On Happiness
By: Tamara Clark
Tags: Psychology, Philosophy, Happiness, Art, Positivity

Sometimes I feel like I cannot omit myself at all

Like there are clots in my bloodstream

Like my pores are blocked with thick sludge.

Sometimes my brain feels like it’s been dropped in sand

like an iPhone

And my neurotransmitters just won’t conduct electricity.

Sometimes my thoughts are so unclean I need a scolding shower

Like my lungs are seeping tar

Like the seams of my veins will only reseal if melted

Sometimes my nails don’t feel strong enough to shovel the decay of indecision

from my skin.

Sometimes I feel the things I never got to say

Like my vocal chords had rusted through

Like my amylase had turned toxic and burnt holes through my face

Sometimes unspoken words bounce around my skull

like windows screensavers

And my saliva leaks in thick, claggy streams from my pried jaws.



There are times I am unhappy.

***

I have always thought of very broad, blanket desires when tossing coins into wishing wells. “I wish to be truly happy, one day… I wish to be shown true happiness… I wish for those I love to find happiness.” I always hope for the same things. My earliest memory of a wishing well was outside the National Gallery of Victoria, as a child. I was very careful that day, to keep my wish a secret. I tucked it neatly in my mind; under my mousy brown braids and my small red ribbon. That day, I wore my favourite little red swing dress over a snug white skivvy. Winter, 2005. My family had taken me to the Dutch Master’s exhibition. I remember running my hand through the water wall; liquid dancing at my fingertips. I flipped a gold coin into the fountain, scrunched my eyes, shut and wished.

***

Just like Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer and Pieter Brueghel, you are an artist. Your life is art. Your existence is the carefully crafted and refined expression of your experiences, values and beliefs. I think it is important to dismiss the notion that happiness alone is the key to life. As I age, my grasp on what it means to feel alive is evolving. I am dismissing the notion that happiness is the epitome of human existence. We would not have art if we did not open, about our struggles and understandings. Humanity’s greatest romances are not emptily smooth and happy. Shakespeare’s’ greatest works were horror romance and tragedy. We must romanticise our lives; our coffees, our commute to work, each sunset- to avoid a dull mundane. The thought that the fullness of our lives is solely based on how happy we are leaves us with dangerous and unattainable expectations. It’s okay to not be happy. I do not mean romanticise mental unwellness; but to dismiss the notion that happiness is always critical. Obsessively striving for happiness can leave us feeling as though we are doing something wrong or falling short. It seems that we have programmed ourselves into believing emotions other than happiness are personal failures. However, eudemonia does not come from a dilute, lukewarm, “happiness”; it comes from a flourishing life, compiled of moral virtue, practical wisdom, passionate experience and great understanding and the hunger to understand. We have a whole spectrum of emotion to experience. To only strive for happiness is linear and limiting. Would you would want to look at thousands of years’ worth of the same soft lemon coloured painting? Or, would you prefer to consume the intense creations of Vincent Van Gogh and David Foster Wallace? For the same reasons we break away from lullabies, to the work of Beethoven. Non-conformity and unhappiness are quintessential in creating a non-linear masterpiece from our human experience.

“Calm seas may bring you peace, but storms are where you’ll find your power”- Spirit Daughter.

2. If someone was asked to describe me, and the first word that sprung to mind was “nice”, I would be disappointed. Similarly, if the only word that sprung to mind to describe the most important days of my life was “happy”, I would be disappointed. Perhaps, in these cases one would benefit from building a more accurate vocabulary. When I think about the liveliest moments of my time on earth, I think of passion, pride, infatuation, devastation, romance and pain. Looking back on your richest experiences, do you think of earth shuddering concerts, intense romances and your breakthroughs/ accomplishments; does your mouth sting with the memory of homemade ouzo and dancing naked on top of coffee tables? Is your brain branded with a certain humans’ irises and do your ears bleed with the sleepy voice of your loved ones? Or, do you hold most dear the quiet, comfortable nights you spent in bed, watching Netflix and eating the popcorn you ordered from Hoyts on Uber Eats? “Emotion, in my view, is the “awareness of self-in-circumstance,” a condition that helps persons realize their possibilities in situations. Emotions are “constructions” or “productions” assembled and maintained by both physical and symbolic patterns. They reflect different kinds of levels of awareness and, indeed, are built upon the more basic forms of recognizing-and-responding that other creatures have. The different words we use to describe our emotions — and there are hundreds of these — express those levels and subtleties of assessment. Happiness and sadness are not our most basic forms of awareness. Much more fundamental are the feelings that attend acts of “noticing,” perceiving some discrepancy or change in an environment. We live between latitudes of boredom and anxiety and experience feelings like interest and surprise. There are also the feelings that come from “evaluating,” where we apply personally held standards to what we’ve noticed. By those standards — cognitive, moral, aesthetic, and practical — we judge occurrences to be “good” and “bad.” At times, we are content with what is going on; at other times we are dissatisfied, even disgusted. However, these feelings of propriety — or of their opposite, “trouble-sensing”– are not equivalent to happiness.” (Hendrix, T. (2016). The happiness Cult).

