so today, in the midst of a spirited discussion on copyright and intellectual property over at Jon Sullivan's site, an anonymous happy-fairy dropped in to spread sunshine and denial: why don't you all go take an ativan, a nap, or a soothing walk on the beach! seems to me alot of time wasted on Fear of the Unknown....take it a little easier, your'e going to wear yourself out!. and i thought, you know, it's a scathing indictment of our pharmaceutical culture, that there are fluffy hug-bunny types out there advocating sedatives and naps and bliss and ignorance, as a viable alternative to debating important issues. (alert: major digression ahead), and i remembered my denis leary:
"I'm just not happy. I'm just not happy. I'm just not happy because my life didn't turn out the way I thought it would." Hey! Join the fucking club, ok!? I thought I was going to be the starting center fielder for the Boston Red Socks. Life sucks, get a fucking helmet, allright?! "I'm not happy. I'm not happy." Nobody's happy, ok!? Happiness comes in small doses folks. It's a cigarette, or a chocolate cookie, or a five second orgasm. That's it, ok! You cum, you eat the cookie, you smoke the butt, you go to sleep, you get up in the morning and go to fucking work, ok!? That is it! End of fucking list! "I'm just not happy." Shut the fuck up, allright? That's the name of my new book, "Shut the Fuck Up, by Doctor Denis Leary. A revolutionary new form of therapy." I'm gonna have my patients come in. "Doctor, I.." "Shut the fuck up, next!" "I don't feel so.." "Shut the fuck up, next!" "He made me feel so much better about myself, you know? He just told me to shut the fuck up and nobody had ever told me that before. I feel so much better now." Whining fucking maggots.
now. i'm not saying people with clinical depression should ignore their symptoms and suck it up, no sir or madam. that's not my subject at all here. but at what point in our collective history did someone decide that we are supposed to be happy all the time? what kinda pressure does that put on us, leading ordinary average lives? lives that involve struggle and pain and difficulty and frustration? a life can be very good indeed and still include lots of stressful soul-searching and second-guessing. and that's not a bad thing. but feeling deprived of some unrealistic ideal? not good.
i feel fairly certain that our distant ancestors didn't spend a whole lot of time and energy searching for meaning in life, they more or less were kept busy not being killed. their lives consisted of long periods of intense life-or-death struggles, and brief moments of joy and celebration.
well, life is easier (at least in the developed countries) today. and so we have enough time to sit and ponder the meaning of life, and then we end up with all these pop-psychology fluff-purveyors, telling us that life is supposed to be a bowl of cherries in a rose garden. but it's not. it can be good, and feel bad, and there can be nothing at all wrong with that. and do *not* tell me not to worry. i know what i'm doing with this worrying, ok? ok.
disclaimer: this is a rant. when i hear those don't-worry-be-happy types, my head explodes, so, please consider that before you yell at me for this. thank you.
and another thing -- right now, the world is really fucked up. yes, worse than usual. so if you're wandering around happy all the time, well, you're just not paying close enough attention. there are things wrong that have to be addressed, and right now activism is really important, and apathy is more or less a crime against humanity.
hmmph.
Been in a bookstore recently? The largest section of my neighborhood store seems to be devoted to self-help books by the guru of the week (followed closely by stupid management tricks books, I must say).
and how much of all that angst could be avoided if people stopped sitting around navelgazing and whining, and got up and did something productive for their community or the world in general?
i blame that i'm ok/you're ok guy. and all the other guys around that time, that hopped on his fluffy little bandwagon.
I thought the best comment was from Drew Carey..
"So, you hate your life and your job? there's a support group for that. It's call EVERYONE and they meet down at the bar..."
oh yeah! that's my second favorite Carey quote. my first favorite is (something like this)
"i always get screwed by the system. it's my role in the universe. i'm the system's bitch"
come to think of it, i think i like both quotes equally. :) thanks Greg!
Excellent post. I wish I were a happy-go-lucky type who thinks life is grand, but that's just not me. When I told my mother that I was undergoing therapy and was on anti-depressants she looked at me and said something like "the only people who aren't depressed are stupid people who don't think".
