Happiness

Would you rather be tormented, but creative and productive, or happy, but borderline boring?

Happiness. Big word.

A few people in the past weeks said that I look happy. Two reactions: incredulity (I have been feeling quite ill, so not really on top of the world) and terror. Of something catastrophic about to happen to wipe out my presumed bliss.

Truth is, although we all strive for happiness, once we reach it the risk is to become complacent. Or paranoid. Fear of change. The desperate maintenance of the status quo.

Research shows that happy people are more successful, better looking and longer living. On the other hand, neurotics are likely to die young. Great.

I just wonder if the linchpin is in the search, in the creation of goals. Positive, happy goals. To be able to enjoy the actual journey, not the destination. To reach a state of inner contentment that allows you to centre when things go tits up.

Imagine a stable equilibrium: when it is disturbed, it spontaneously restores itself, like a golf ball flicked out of its hole that rolls down the slope and back in position. We can't stop shit from happening and we can't sit at the bottom of the hole, eyes and ears shut, hoping never to be disturbed. But we can work on building that pull, that anchor, that stability that allows us to be happy and yet moving.

I am not making much sense, am I? Blame my presumed happiness for it.