Oscar Wilde once said “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

3. Happiness can be synthesised. Synthesised happiness is created when we don’t get what we actually wanted; synthesised happiness is what Ringo Star’s blindsided replacee created when he said he was happier he never got to tour with the Beatles, after they blew up. Similarly, happiness can be manufactured by ripping bongs from a gatorbeuge all day, with a bag of Doritos, in a Frankston South back yard. This addiction to an emotional façade of cheap, artificial and somewhat empty comfortability and happiness can evoke addition to stimulus (or, over stimulus). The modern-day emphasis on the supposed critical nature of happiness encourages false serotonin highs through often antisocial behaviour including drug, alcohol, sex, gambling and social media abuse. However, we rationally value natural happiness over synthesised happiness. Because, happiness alone is not always the measure of a good life. Instead of undergoing a practical journey towards a purposeful and rich life- the over stimulating spectrum of choice and freedom available to us often leads us to building our sense of identity, belonging and livelihood on weak foundations of quick and short-term happiness. If we do not see immediate results of the actions we take in attempts to achieve purpose, we often give up. It is difficult to build a sense of self-importance in our communities if we spend significant portions of our lives in “non-places”. Non-places being a concept developed by the French anthropologist, Marc Auge, to describe spaces of “transience, where humans remain anonymous and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as places”- ie: clubs, work places with high turn overs (some hospitality jobs, call centers, strip clubs etc), gambling facilities and the social media realm. This behaviour of seeking happiness and validation from platforms and places which are not based in communal reality is counterproductive. It is critical to persevere through difficult emotions and situations, in order to progress in ones’ journey towards building own esteem and the sense of worthiness.

4. “Ruthlessness is a surprising bedfellow to scientific success.” (Ross, P. (2013). Isaac Newton: Was He a Jerk Due to Asperger’s?). Let’s talk leadership. Think Gordon Ramsay. Actually, maybe don’t think Gordon Ramsay. Think Winston Churchill: suffered debilitating depression yet one of the greatest leaders and statesmen of all time. Josef Stalin: although a complete megalomaniac, a very powerful leader. There is a trend of anti-happiness in strong leadership and achievement. When you are happy, you are comfortable- so, there is no thirst for further accomplishments. To achieve, you need to sense something was wrong, lacking or not achieved; you need to sense that something needs changing. So, fuck contentment. You cannot feel full, without first feeling hungry. When you are discontent you are uncomfortable; the contrary to happiness; the fuel for hunting. Those who make great changes take the largest steps from comfort to pursue the constant and hopefully unattainable quest towards contentment.

5. “Happiness is a prison… …Happiness is the most insidious prison of all… You’re afraid because you can feel freedom closing in upon you. You’re afraid because freedom is terrifying.” — Alan Moore, V for Vendetta. The admittance of unhappiness is the acknowledgement of your call to action, to believe in and respect yourself. Oftentimes, being bound in an unhappy situation lets us feel a lack of accountability for our own happiness or lack thereof; we delegate the responsibility of our feelings to the situation we feel trapped by. To become aware of your wants and needs can be difficult, as opposed to naively shying away from the elements of your life which are not serving you. Discomfort can therefore be revolutionary. It is imperative on our journey of fulfillment to value and generate original thoughts; to break away from cultural, religious or societal expectations which do not support our best interests. This deranged focus on positive thinking often pushes us away from taking responsibility and control of our lives; the environments we belong to and the choices we make. In this way, happiness can act as a prison; chaining us within the familiarity and one minded direction of what we find mind numbingly comfortable.

6. Freedom is generally more valued on an individual level than short term happiness. I’m sure we have all seen a zombie apocalyptic film- or show, like Westworld- in which all authoritarian structure is abolished and humans run rogue, acting however they primitively desire; murdering, raping and stealing. While I have spent many classes day dreaming about where I would hide in a zombie apocalypse (generally an iron barred portable in Mount Erin’s F block), I hope we never end up in a situation like that. Because, if everyone was able to live out all their dirty, antisocial fantasies in their pursuit for happiness and (the hope of) satisfaction, our society would obviously not function. In civilisation we help each other to function. While I also daydreamed about the joy I would feel in setting fire to my high school, it unfortunately is deemed antisocial, in our society. I would like to say my senses of ethics and morality are why that school is still standing but I feel more so that I did not want to become a convicted and detained arsonist… There are concepts we generally value more than happiness, on an individual level. Yet, as a culture, we compulsively speak of happiness and positivity as though it is the epitome of human experience. We all measure the good of our lives subjectively- because, there are many ways of living a worthy life. Hendrix also explores this in his blog post. Hendrix explains modern day society’s default understanding of happiness is often based around “short term and frequently self-centered fascinations” as opposed to previous generations who grew up more often basing their happiness around their ability to “maintain themselves, their families and their communities.” Hendrix speaks of happiness as a social construct which is highly malleable, in society. We also (generally) make willing sacrifices to said personal happiness, for the betterment and functionality of society.

***

I have always thought of very broad, blanket desires when throwing coins into wishing wells. Always wishing to be happy. And as always, I was very careful on that winter day in 2005, to keep my wish a secret. I tucked it neatly in my mind; under my mousy brown braids and my small red ribbon. I didn’t want to jinx it. But now I want to jinx that wish. For if happiness is all I ever wanted, all these years of growth and craft and evolution would have been a waste and I could have simply continued kicking back with those nacho supreme Doritos in Frankston South (they were good).

***

Sometimes I feel like I cannot omit myself, but

sometimes I feel like I can.

Like there are seeds in my bloodstream

Like my pores are bursting with new growth

Sometimes my brain is an overflowing greenhouse

And my neurotransmitters are an irrigation system

crafted to mechanical perfection

Sometimes my thoughts are so pure they blossom from my eye cavities

so fast I cannot catch all of the petals n my palms

Like my lungs are home to roses

and my heart bleeds creativity, when it brushes their horns

Sometimes when I sit in the sun I feel buttery

like I’m oozing sunflower oil from my skin

Sometimes I package the things I never got to say

in little blueberries

Like my sister and I could throw them at strangers

from a balcony, during sunset



There are times I am happy.

__________________________________________

WORDS: TAMARA CLARK