Why does the soul cry? When it’s not being heard? Out of frustration? How do we know it’s crying? Anxiety or physical dis-tress or illness? There are so many questions around how we live our life and what is the optimum path, it’s completely bewildering and overwhelming. And if we don’t ‘live our best life’ does that mean we’re not trying hard enough, that we’re not ‘good enough’?
“WHY” is the only lyric in this track. (It’s not all that obvious either!) But now you know, you’ll hear it. And it’s a recurring human reaction to ask ‘could I be happier? what could I do to be happier? Why after I’ve done those things to make me happy am I feeling detached and weird?’ and ultimately ‘why am I not happy?’
I think it’s interesting and important to unpack what this life enhancing happiness actually is?
Happiness can appear somewhat elusive. We’re encouraged to regard it as the holy grail, so just the thought of failing to experience it can be paralysing. How much happiness is enough? If it’s fleeting how can we make it hang around – SHOULD we even try?) have we failed in our quest and like on a game, are we sent back to try again to succeed?
But to attempt to achieve something it’s helpful to know what it IS.
Google is full of it. Whole books have been written about that one word. Not to mention songs and films. If we are happy we apparently live longer but I know some miserable old gits who’ve pegged it in their nineties and wrought misery on their nearest and dearest for decades. So it doesn’t always follow!
But does happy need to be ‘loud and proud’ and extrovert? Can we be happy quietly, inside and in private? Could a feeling of peace and calm be happiness too? I believe it can.
In researching this I’ve realised that it is very easy to confuse pleasure and happiness. Of course, they are linked but pleasure is more of a physical sensation and happiness is emotional. I believe our society mixes them together to encourage us to be greedy consumers feeding the capitalist fire.
I also found that an ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, believed that the goal of life was happiness, which he modestly regarded as ‘well being’. And that you were in this state if you were free of physical pain (aponia) and free of mental agitation (ataraxia).
Perhaps the ancient Greeks were right all along and perhaps a rethink about what ‘happiness’ means for us might be a helpful place to start.
If we’re told that all someone wants is for us to be happy, do we imagine that we’ve got to go around with an inane grin and effervescent euphoria?! ‘Demonstrably’ happy. If we adopt a more serene view of happiness, that of calm acceptance and an absence of emotional pain, how will they ‘know’ we’re happy?
I think the bar is placed way too high and possibly in the wrong place and the hit, the ‘high’ of happiness is actually pleasure. So how can we appreciate when we’re happy? Sometimes ‘opposites’ can help. We can usually recognise when we’re unhappy. We know when we’re in physical pain but do we appreciate when we’re free of pain? We know when we are hurting emotionally but do we notice when that emotional discomfort is diminished or absent? Maybe our base state is ‘happiness’ after all? With no bells and whistles?
Does that lower the bar for you? Is that more achievable? So perhaps happiness is there in the background more than we realise, and can be a more understated experience, a lack of pain as opposed to a rush of endorphins and ‘happy hormones’.
If we recognise the quiet stillness that might wash over us from time to time and drop the hedonistic and utterly unachievable goal of being upbeat, excited and euphoric all the time, perhaps we can just allow ourselves to ‘be’. That is enough.
As we continue on our journey, and notice that our life is not quite right for us, sense the cry of the soul and start to question, we can start to feel lost, unsure about which direction to take to soothe our troubled soul. Which leads us to track 3.