So - you've been warned.
The year draws to a close and I am surprised as I listen to the pundits and the news-makers talk about what a terrible year it has been. This comes as a bit of a shock to me. This has been an awesome year for me. And that is what really blows my mind. That I can sit here and type, "this has been an awesome year," without a hint of sarcasm or bitterness.
The other oddity about this positive outlook is it is missing a key component: Fear. In the past I have experienced "happiness." I've written about this phenomenon. They've lasted up to 2-3 hours at a time. And as anyone who knows me can tell you, these periods that lacked my typical anger or disappointment were uniformly accompanied by fear. Sometimes even terror. One reason for the fear was simple. This "happy" thing was a new, unfamiliar feeling. It confused me with its foreignness. Anger has a certain comfortable familiarity because when I am angry I know what to do, how to act, how to express it. Happy? What does happy do? Happy is flowers and skipping and smiling like a lunatic. All the time. That certainly sounds horrifying to me. Besides, didn't those great philosopher-artists the Dead Milkmen write a musical thesis titled, "Meaningless Upbeat Happy Song" in which they state:
|
Don't trust the happy; the happy are insane. |
