One Way Ticket

Epilogue

I've dawdled on for too long now about my first world problems and have probably made you hate me more than you did before. However, if I may, I still have one little note I'd like to leave you with.

Though we may indeed just be a living sack of blood and flesh surviving on a floating lump of rock and water in space and life can often seem pointless and arbitrary, the point is, we are here. We exist. We are alive and living. But we only have this one short life to live, so we can't just sit around like blobs complaining. We might as well make the most out of this life and be as happy as possible as often as possible to make this time worthwhile. Albeit, life is and does need to be a rollercoaster sometimes. It would be harder to appreciate happiness if we are happy all the time because we won't know what it's like to not be. Then again if you're never sad, then you are literally happy all the time, so what would be the problem? Still, imagining this concept makes the idea of eternal happiness seem somewhat boring and sad (but of course if you're actually in a state of eternal happiness then it, by definition, can never be boring, unless boredom makes you happy). Does that make sense?

My personal philosophy has brought me to a conclusion that deems there to be, though not strictly or limited to, two kinds of happiness. The first is the things that make you naturally happy, that cause that release of serotonin and form a smile on your face automatically when we are made aware of them (which oftentimes are everywhere and all around us - we're just not always that good at seeing them). These are not necessarily constant throughout one's life and are pretty fluid and sometimes unpredictable. This can include things like going home, or strawberry ice cream - I didn't choose to like strawberry ice cream, that's just where I currently find happiness (or rather, where happines finds me)  as who I am right now. The second type is the fake-it-til-you-make-it, see-the-brighter-side-of-every-situation, optimistic kind of happiness, where everything seems to be crap based on the lack of "Natural Happiness Inducers", but still we convince ourselves: s'alllll good -vanilla ice cream is still ice cream, I can make myself enjoy this! Now obviously this doesn't work all the time, just like, for example, pain whilst sawing off a foot can't generally be solved by a mind-over-matter mentality.

Sometimes the two types of happiness can even blend - now I can't tell if vanilla ice cream is an NHI or if I've just done a real good job manipulating my brain by attaching positive thoughts to eating vanilla ice cream. But with both types of happiness, you gotta do something on your part to actually allow them into your life; happiness can't find you if you hide from it, and you can't see the brighter side of things if your back is turned to the Sun. I have to admit and be honest though, that personally, I do prefer the first type - there is just something about the second type that makes it seem like a fake and forced kind of happiness. I don't think I want to be completely happy all the time because I am forcing myself to be - I don't want to be happy for the sake of being happy because as I said, it seems boring, and somewhat undermines the beauty of true, natural, happiness that isn't simply contrived. Sometimes we just have to let ourselves feel. Anything and everything. It's okay to not be happy, to not be content. Because without discontent, there is no change. Without change, how can the world ever progress? What if sixty years ago Rosa Parks decided "Oh I'll just sit here in the back as always, at least I have a seat." ? Or If José Rizal thought "Nah, we don't need freedom. At least we're all still alive, for now"? Sure, a bunch of people shoot him for standing up for what he believes in and he dies in the end, but our lives all end at some point; it's just that some people decided not to just sit down and settle. If Rosa Parks, José Rizal, The Suffragettes, Nelson Mandela and the likes had all been content, we'd probably be living in a world where not everyone has the right to a vote, where we don't have independence as a country, where people get to own other people and some old straight white guy controls which people deserve what kind of life. Oh wait, that's still happening. Maybe we're all just too content? Guess we'll just be chill with all these wars, crimes, murders, injustices etc. etc. then. At least we're not the ones being murdered eh. =/