Happiness is a Warm Gnu

I am not happy, at the moment. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, which means that winters are difficult, and I slowly become more morose as the months progress. It's worse if I don't get exercise, and in a city plagued by horrible pollution, exercising is a challenge. I can't walk or run outside, and I don't have equipment, space, or funds for inside exercise. I have lots of excuses. A plethora.

But being outside happiness, I have an interesting perspective of what it used to be, and it never was what I think people think it should be.

I remember being told that feeling happy means smiling. "If you're happy, and you know it, then your face will surely show it," right? Sure, everyone's affect is always 100% descriptive. I believe in microexpressions, but they're called "micro" for a reason. They're moments of pure truth in your face, and they last milliseconds. So just because I wasn't as effusive as a cheerleader, doesn't mean I wasn't ready to go, fight, win. I grit my teeth, sometimes, and just "put my shoulder to the wheel," and work makes me happy, even if it doesn't leave me breath for whistling.

Happiness is seeing the "glass half full," right? But are those the only options? Half full or half empty? If somebody hits your car in our annual auto-derby (that would be I15 during and after freezing rain), it's a complex situation, and not necessarily divisible into water and air. Or scotch and rocks. It will cost hundreds of dollars to repair the damage. This can be a hardship. Why pretend that it's easy? Why not see the non-ingestible as well as the delicious? I see some dangers, great or negligible I can't tell, in putting on too brave a face, in convincing ourself to adore destruction. Life is a challenge. I think it should be challenging. I think when we see our obstacles for what they are, then we can more honestly rejoice in our triumphs, and feel gratitude for our deliverance.

The Lord allows, creates, encourages opposition in all things. To decide, and to learn, we must experience a contrast (consciously rejecting Eisenstein right now. . .)

Do we think we're supposed to sing? Sometimes I sing folk ballads about war. Sometimes I sing sacrament hymns. Plot requires conflict. Pride goeth before a fall.

The glass is never half-full. Every life is full of moments - overflowing with them - from birth to death. Even the vacuum of space has a name, a color, a purpose (and lots of other stuff in it that we used to think wasn't there). The vacuum of space has space, and a life has SO much more than that! A heartbeat, however faint, an argument, a car crash, depression, anger, pain, faith, patience, love, forgetfulness, comedy, tragedy, entertainment, boredom, holocaust cloaks, wheelbarrows. . . these things fill our lives, pouring in and spilling out. People who imagine that any glass is half empty are truly cynical in a way I don't understand.

They probably call me a pessimist because I point out flaws in things. I like to take things apart and see how they work. I see no value in pretending that something is perfect, but I see just as little value in a thing that is perfect. It's how I love people. Perfection doesn't garner selfless loyalty. We imperfectly return God's perfect love, but He continues to fight a battle for our loyalty that is continually lost. Some of us can't force ourselves to attend church once a week, but wouldn't dare miss the next episode of The Walking Dead. We watched Doctor Who faithfully for fifty years because part of us is proud to love shaky sets, and glib, british humor. God will win, but He's at a terrible disadvantage. He isn't any kind of underdog.

So what does happiness look like? Happiness isn't an appearance at all. Happiness is a hungry part of our soul, like the potted plant on the windowsill. It requires care, but it can weather nighttimes too. And you're not the potted-plant police, so if my little ivy is a little brown, don't tell me my house is ugly, try dropping by with a watering bucket. You might find things a little greener once you've hopped the fence.

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