of being more complex than MAPWHSB™on which to pin all our desire?
I have a melancholic temperament and I strive to be serene and content. I simply don't have the emotional energy for MAPWHSB™.
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me
That I have much ado to know myself."
to:
:(
I don't think internet communication is destroying the English language; I think our lack of patience is. Because how can we know when we feel melancholic, serene, piteous, chagrinned, smug, impertinent, disgraced, bewildered, entranced, irked, sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, enraptured, or even contented, if our working vocabulary only allows for four emotions? And if we aren't comfortable enough with the definitions to use such words in our spoken conversation, why would we choose a state of being more complex than MAPWHSB™on which to pin all our desire?
I have a melancholic temperament and I strive to be serene and content. I simply don't have the emotional energy for MAPWHSB™.
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