The Pursuit of Happiness

Should we pursue happiness?

I watched a very witty graduation speech by an Australian comedian called Tim Minchin.  In it, he listed the 9 principles that he thought one should live their life by:

1. You don't have to have a dream.

2. Don't seek happiness.

3. Remember, it's all luck.

4. Exercise.

5. Be hard on your opinions.

6. Be a teacher.

7. Define yourself by what you love.

8. Respect people with less power than you.

9. Don't rush.

The one that caught my eye the most was Don’t seek happiness.  This interested me in its diametric opposition to the American 'ideal' which we know as ‘The Pursuit of Happiness.'

‘The Pursuit of Happiness' is a principle, an ideal that I have admired without reservation in the past.  This is probably because other sets of ideals and principles set out by nation states were always ‘weighty’ and of very 'high' morality and worthiness.  Witness similar initial stipulations proposed by post revolutionary France, and the Marxist inspired protocols of Russia, USA's future cold war enemy (in its incarnation as the USSR).  If there was an argument for America as a more attractive destination for those seeking a new life, I thought to myself, surely then this "Happiness clause" was it?
 
John Lennon, of course, famously got in trouble at school for answering the question "what do you want to be when you grow up" with the answer "to be happy".

On the other hand the legendary motor racing driver Niki Lauda, declared that "happiness is the enemy".  Who is right, I wonder?

The answer, possibly, lies between the urge to 'act' and the contentment to simply 'be'.  Should we try to change the world or should we be content to simply wonder at it?  There's your existential conundrum for the day.

The Gamut of Emotions

Gamut?!  Gamut?!  What kind of stupid word is that anyway?  Can't we just say range?!  Anyway...  let's take a look at my handy gamutometor of emotion...

Note that madness lies both above ecstasy, below despair and off the scale at either end of the gamutometer.  Now, considering madness goes hand in hand with genius, we must logically conclude that one must ride a wave of intense emotion in order to express whatever world changing idea is in one's genius's locker.  And it's okay Mr Spock, you can still be a genius despite your emotion free outlook.  You're half alien.

Ever Changing Moods

I have generally spent life at the mercy of mood swings.  The lyric "I'm up and down like a bride's nightie, I'm up and down and I don't know why, ooh, I'm happy and then I'm blue" has applied to me almost constantly.  I've learned that when you're up, accept the situation and be grateful, and that when you're down, it can sometimes be useful to locate the source of your despondency, as you may be able to correct the situation and cheer yourself up. 

Of course sometimes there is no real reason for your funk.  You're trapped inside the ageing skin of a mortal human that is hurtling through an endless uncaring cosmos on a mote of dust.  You could fill this vacuum inside you with gratuitous eating, sex, violence or blog writing.  Or you could simply appreciate the notion that if this is the worst quandary on your mind, you're probably not trapped in a famine, a natural disaster or a war zone.

Or you could get out there and pursue some happiness...

 

Autumn Haikus

Fields of aged gold

Boughs hang heavy with ripened fruit

Shimmering Cider

The year grows old

Leaves blown by the wind

Golden rainfall

The rolling fields

Fade into a mist shrouded horizon

Dark ocean of trees

The seasons turn

Cold bites the wind blowing from the North

Jacket required

Chill touches spine

Voices from ages gone whisper haunted imprecations

Costumed carnival

Young eyes sparkling

Domestic explosive detonates among the stars

Sacrificial straw man

Equinox to Solstice

Advancing nights herald Winter's Onset

Cyclic beauty

The Ghost in the Machine - Or Where Are We Going, Part 2

Our lives are increasingly being lived virtually.  As well as a literal, we also leave an electronic footprint.  In the younger generation this dual life is even more strongly realised.

For those of us who have taken part in the internet revolution, it feels strange to think that moving forward there are two versions of yourself - the 'real' you, and the virtual you.  Sometimes I think of the 'virtual me' that I have left as a computerised echo across the World Wide Web.  In my virtual life, I have taken part in many conversations and debates online.  I've shot the breeze, reacted to the issues of the day, told stories, argued, joked around, played my favourite music, lost my temper, made friends, made enemies and flirted. 

