Last week, I had a truly profound and inspiring conversation with a work colleague. I would say friend although I am not arrogant. The context is possibly needed but it does not matter. Feelings do not always require a context, merely an airing.
So what makes me happy and what would it take to make that state of happiness last for longer than a sweet or bar of chocolate?
It's odd how much time we reflect on issues of happiness. I guess it's because like the meaning of life, it is equally hard to define and rationalise. Indeed, by rationalising happiness, some of the spontaneity vanishes from our lives.
I live my life in fragments. I am tactile, visual and can be stimulated by almost anything. I like people, they are fun to watch and occasionally, infuriating. The agendas we follow in our lives regularly competing with other's agendas. I could use the romantic notion of roads but my perceived roads are marked by potholes, which regularly trip me.
At best, I admire the creativity of others. Everyone is creative as I continually argue, it's just necessary to identify what form that creativity takes. For me, the person who writes a book is as important as the person who is a dab hand with wallpaper and paste. Also I do not distinguish between the creativity of children and adults. I have read a number of emotionally resonant poems by children, which have touched me more than those written by the more haggard and careworn adults who knock out a poem a day sometimes to perpetuate a sense of self defeat. Another aspect of children that I really like to observe (I don't have children) so my observations are limited to the fun language games they play with each other and their parents etc on public transport. They love repetition and the sounds of words. In fact, nine out of ten times, their parents or guardians will tell them to shut up after about five minutes and two hundred slightly different vocalisations of the same word. Children are far more creative than adults. Their imaginations less defined by society's codes and the growing sense of self-censorship that creeps up as we get older.
I am truly happiest when I am with people who stimulate me. Sometimes, it's just their work i.e. I enjoy reading and the process of exploring ideas in rational and irrational ways is quite a thrill.
I like to surprise others. This can be achieved in many ways but I am saddened that some people do not like surprises. They prefer their self-ordained patterns. Our lives are constantly fractured or expanded through change, so being frightened of surprises is going against the essential truth of the human condition.
I enjoy the silence of being. The acute olfactory sensations in a park or garden. Admiring the colours, seeing the insects as they perform their highly elaborate routines. Have you even considered the day to day lives of ants and spiders? If not, go and take a look. Forget going to art galleries, spiders are the true artists creating highly intricate works of art to capture food. Functional art taken to its logical extreme. Ants following highly ritualised daily chores regularly reusing the corpses and detritus of a wasteful culture to furnish their nests and to flatter their queen.
I seek love but it eludes me. I think I have long since reached the point where I know that it will never happen. It sounds negative but so long as my single life provides me with a degree of freedom perhaps, that is enough? I lie to myself but it's easier to smile when you kid yourself sometimes.
In the last couple of weeks, I have encountered things of great beauty, the photo of an ex work colleague holding her brother's child, pictures of happily married couples, a semi decent salmon sandwich. Most importantly, profound words from intelligent, sensitive people.
What makes me happy? You do, you who have wasted some of your valuable life reading this opening into another life you may hardly know. I thank you.
Barry Watt - 10th July 2013
Lovely Barry x
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