Shouts From Down Under

All you need is happiness? Oh Really? Happiness at any cost?

I spotted a tweet on Twitter (funny thing that), a meme used on a photo of the Delhi Lama.

"The purpose of our lives is to be happy." (lifehack quotes)

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I'm here to say this.

If I thought THE purpose, the only purpose, in life was to be happy, I would be a sad man indeed.
Perhaps being happy in a general sense works up to a point, and I'm not pulling down people's dreams, or being cynical, or a party pooper. But...purpose...happy?

People seem to worship this idea. About the same amount as they avoid any sort of exposure of them, or their children, to death.

Why is that?

It's like being a writer, but fencing off any concept of conflict, or romance, or having heroes or heroines.
It's like recommending aircraft as a way to travel, but censoring the fact that they sometimes crash.
We might get away with it for a time, but there's a reality coming down the line, and either we'll come face to face with it, or someone we know. It may just be in the news - happened to a stranger.

Death is like a swear word these days, to some folks. Worse than saying the word sex, or Woah! Talking about it. I really don't want to alienate more people here, and elsewhere, than I evidently already have. Or do I really care?

We all do it. Eventually. Nobody leaves this realm any other way. Even Christ died. So did Lazarus. (I'm not sure about Enoch, but let's not get too tangled up here )

Yes, I do care. But I'll still carefully gently persist with writing my reasonably true thoughts. Don't you just love weak descriptive writing? Or should it be called non-descriptive? Should it be called a form of cowardice? To avoid or forbid some subjects? To smooth things out so that effectively there is no meaning, no waves, no understanding, no reality, and...so you don't have to "man up" and answer awkward questions because someone realised there was something new they didn't understand.

I think there is a time and place. But some things need to be talked about, or at least, not avoided when questions come up. Or...when people happen to mention it. I understand that parents want to choose for themselves when they tell their children some things. Seems fair. Or does it? Why not let life, and chance, and reality, choose? Or why not let things happen that could be prevented, yet set up a person for abject failure at a later date. Embarrassing, humiliating, potentially dangerous failure.

But that's just my thoughts on it. I don't like to be told off for something I say, advised I shouldn't have said it, just to keep something hidden from someone else. I don't like to be made feel dirty, or second rate, or naughty, when that was the furthest from my mind.
Yes. There are times when this (keeping some information from someone) is prudent. No doubt. And perhaps I'm just being one of those terms I heard recently. Perhaps I'm being a "sniffle bitch".

Perhaps I should just get on with this blog.

Happiness isn't, or shouldn't be, our only, or first priority, purpose in life.

There might be an easier way, in life's tasks, goals, motivators, purpose, but is happiness the best way; the best answer, the best purpose, the wisest purpose?

I heard a story of parents on a train. Dad had his head behind a newspaper. Mum was doing whatever, probably reading. Johnny was fidgeting. After a time, his mum murmured, "Johnny. Do be a dear and leave that alone."
She said it again after a few minutes. "Johnny. Leave it alone please."
"Johnny. Listen to me. Stop doing that." and "Johnny. Don't do that. Leave it alone, now!"

Dad had been clearing his throat between comments. He finally exclaims in distracted frustration, still valiantly striving to read.

"Oh Mary- Just let the boy do what he wants. Give him what he wants. Leave him be happy."

So, she did. Johnny delightedly, in great happiness, continued to torment the wasp in his corner of the train carriage, and sure enough. It stung him fair on the nose. There were howls of pain. There was anguish from mum. And Dad was not happy.

Johnny wasn't happy either, now.

Well, I've embellished that story, but all this thinking set me a thinking.

Should we climb the set rungs of tradition, up the ladder of happiness?

Is happiness at the top of our life-purpose ladder?

Is it spiritual?



Is it status?

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Is it censorship?

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Maybe what we aim for, that top rung of the yippee ladder of joy, is physical fitness, or agility? Will we reach our nirvana on a trampoline?

Not always, it seems. I was there. I witnessed this. The participant is OK - uninjured.



Is it dominance people crave? Is that the crowning glory of our significant sequence? Is that our transitional transcendence, the peak, the culmination of our conga career caper? Are we hunters and the hunted?



Are we pots calling the cauldron chrome?



Sparky Quote Warning

In our determination to reach self determination, do we fail to determine, because of discernment of death being detrimental, that by slating those who state the obvious, we derail the consequences of not stating the bleeding obvious? (Shhhh, someone is injured but you mustn't mention it, and whatever you do, don't call an ambulance or get out the bandages or they'll think of possible end result of losing all their life blood)



What if we said our purpose wasn't happiness only, but the peaceful, sustainable, meaningful journey towards being alive, and having the freedom to choose how we do that, what we believe in, and how we approach the end of this existence.

Some people seem to be well on the way to this goal. You can taste, smell, feel, and tell the happiness by how they speak of what they have. Their appreciation of what is provided, their amazement at the richness grown and harvested by their own patient labour, and their satisfaction of fitting in with reality.

I have so much respect for these people Kirsten Dirksen has filmed. I aplaud their humbleness, their quiet measured lifestyle, their helpful free sharing, their attitude. If I knew a way, I'd write them personally, and thank them for their contribution to our world of ordinary, yet extraordinary people.

Their knowledge is priceless. Their experience a mother lode. No wonder people like Kirsten want to immortalise, so to speak, their ideas, opinions, beliefs and what not, online. There may come a day when this sort of information is all we have to use, to live...

...to survive.

"I gravitate towards craftsmanship. You have to find the line between the modern world, and craftsmanship.You can't take forever, but maybe there are some things from the past that can be useful today."



"The idea really, is to use your hands. They haven't invented anything better than these, and a computer isn't going to build your house for you."

How do we connect this to the writing world? Do we refocus and find that just plain old "happiness" has faded a little, been foreshortened, or moved deeper into the field, blurred at the periphery?

Now our awareness is drawn to what can be gathered, what seeds can be planted, what soil can be managed, what fermentation can be stimulated, what cerebral furniture of universal appeal and usefulness can be engineered, out of not much.

By our own two hands.

Sparky