Indeed, if the diaries of such as Samuel Pepys have caused such fascination with their snapshots of 17th century life in London, what will it be like for future generations to look back at us?  As the first 'cyber generation', I would imagine that we will have a certain hold over the imagination by default.

If future generations chose, and as technology advances, I would imagine they would be able to make a perfectly serviceable facsimile of my virtual self, warts and all, that they would be able to interact with if that was their fancy.  For all I know I may have just given one of my descendents that very idea! I can only hope that my simulacrum will offer a modicum of entertainment.

We have seen films such as The Matrix, Total Recall and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (among many, many other movies and books) play with the idea of living in an artificially constructed world, and now we stand at the shoreline of that virtual universe, and the watermark is slowly rising as we witness the digitization of existence.

I wrote Where Are We Going part 1 some thirteen or fourteen years ago for a website I hosted that has long been consigned to the virtual dustbin (thank you AOL).  In this blog I speculated that one day the last 'physical' human would download themselves into a Universe contained within a subatomic cube that would then be cast adrift and float through the cosmos (if it was small enough it perhaps could  even survive the theoretical Heat Death of the Universe, thus granting us immortality).  When I look around I see we are well on course for that possible future.

I can imagine the horrified thoughts that may be coursing through the mind of a reader as they contemplate this future, trapped in a pseudo reality where you will never feel the wind upon your face or watch a sunrise and stuff like that - but the way I look at it as long as uncontrolled human interactions remain a part of your world, there will always be something there to stop you getting bored.  Besides which life, and how it is lived by that time, will have evolved to such an extent we can't know or judge what those cats will be finding groovy.

And if they get that bored they can always talk to my ghost!

Once More With Feeling - Or A Moan About Writer's Block

I've always envied those that can create prolifically.  Creatively I'm what in football terms is called a 'confidence player'.  i.e. a player for which certain things, psychological and sometimes physical, have to be in place before they can produce (including the famous 'arm round the shoulder', which is usually provided by the manager/coach, and accompanied by words that will indulge the confidence player's ego).

Of course, writing is not football, and it's very difficult to define what those 'certain things' might be, in creative terms, unfortunately.  For myself, engendering creativity is almost like an engine that needs a different combination of actions applied to it every time before it will 'kick start' (there's kind of an idea in there already I guess...).  The good news is that once it belches out an idea, and that light bulb clicks on, I feel compelled to scribble down whatever it's told me I should be writing about.

One day, perhaps, science will derive the mathematical formula that is behind the human creative spark.  I have mixed feelings about this prospect.  On the one hand harnessing this force could give us a very powerful tool in the advancement of knowledge and all kinds of progress.  On the other hand, would it make us any more ethical, any more moral?  At the worst I suppose it could speed us down the road to extinction as we come up with ever more creative methods of destruction.

The other reservation I have about the 'mathematical formula of creativity' is just the feeling that some mysteries should remain mysteries.  There is nothing logical I can give to justify this feeling, other than a need to believe that there is still some magic in the Universe.

Getting back to what (to the best of my knowledge) inspires me to write, I would say vision and feeling.  A vision comes to you, and it is accompanied by the feeling that the vision gives to you.  Recently, I collaborated on plotting a story based upon this picture:

The person who collaborated with me suggested that although I was making plenty of suggestions as to the concepts and the course of the story, I wasn't putting much 'feeling' into it.  At the time I did kind of dismiss the criticism as a bit girly (hope my collaborator doesn't mind me putting it in those terms if she's reading...) but upon reflection I find the criticism may have been valid.  I suppose it was down to the affect that the picture had on me, ultimately.

So is there a 'creative fuel' that can be guaranteed to supply both the 'vision' and the 'feeling'?  For me, there is: music.  Not every piece of music of course.  just certain pieces and at certain times.

And so I'll close this blog with an example of a song that has had precisely this affect, and screamed at me "I am a story waiting to happen".