Now that may be a little harsh, but I believe that I would rather be depressed once in a while but see the world in it's harsh stark reality than to be happy-go-lucky and oblivious to things. And besides, when I'm in a manic totally-happy phase my creativity goes right out the window. And now that I've realized that I'm never going to be a shiny happy person I've devised other strategies to fight the depressions and haven't needed to seek help or anti-depressant drugs for years.
If any body gets all cranky and mad at you, let me know - I will kick their ass (or asses as the case may be). Being happy all the time is bad, there is no balance and no way to maintain the level. I prefer life to just have those stunningly bright moments that make getting out of bed in the morning worth it.
I like the Drew Carey quotes too. I may adopt them as my signature files.
well, Suzy, the disclaimer was in case anyone thought i *was* talking about people with serious chemical imbalances, debilitating clinical depression, that sort of thing. because i mean nothing of the sort.
i'm just talking about plain, ordinary, everyday life. and i'm not trying to say where to draw the line, either.
sometimes it's best to put these things right upfront.
and yes, Drew's my hero.
Denis Leary rocks!
The whole script thingy that you have set up to subscribe to comments rocks!
I used to hold up George Costanza as my personal hero and guiding light, but now may have to shift my allegiance to Drew Carey!
ya know, pretty much its not even our distant ancestors...up until industrialization, what 160 or so years ago, most folks were concerned with having a good crop so that they didn't die in the winter.
You know why we can count most of the great authors before the 19th century on one hand? Because there were only about 10 of them. Nobody else had time to worry about shit because if they took the time to ponder, they lost 4 children to the bubonic plague or rickets or coyotes or some shit.
I'm pretty sure this whole "I'm not happy" thing is a real new concept.
there's that weird synergy, Jason. you've just commented the part i deleted out of the first draft of this, in which i estimated the timeframe as a century and a half, and tied it in with things like newspapers and magazines (bringing pop culture and advertising and a vague sense that we don't have all we need to be happy).
but the post was enormously long and rambling, so i edited for brevity and because i wasn't too historically sure of myself.
Should I begin to worry because I'm happy and worry-free?
um. yes.
either that, or you might consider not bogarding that, whatever it is you have. pass it over to me.
heh, not to get to meta but I read *first draft* and chuckled. I never write first drafts at my spot. I just run on until I'm done and then I post it...notice all the grammatical errors and then go back in and edit...notice a bad link and go an edit that...
but I rarely cut. Hmm, I wonder if should. Maybe I'm a ramblin' man.
see, i'm a worrier. and one of my worries is that i won't make my point, and i usually have one. or at least something resembling one. and i don't like to cite things like timeframes and then have a historian come by and say, no, that actually happened in renaissance england, during the reign of so-and-so the fourth, when all the blah, blah.
so i try to be general enough and still have a point. you know?
We had a 'happy troll' in the chatroom a while back. "my life's so great, you could do all these things to be as happy as I am... blah blah blah"
We abused them till they left and then laughed about it. That made us happy :)
I don't know anyone who is always happy. It's just not how life is. As for this business of taking an Ativan or a nap, these types need to hold on to reality for dear life. Clearly, they're living in some sort of make believe world like Snow White and the Dwarfs!!
We all have cares, concerns, troubles, worries, joys, sorrows. Anyway. I hope I've made my point, so I'll just shut up now.
I'm a full-spectrum woman...the highest highs and the lowest lows.
And I get pretty damn surly whenever someone tells me to lighten up.
"have a historian come by and say, no, that actually happened in renaissance england, during the reign of so-and-so the fourth, when all the blah, blah."
Guilty. I plead guilty. I have such an editor/proofreader-oriented mind that I fixate on that kind of thing sometimes, at the expense of the broader point being made. I've been fighting it for years. ;)
no, Linkmeister, it's a good thing. i'm learning not to try make specific points based on my limited studies and general impressions, which is good.
the subject of 'when it was in our history that we started whining instead of just surviving and rejoicing' is something that's far, far beyond the scope of a blogrant about pollyanna trolls.
Well, maybe. Sometimes I see the moss on the south side and say "no, can't be," forgetting that the forest and its inhabitants were the more important thing.
