The Pursuit of Happiness
Can happiness be pursued? And what are we supposed to do with it once we catch it?
They say that Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth. While it seems a nice enough vacation place, would any of us be eternally happy there? While life and liberty may be inalienable rights, all we are promised is the pursuit not the obtaining of happiness. The pursuit may be a right, but the actuality is merely a privilege. The truth of the matter is, one person's happiness may be another person's misery. Take for example children; they can simultaneously be the source of happiness and endless grief.
What are we looking for in the notion of happiness and should it even be pursued? And once it is obtained should it be shared, distributed, sold? It seems happiness is a lot like pornography, difficult to define but you know it when you see it.
February 9, 2008. 15 min.
July 8, 2006 (8 min)
Back home, the familiar surroundings are a comfort. After a frenzied day of an overstimulated world, agendas are everywhere. It is easy to be sucked up into their elegant world of desire. The urge to buy bumper stickers and buttons, to take an oath. But in the quiet I can breathe again, let my pores soak in the silence, my heart beat slows. Here at home amomg the peaceful onces, I understand the vastness of the Universe, the comfort of being a simple grain of sand on the expansive beach.
A new era for Writing From the Heart. In addition to our bimonthly meetings at BookPeople, we now have the opportunity (thanks to Michael A) to share via this blog. And no time limits!
Why do I write? Why do I collect words like broken seashells scattered in the sand? I have buckets of them. Why do I breathe, eat swallow and shit words as if language alone could sustain me? Why do I read with a ravenous appetite, demand that books be my companions and search for their discarded carcasses in driveway garage sales and from the "last chance" bin at the Barnes and Nobel and Borders. A book, dog-earred, highlighted yellow, read over and over is the best kind of friend. I stack them like a squirrel gathering nuts for the long cold winder. I believe in the power of story- that the essence of all humanity is in the shared story. Whether we are gathered around campfires or computer screens, the need to proclaim our existence is as primal as sex. And regardless of the end: man made or heaven sent, the few survivors, those able to emerge from the dust, will come together and first tell their stories. And so timidly, I step into the bloggishere, a passive reader, willing to say, "over here, me too, I have something to say.
