Happiness and meaning. Sometimes they run concurrently like tributaries flowing to the same river. Other times it’s a decision: choose one from the vending machine of your unscheduled afternoon. We bend the arc of our lives towards potential significance. But it isn’t always fun. Sometimes we sink into our own meaningful muck. We become symbols of ourselves, radiating outwardly from a cracked, hollow core.
Change up. Depart from this world of meaning, of selfless giving. Enter inwards and feed the selfish hedon. Cookies and beer. Cookies and beer. Cookies and beer. Rapaciously gnawing at the prospect of a passing bliss. I shall not be ashamed of this.
There lies a gaping space between these dichotomous poles. Why is it one or the other? Which one should you choose? Which will deliver you to an infallible fate? I want that one, ooh yes. Lick your lips with the sugary sweetness of security. Bite down on an enormous wad of cash. Use it to buy all the cookies you want.
I dance amongst capricious blips of meaning, ephemeral moments of bliss. Option 1: Cookies, bubble baths, Seinfeld reruns. 2: Teach bassoon lessons. Write a book. I flit like a firefly between them. I hover in the interstices of impasse. I freeze like a 7th grader on a Sunday at midnight with a big science project due and severe ADHD. The options are too many, too great. Choose wisely, it’s either/or.
You don’t get anywhere by thinking it through. No, if that were the case we would have figured it out already. I think it comes in spittles, in spurts, while you were out walking in the rain. It falls fitfully, splatters briefly, and then dries onto the top of your bare head.
read also
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/
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