Will I ever write that story?  Maybe.

If you listen to this song and get a 'vision and a feeling' then you have my commiserations - because there's something in your mind that works in a similar way to mine.

 

Message in a Bottle

What is your #MessageToVoyager ? Post a message or video to .. @NASAVoyager !

Here is the invitation I was given.  Give a message to the human made object that is the furthest away of all the objects that humanity has conspired to engineer.  A message from a fleeting life on the Pale Blue Dot that our Greatest Explorer has left behind, and will never see again.

So here goes:

"Have a great time!  I want photos!  And if you encounter any robotic super races that want to turn you into an unstoppable force of destruction bent on finding your creator, please go in the opposite direction."

All the Best

Jez

That's Me in the Corner - That's Me in the Spotlight...

There's a person I'm connected with on Twitter - you could say this person has an impestuous temperament.  But my Twitter timeline is always livened up by what they have to say.  Today this person, among all the other random 140 character pronouncements, made a declaration.

"I've just had an epiphany.  There is no God."

"That's pretty heavy," I responded.

"I know, right?"

This exhange got me thinking.  It was pretty strange to share such a moment with this person in such a way, and it shows how the world is changing.  Before the dawn of social networking, such an epiphany would have been an intensely personal and private life changing moment.  Now such an utterence is lost among the flow of updates that are announced to the world on a semi-regular basis.

"Went to the shops"

"Fed the cat"

"Rejected the concept of a Universal Creator"

"Listened to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album (it's kicking!)"

"Jim's behaving like a right idiot at the minute"

etc

etc

The question I asked myself is, are we trivialising such moments by letting them escape in the flow of updates, statuses and random musings?  Have they become banal because of this?

I decided the answer was no.  Why?  Because the way these moments come and go is a reflection of the way life is really lived.  We have these thoughts.  We make these decisions, and then we do something else.  Whatever thoughts go through our mind, and whatever happens, when these moments have gone, we carry on.  We just get on with it.

Why? 

Because there's nothing else we can do.

"Remember life is strange
And life keeps getting stranger every day."
Procession, New Order

Exert From the Dream Diary - Part 2

I dreamed I was watching a movie where this guy is fighting some kind of battle in an alternative universe.  You could tell it was another universe by the way the movie was shot in a kind of sepia colour.  Anyway, I believe I enjoyed it, and it had lots of car chases, which is always good.

I was at my parents' house and I stood up and looked out through the front window at the estate where I grew up.

I saw a nuclear explosion.

"Look Vanessa," I said to my little sister, pointing at the nuclear explosion, "it's a nuclear explosion!"

As I spoke the top of the mushroom cloud detached itself from the nuclear explosion and came crashing down into the road outside my parent's house.  It looked like a bunch of giant mushrooms tied together with mud.  "Oh dear," I thought, "radioactive waste.  I'd better tell somebody".

I made my way through to my parents' kitchen where my mother was pottering about.  "Mom", I began to say, "Mom..."  I gave up and headed upstairs towards my bedroom.  On the landing I could see my father pottering about.

Radioactive waste was tearing holes in the roof of the house now, though I seemed to be more worried about that fact that the roof would now leak water when it rained than the fact that the holes were caused by radioactive waste.

But my friends were on their way to pick me up as we were going for a night out, so I walked into my room and opened my wardrobe to pick out an outfit.  I picked this very strange gold, yellow and red silk tunic with a zig zag button fastening pattern, and as I put on the tunic I felt very confident that I would look very smooth in my outfit.

I walked downstairs, looked in the mirror and recoiled in horror, as I realised the tunic did in fact make me look like Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon.

I stomped back upstairs to find there was some guy sitting cross legged in my room.  He was burning joss sticks and rolling a joint, and I appreciated the fact that the burning incense warmed the room and compensated for the holes in the roof that had been torn open by the radioactive waste.

"Look at this outfit," I said to him in a dismayed tone, "it's not me at all!"

The guy looked me up and down and agreed.  "Someone's taken you for a right mug, pal!" he said in a heavy welsh accent.