The elusive Bird of Joy!

Dear Sri sir
As usual another topic to assimilate and ponder about.

I have not read many of the authors you and others here have quoted.
It was in my high school autograph that my history teacher (yeah, history) wrote:
"Happiness is a state of the mind"-Abraham Lincoln.

That one sentence gives me my answer till date.
I am merely human so there have been many times when my sentiments do not fall in the category "happy". However, like the sphinx, every time I tell myself that I am in control of my emotions and finding joy is only in my hands and I bounce back.

In life I realized that no one can make a person happy. Be it animate or inanimate. It is the person who decides to be happy about something, be it emotional, spiritual, or material.
Nor can we measure happiness or even compare if someone is happier than the other.
It is an emotion beyond measurement.

However, one thing is sure sir, happiness is contagious! If one is happy it surely makes the others around that person happy too.

Well my two cents worth, not sure if I deviated from the topic.
******
Wishing you and your family a HAPPY Deepawali!

 

Happiness is often described as a state of mind. I think it is a Way of Being. Ask a child to illustrate Happiness, the kid will draw a smiley face. But a smiley face denotes Joy which is quite different from Happiness in my view . Joy is time bound. Perhaps thats why they named a fast melting icecream so.


I have given frequent thought to this elusive Holy Grail, Happiness, after which everybody is running with a snaring net. It is the object of the greatest , longest running, perennially frustrating treasure hunt known to Mankind. My own quest continues with no fruitition in sight, but with snatches of clarity and bits of understanding gathered on the way as consolation prizes.


One thing I have come to believe is that happiness is what we ourselves have to develop as a substrate to our personalities. It is not given. Happiness is rarely showy, no smiley mask announces it. Curiously, it is more defined by absences than by presence of factors. Absence of , or relief from, pain, want and discontent evokes happiness. But how do we hold onto it when the same factors become adverse ? That takes a lot of learning and the education is hard to obtain. But we can strive, nothing stops us from that. I strive,continually . Success may elude me, but let me see if some day,sometime before i go to sleep, i can get at least a glimpse of that miraculous Bird even if I fail to hold it to my bosom.
If i fail to reach it, just like in those TV gameshows, there is always another life ,to take another shot ! At least , thats what they say. Lets hope.

 

Your companion "bird of joy" to Emily Dickinson's "bird of hope" that perches on the soul depicts a dyad of essential flutter in living. "Joy" , "happiness", "bliss" all these abstract terms that poets rhapsodize, philosophers reflect, parsons reward bounce now and then in social commentary but I loved the way you provided an overture to your writing with a story.

I endorse any value system where we are responsible and rewarded in our herein corporeal existence and disfavour any tenets or canonical writing which promise salvific returns in our quantum incarnation or Gates of Heaven. Who knows where my putrefying mortal remains will end up and if I will ever reach those pearly gates in one piece buffeted by stratospheric gales and withering cosmic rays on my way to stairway to heaven. Any rewards better be granted as terrestrial domicile where I'm able to enjoy without having to worry about immigration status across border control in paradise. So, yes, life is not feature-length but only short-film reel hence my objectives, actions and planning better reflect and manifest in this current life.

I feel that "happiness" should be chartered as a progression and not achievement. I must feel that today I'm more happier than what I was on the same date last year. Such compass in life dissuades us from engaging in any ill-fated compromises or surrender that impede our accretion of happiness in leading an untroubled and fulfilling life. If at any point I feel that I am not growing or expanding on my happiness then for the same measure I experience less joy in living. Personally it is not enough for me to subsist on my gray train of happiness , I prefer to continually exert to zoom, jet, elevate in the magnitude and order of happiness I experience ...


The resonance in your posts between the writer and reader has received enough plaudits by now whereby many have quoted on reading your articles "Yes, yes, I know what you are talking" but the consonance transforming an obliging reader into a reactant commenter is what you should be credited for. I would have never reflected on such topics if not for your write-ups. You may have generated several readers out of your writing but to transduce that passivity into an active interaction takes certain enthralled writing which you deliver that binds me to pull up another dusty article.

 

Dear Cheeniya,


One of my friends works in advertising and one weekend he skypied me saying that his copywriter is away and wants me to draft textual content for a print advert. Excited and thrilled , 3 lines trip at 3 lines was the cautionary waggle before he disconnected. 3 hours past and the number of back and forth calls, rejections, improvements, adjustments, tearing off and finally by the end of the day ~11PM I was reduced to fuzzy ball of sobs wallowing in heightened inferiority complex at my inadequate skills to generate meagre 3 lines for some upstart Japanese firm. I think ~1AM he obliged to give rest to my eye lids by then zipped with moist misery at my dud undertaking and accepted a passable copy.


Next morning he informed that his copywriter is back and showed me the final copy approved for print. To my surprise, barring the articles "a" and "the" there was nothing in common. Inspite of rankle bursting from the mouthpiece and magmatic drips from the lateral vents in armpits I could not help but cool down later and commend the beautiful wording describing a small housing project. What I missed big time was the CONTEXT. It was a housing project and I had to key in words that flowed in harmony with the theme, brand and product. And there I was like juggling with an adjectival ball behind an adverbial cube joined in prepositional pipe missing on emphatic visual appeal that can only be achieved through verbal symmetry on contextual plane. I cannot say that I adhere to "writing to the context" but I admire nuanced writing when it transpires on me why a particular text looks more appealing under a label.

 

In the middle of reading "Pnin" by Vladimir Nabokov, if I jumped from my bed and rushed to tap away recollecting a post in IL, it must either be obnoxiously spiteful for me to controvert or staggeringly memorable to comment. On top of that, if I'm scanning for a cartoon of a philosopher roistering in fleshpot tagged as Epicurus to afffix as companion image then undoubtedly my rush belongs to latter category.

I think a lot of my passable approach — I say passable because it only keeps me afloat and not aloft in life— is byproduct of my association with beer-swigging emu crowd in the early days of my work. Working with an all-male team-force has its advantages of seeing life through practical lens projecting that carpe diem and mortality in every gathering. There're few convictions that only women can honor like romanticized grief, ceremonious moping, glorified sacrifices and other lady-like behavior that only we women can flaunt which needless to say are self-inflicted maladies. I think it was Gene Shallit who declared this paraphrased saying: "The first innings of life is learning; the second innings is unlearning". Took me considerable time to unlearn a lot of things imparted during my formative years and arrived at an approach and attitude in life that works out for me as an adult. This attitude may not produce ecstatic revelation of waking up, feeling high on elixir of life but certainly mitigates a lot of existential confusion as expressible and manageable conduct.

I think it was Neitsche who said that God and Heaven were invented by people to cover up their weakness and laziness in this world with the promise of next world.

True, what makes one happy! But I've observed that people find happiness only to lose even with no external stimuli because of their self-inflicted implosion — good enough breach. So it is not just the fabrication but the retention which is the problem! I'm particularly fascinated by the troubled poets and tormented philosophers who profess and foist their means of happiness on deaf-adder world leading to dismal and scowling death. If one has reached a state of bliss and content through trial and error then dude take time to bask in that summit and not barrel to announce to the world and start a protracted and litigious war on society which still honors conformity and convention. I slap "conformity" and "convention" quite often in my writing only because I do come across distressed and plaintive appeals: "I wish to stay happy in the length and breadth that society accepts, glorifies and prescribes" and wage a prolonged battle with their parents, friends, neighbours and amused collie dog. One must stay happy not worrying whether others recognise or sanction one's way of staying happy. How difficult is such simple element to register in one's brain!