Happiness

I told someone recently that it's easier to write when I'm not 'happy'... a better writer when I'm alone. Melancholy. Pensive...

It was pointed out to me, that I'm not any less of a writer when I'm happy. 
So perhaps, I just don't feel comfortable writing about happiness.

But why? I ask.

Because... maybe, I'm afraid that writing about such an elusive idea is dangerous. Happiness threatens to disappear just when you seem to have a firm grasp of it. With a ransom note.

If I write, I write to understand. But what if I don't want to understand why I'm happy, the source of happiness. Blissfully unaware. Is still blissful.

Poets, dream of it.

Professors, can't teach it.

Philosophers, struggle with it.
Politicians, prey on it -- sell it.

People, claim it as rightly theirs.

Entitled, privileged, unalienable right.

I don't think I'm comfortable with the idea that I'm happy. The asymptote of a curve... tangent at infinity? Or are they constantly just a breath away, approaching each other...as both reach for infinity? None, willing to make that first step. To reach over the line, to shake. In a truce. Unable to attain or live without. Find common ground. A necessary evil in one another. The air that's needed. Breath. Breathe.

Because... maybe, when I write, I write to better understand my emotions at that moment. To rid, relieve myself of that flash. Of inspiration which is usually borne out of reflection, introspection. 

But would I want to shed myself of happiness? Does it become less? Once written down. Or am I aware that I cannot capture it in words. Nor claim that I can even touch it.

Because... maybe, I'm afraid of discovering I'm not actually happy. 

I don't know if I want to know if I'm not happy. Wouldn't I know? I don't want to spend time understanding a concept that might dissolve as soon as it resurfaces.

Because... maybe, it's easier to admit when you're angry, frustrated, lonely, depressed in writing. Writing to cleanse, to rehabilitate, as a form of therapy. Because if you write, you take control, and command. Master.  Overcome what would have overwhelmed.

Channel your energy into more positive outlets -- that's what they tell you to do. But why aren't we encouraged to write -- even when we're happy? You're sad? Write it down. You're happy? Silence.

Because... maybe, I'm afraid of being happy. As opposed to being at peace. Happiness is a much more capricious concept. She sways in front of you, enticing. 

Would you take the hand of a temptress?

Because... maybe, I don't know if feeling happiness is true happiness.

We wrestle with this idea.

If it comes too easily, then it can disappear just as easily. If it doesn't come easily, then it wasn't meant to be. Happiness should come easily...? Because it's natural? Is it? Isn't it?


Do we need to understand what happiness is to us?
Or can I live with happiness without understanding it?

So perhaps, I just don't feel comfortable writing about my happiness.

Pen to paper, late night ravings of an insomniac.