See? Navel-gazing! ;)
wouldn't call that navel-gazing, which i consider to be obsessive amounts of introspection.
the good thing about learning not to get specific about a general impression, is that there are more than one of you out there, Linkmeister, and by misstating a commonly held belief or bit of general knowledge that >i just don't know, i will end up with several people overlooking the forest and its inhabitants, in order that they may point out my misstatement.
if you give people little details to pick at, lots of them miss the larger point. it's a good thing that i'm learning how not to do that, because i've had that tendency for years.
I'm just not happy. I'm just not happy. Did someone mention drugs? *grin*
"We abused them till they left and then laughed about it. That made us happy :)"
benway, you crack me up!!
happiness is like menarche ... it's a cycle. it comes and goes.
and i totally agree with that last statement, kd. people DO tend to pick at the little things and miss the big picture. and i edit myself. often. for me, it's a learning thing. i'm not a writer and i tend to ramble and lose focus. and forget the things i learned in 'english 101'...
Hey no editing. People think it is long then they need to reread your leary qoute. Make it long, make it ramble.. it is good for the soul
"Bat your eyes girl, be other worldy. Count your blessings, seduce a stranger. Whats so wrong with being happy? Kudos to those who, see through sickness, yeah." �incubus
oops didnt mean to post that twice. Sorry. Feel free to remove this and the last one.
way ahead of you. i just figured it was one o' those "Mac" thangs.
uhm, you're not trying to tell me to cheer up, are you? :)
No I am not trying to tell you to cheer up. What the statement, and that song means to me is awakening. Either from the depths of depression or the highs of pure joy. Recognize that there is hate, love, pain, bliss, sadness, happiness etc. Know these things, but don't dwell on them. Balance and living a balance is what I am saying. I get depressed just as much as the next person. Who wouldn't be with the world today? But I try to wake myself up from that depression and know there are things to be positive about. Just as when I feel all is "happy" I try to ground myself by telling myself there is work to be done to make things truly good. Hell I just read that back to myself and if anyone else understands what I just wrote other than me, congratulations. Ramble or not that is my point. Thank you drive through.
oh, i was just poking at you -- i'm not uncheery right now. and i totally agree with what you're saying, it's about experiencing all facets of consciousness.
and not having people come skipping through a serious discussion and telling everyone to have a tranquilizer and a nap and not worry about issues that seriously affect the future of blogging and free speech in general. that was *so* annoying this morning.
I agree that people making light of a topic a person or group of people are passionate about is annoying. Like who are they to comment? If anything he/she should remain quiet and observe the conversation. they may learn something or have a true opinion on the matter.
When those bright and shiny ass monkeys (and you know the ones I'm talking about) tell me to "cheer up!" or "smile!" or "it's not so bad!" I imagine myself jumping them and dragging their carcas to the floor, where I, at once, begin strangling them to within an inch of their lives, their faces turning purple, eyes buggin' out, gasping like a fish outta water, etc. And when I finally get up from my perch on their flailing sack of bones, I imagine myself standing tall, spreading my arms as if to hug the world, smiling brightly and saying, "you're right! it's not so bad! why so down, chirpy?"
I'm smiling now. ;-)
ahh, that got me grinnin' too.
shiny, happy people=ugh. great post, kd. you speak the truth till it sets me free, hon.
sweet lord.. i love Dennis Leary!! "I'm going to hell for that one.. uh huh.. and you're alllllll comin' with me"
wow! I totally needed to read this! yes! I've been in a bit of a cranky slump lately and add insult to injury by getting pissed that I don't appreciating everything I have or let myself be happy.
kd, do you still have the full original version with newspapers, pop culture, etc.? will you email it to me?
I get so aggravated that advertising (my college major incidentally) blares STUFF in your face, you need STUFF to be happy, more & more!!! as much as possible!!!! but I'm not enlightened enough not to wish I could fix the dent on my car, go clothes shopping more etc.
but that's okay. cause I don't have to be happy. that thought makes me... happy...
You summed that up lovely!! Denis Leary is my hero!
There is a girl I have been obsessing over since 7th grade. We're friends, and I dont want to RUIN that, as She doesnt know I LIKE her. Anybody reads this, can u advice me? That'd be great.
End Quote:
"People = Sh*t"
---sLiPkNoT---