The Happiness Project
I'm interested in happiness.
I mean, everyone is, I guess[1]. But I've been reading discussions like this, and this, and this. And I was thinking about the cheese and pickled onion sandwich.
The thing about the cheese and pickled onion sandwich is this: provided it is the right cheese and pickled onion sandwich (that is to say one with crispy white bread, big, sour pickled onions, and cheese sufficiently mature enough to come to well-reasoned, sensible decisions about its own tragically brief life), it's a surprisingly good medication. It makes life seem that little bit better. It promotes a feeling of warm comfortableness, of everything being basically OK. I guess this must stem from eating a lot of them at a comfortable, optimistic part of my life (probably when I was in 6th form?). There is a sort of contagiousness to happiness, whether it exists in ones own past or in other people's stories.
I was also thinking about websites which focus on only good news. I have sought them out in the past for the purposes of cheering people up, but they tend to be a bit, well,
"8-year-old boy, who is currently losing his battle with an excruciating, disfiguring form of cancer, goes to Disneyland!",
or
"Crippling recession slightly less bad than thought!",
or
"Study shows survivors of genocide still able to laugh from time to time!",
which tends to leave me feeling a bit depressed, all things considered, and in possible need of a cheering sandwich.
So here's an experiment. Tell me about a time when you were happy. Fiercely, wonderingly, comfortably, paradoxically, disgustingly[2] or miraculously happy. In awe of the awesomeness of the world, or in spite of its incredible suckage. About knowing that life was basically OK, and that the bad stuff didn't matter, and that there were good times still to come. About being secure and loved and welcome. Whatever happens to float your boat. I thought about applying some rules, to stop the risk of it getting all my heart swelled with the fierce joy of revenge as my hands finally closed around my enemy's throat, but on reflection that's part of the whole glorious messy mix, too.
NOTE: this is a public post. However, anonymous (or anonymised) comments are perfectly welcome (like postsecret, but with less pictures and more happy, as it were).
[1] "A vote for me is a vote in favour of happiness, kittens and lining up to punch immigrants in the face", as some of our political worthies might opine.
[2] Happy from a great height, even.
I mean, everyone is, I guess[1]. But I've been reading discussions like this, and this, and this. And I was thinking about the cheese and pickled onion sandwich.
The thing about the cheese and pickled onion sandwich is this: provided it is the right cheese and pickled onion sandwich (that is to say one with crispy white bread, big, sour pickled onions, and cheese sufficiently mature enough to come to well-reasoned, sensible decisions about its own tragically brief life), it's a surprisingly good medication. It makes life seem that little bit better. It promotes a feeling of warm comfortableness, of everything being basically OK. I guess this must stem from eating a lot of them at a comfortable, optimistic part of my life (probably when I was in 6th form?). There is a sort of contagiousness to happiness, whether it exists in ones own past or in other people's stories.
I was also thinking about websites which focus on only good news. I have sought them out in the past for the purposes of cheering people up, but they tend to be a bit, well,
"8-year-old boy, who is currently losing his battle with an excruciating, disfiguring form of cancer, goes to Disneyland!",
or
"Crippling recession slightly less bad than thought!",
or
"Study shows survivors of genocide still able to laugh from time to time!",
which tends to leave me feeling a bit depressed, all things considered, and in possible need of a cheering sandwich.
So here's an experiment. Tell me about a time when you were happy. Fiercely, wonderingly, comfortably, paradoxically, disgustingly[2] or miraculously happy. In awe of the awesomeness of the world, or in spite of its incredible suckage. About knowing that life was basically OK, and that the bad stuff didn't matter, and that there were good times still to come. About being secure and loved and welcome. Whatever happens to float your boat. I thought about applying some rules, to stop the risk of it getting all my heart swelled with the fierce joy of revenge as my hands finally closed around my enemy's throat, but on reflection that's part of the whole glorious messy mix, too.
NOTE: this is a public post. However, anonymous (or anonymised) comments are perfectly welcome (like postsecret, but with less pictures and more happy, as it were).
[1] "A vote for me is a vote in favour of happiness, kittens and lining up to punch immigrants in the face", as some of our political worthies might opine.
[2] Happy from a great height, even.