The problem with being happy.

It's a very problematic situation. It's so slippery and fleeting that you sometimes wonder if you should even bother at all. But we all bother. We all want to be happy. And ultimately it feels like everyday, every moment of our lives, we're on some search for happiness. Somehow.

And that must really suck. To be constantly chasing something that can never be truly obtained.

You'd think that once I left my home, away from the bounds of family or rules of any kind, I'd feel liberated and happy. Truth is, I felt a lot more liberated back home, when I didn't have complete freedom of what I can do and where I can go. Yeah, how the heck did that happen.

It's not that I'm never unhappy back home. I was. But it was a different kind of unhappiness. It goes back to my point of liberation. Back home I never attached happiness to any specific thing in my life. Happiness was just there. Existing. Isolated from me. And so it was always beyond my own control. I recognized that happiness was fleeting, just as much as one-night-stands are exhilarating in the moment. And then in the morning there's the whole walk of shame and all that and you know you're supposed to dissolve the exhilaration you felt from last night. It was great, alright, run along now.

The problem with happiness is that it's so, extremely, fleeting. And so when you attach it to something in your life, especially if it's starts with a "m" and ends with "an", it's not going to work. Because then it starts to take a form, it becomes more concrete, and it just seems like something you can grasp, and that you must grasp, and that if you don't it'll be the end of life as you know it.

You're just trying to stretch out something that didn't have the elasticity to start with. Happiness should be formless, shapeless and nameless. It shouldn't take the form of anything, or be mediated to anything, or be expected to do anything, even.

I started out my day pretty shitty. I hadn't slept the whole night, I was working on the newspaper, and I had woken up from a brief nap at 8.30am to the fact I had class in an hour. Class came, still felt pretty shitty. 

Okay a little context. I was stressed out precisely because of this issue of happiness. Before I thought I was happy, doing all these things I'm doing now, which I feel passionate about. At the same time, things were spiraling out of control. I had no time for myself, I barely got sleep, so while I was doing all these fucking great things, I also saw my life unraveling before me. I saw myself falling behind, unable to keep up with myself, just being cranky and tired and stressed out everyday, and I asked myself if NOW I was truly happy doing the things I do.

And I couldn't answer myself.

So it was at 8.30 in the morning, at such a low point, that I thought I had lost all motivation to live (figuratively).

I asked for sex, and was turned down. That little bitch...

But as the day went on, things started going uphill. Things just started feeling better. Class was still horrendous to get through, because I was clearly tired, but I didn't feel as demoralized as before. The drive to do things came back to me.

And it felt great because it wasn't anything or anyone that restored my happiness back to me. It just came back. Being able to recognize that is a great feeling. 

I'm trying to make happiness as light as possible, but attaching all these expectations to it (likewise the other way round) just weighs it down so much. And it in turn will weigh you down too.

It might also be a case of overachieving here. No, it is definitely a case of overachieving. And that's saying a lot, because as it is my standards for overachieving are pretty high.

But to spend every night of the week just stressing out about a different test, three different papers, and meticulously examining every detail of the layout of my newspaper pages, that's just downright workers abuse. 

Before I only had two goals in life: to write, and to fuck. Those were great goals.

I'm not saying I don't like my life now, or what I'm doing now. You know as well as I do that I love what I'm doing now, and I wouldn't give it up for the world. But I need to somehow find a way to weave "liberation" in there. I need to feel free, while not feeling free.

Because the danger otherwise is I'll start attaching happiness onto something, just so I can grasp it, even for one second, fooling myself into thinking that one second is enough. Just so I can feel something. Oh, what a silly human need.

And then once it starts to take shape, it can become anything. Larger than life and unassailable, ugly and deformed, all-pervasive and permeating everything, turning on you and working against you ... just as much as the times it makes you giddy and high. 

Of course, no one can completely do that. We can't all detach happiness from the things in our lives, and just let it exist outside us. No one can be truly liberated.

No one's perfect, but I was pretty damn near.