Monday, February 13, 2012

Here We Go Again

So what is it about this whole happiness thing? Whitney Houston's death got me thinking about this for the 13 millionth time.
So many of the rich and famous who appear to have the world by the balls, end up dying young. By their own hand or their own semi-planned recklessness or a callous disregard for the fragility of life. And in so many of these deaths it is revealed that the individual led a tortured life, lost and alone, hurting beyond their ability to contain it. It is revealed that everyone around them was aware of the pain, concerned but unable to understand it or do anything about it.
The cliche spouters are jumping up, hands raised, shouting pick me, pick me. Gonna lay that money doesn't buy you happiness thing on me.
That, believe me, is a very small part of the puzzle.
Because there are a hell of a lot of poor people and a huge segment of the rapidly vanishing middle class out there who are suffering as well. Suffering like beaten dogs, lost, confused and feeling let down by life.
Pain is a huge part of the human condition. I don't understand why this has to be. But it is, it always has been and it will always be. If rich people suffer, if poor people suffer, if those invisible people in between suffer, what is it about being alive, about being a human that is so unbearable?
Suffering reared its ugly head at the very beginning when life was very hard. But with all the "advancements" we have made over the centuries, all the things in our lives that make life so much easier and comfortable, people still suffer at the same rate.
Even considering advancements in the medical world and psychology and philosophy, all these areas where we understand the human psyche more clearly, we still cannot achieve happiness on a grand scale.
Why not?
I have said before that the "living in the now" stuff, "being grateful for what you have" stuff is just a smoke screen and one more step towards surrender. I think another aspect of that is going about your life outwardly as if you were happy and successful; restaurants, parties, bars; telling yourself you are living large and making the most out of life. Even though you know it is all for show.
Maybe we know too much. We know we are going to die, and maybe that drives us to pursue happiness relentlessly, whether we know it or not, even though we have no working definition of what happiness is.
The concept dominates my thinking. I am empathetic. I see pain all around me all the time and I feel it. I am blown away by the enormity of it. It is even possible for the discriminating reader to intuit unhappiness in my own life, if you read my words carefully and dig the subtle message.
I am a reader. Read anything you like, go back as far as you like, read poetry, novels, essays, plays, philosophical theories and rants and you will see pain. Sometimes raw and open, sometimes hidden in the words.
Listen to the lyrics of music. Same thing. Go as far back as you want and the stories are all the same.
Even classical music. Some is so exquisitely sad it can make you cry without lyrics. Powerful stuff.
How about opera? Give that a shot, see if it cheers you up.
Pain is expressed openly in creativity because in many cases it is inspiration. And because creative types have to speak their pain, they have to air it out. As opposed to us wee folk who puff out our chests and pretend to be tough, when in reality we are more fragile than the most expensive crystal goblet.
Why have we not learned from the pain of every human who came before us? It is well documented, we are all aware of it and yet we can't get past it. Are we that stupid? I have an answer for that but it is a topic for another time and place.
If it is not sheer stupidity, than what is it about unhappiness or about being alive that is impossible for us to figure out?
Better minds than mine have pondered this question, so don't expect any answers from me.
Just join me in incredulity at the sheer enormity of the pain that exists in this world and has always existed in this world.
And wonder why.

No comments:

Post a Comment