the art of joy
What is so wrong with writing about happiness? It seems sometimes like, today, if you want to write a Deep book and have people actually read it, it has to be Doom and Gloom - no, that's even too cheery a title for what people seem to like nowadays. I forget where but I saw it described as neo-nihilism, or summat like that. It is very trendy to be a nihilist and it's even trendier to make nihilistic jokes and laugh about them with one's extra-sophisticated friends. It seems like optimism just... isn't marketable. At least, not if one wants to be taken seriously. There are plenty of venues for false cheeriness that doesn't really mean anything. But write a whole bit of literary fiction about how the universe is good and - ?
It's like society as a whole is in frantic pursuit of happiness. If someone is unhappy, he might go to a shrink and get some drugs to make himself feel numb. Or if he's a more sketchy sort he might just do drugs for the temporary high with no middleman but the dealer. Teens who do things like have sex without being in love say stuff like, "It feels good, why not?" Anything that gets in the way of one's personal happiness is a stupid obstruction - some even view their families as obstructions to themselves. Maybe the "intelligentsia" are doing what they do and rebelling against society, rebelling against happiness as shallow and devoid of meaning and instead choosing that view of life as meaningless so let's all just be empty. But those who have given up the pursuit of happiness end up trapped in the same behavior as those afraid of being unhappy.
I think what the world may need is just some simple optimism. Some real happiness that means something. Nihilism is arrogance... optimism is humility. No one wants to be humble nowadays. Why would we admit that we don't know everything? Optimism... accepting that you don't know everything and believing that there is something. Something. A purpose.
The world needs not to just want to be emptily happy and needs to search for a meaningful happiness which has nothing to do with drugs or empty relationships and etc. At least that's what I want - meaningful joy. Maybe one of the things is not just being happy because it makes just me feel better, but because the universe is beautiful, because the seasons change, for everyone else, for everything magical and for daring to stop denying that I am living in a miracle. See, nihilism comes with no responsibility. Joy does come with responsibility. I can't really explain it, but it's like the responsibility of believing, and of spreading joy, and of helping others in simple ways.
I want to believe. I want to be on the side of joy. I want to stop slipping away from belief - it's actually arrogant to do so... Like declaring that there is no purpose and just nothing is based on the assumption that the person declaring it knows everything. Which he doesn't, and can't. Now others' beliefs are for them and I can't and shouldn't change them. But I can hold on to my own beliefs.
Even if they aren't marketable.
It's like society as a whole is in frantic pursuit of happiness. If someone is unhappy, he might go to a shrink and get some drugs to make himself feel numb. Or if he's a more sketchy sort he might just do drugs for the temporary high with no middleman but the dealer. Teens who do things like have sex without being in love say stuff like, "It feels good, why not?" Anything that gets in the way of one's personal happiness is a stupid obstruction - some even view their families as obstructions to themselves. Maybe the "intelligentsia" are doing what they do and rebelling against society, rebelling against happiness as shallow and devoid of meaning and instead choosing that view of life as meaningless so let's all just be empty. But those who have given up the pursuit of happiness end up trapped in the same behavior as those afraid of being unhappy.
I think what the world may need is just some simple optimism. Some real happiness that means something. Nihilism is arrogance... optimism is humility. No one wants to be humble nowadays. Why would we admit that we don't know everything? Optimism... accepting that you don't know everything and believing that there is something. Something. A purpose.
The world needs not to just want to be emptily happy and needs to search for a meaningful happiness which has nothing to do with drugs or empty relationships and etc. At least that's what I want - meaningful joy. Maybe one of the things is not just being happy because it makes just me feel better, but because the universe is beautiful, because the seasons change, for everyone else, for everything magical and for daring to stop denying that I am living in a miracle. See, nihilism comes with no responsibility. Joy does come with responsibility. I can't really explain it, but it's like the responsibility of believing, and of spreading joy, and of helping others in simple ways.
I want to believe. I want to be on the side of joy. I want to stop slipping away from belief - it's actually arrogant to do so... Like declaring that there is no purpose and just nothing is based on the assumption that the person declaring it knows everything. Which he doesn't, and can't. Now others' beliefs are for them and I can't and shouldn't change them. But I can hold on to my own beliefs.
Even if they aren't marketable.
posted by Laura at 6:19 PM
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