Two things, lately.
One, the inauguration and oh, how it's made me happy. Seeing the vast swell of people who revel in the end of the last eight years, sharing the optimism and excitement for the first time. I live in Eugene, so there's no shortage of nay-sayers and elderly hippie crackpots who would like nothing better than to tear it apart and find fault because he's not
precisely what they want, which is themselves, and who's ever going to run themself for president...despite that (or perhaps, in spite of it...yes, there's a difference) I'll take the tack that anything would be an improvement, and this particular anything's closer to my heart than anyone's ever been. So many new people running things, so few bland old white rich plush faces. For that alone, I'll be thrilled.
Two, I just finished
The Fountainhead, and I can say authoritatively that Ayn Rand was an asshole. Whole book full of symbolic characters, not a human being to be had. Line after line of dialogue that no actual person would
ever have let come out of their mouth, and all against the pompous half-baked pseudo-significant metaphorical backdrop of modern American
architecture? Woman was an
asshole.
The contrast between, the new
POTUS calling for service and sacrifice to the nation, invoking the
good of the many as worth pursuing, giving to the whole as good. That shit drove Ayn Rand
crazy-she fled the Soviet Union, came to America and wrote during the New Deal. I feel like her whole philosophy, her whole bit in The Fountainhead is a rejection of that time and place. It's an antithesis, not its own idea. One more reason it's bullshit (there's lots).
It pleased me to read a book that's so important, so relevant to a certain
school of thought. It pleased me to hate it, to find it vapid and find fault with it. To have it resonate and compel me, to need to finish it...and then be able to dismiss it so thoroughly. I have my own thing, my own bit going, and while there are parts of The Fountainhead that appeal to me (and I imagine, are meant to appeal to anyone) it's so narrow and bigoted, so
wrong to me on any number of levels that I feel a great vindication, a triumph at rejecting it.
And that's not good...I'm looking to avoid triumph and vindication. For my own reasons, which I hope I can make more clear.
I wrote that last
post in all earnestness, hoped to glean some thoughts from the rest of you as to the nature and the origins of your happiness. I didn't speak to you of mine, which is backwards, and inside out. My moebius failures. But here we are, you and I, and I have nothing but time and things to say. I hope you have the time to hear me out-I have a feeling this will take a minute.
People are what make me happy. Not in and of themselves, mind you, and that's one thing about The Fountainhead that really resonated with me. The main character, Howard Roark, is held up to be some sort of
ubermensch, a pure man who leads his life entirely for himself, without needing other people. He refuses to base his choices on the desires of others, and rails against people he calls "second-handers", those among the majority who make choices based on what everyone else thinks is right. I should lead my life according to what I believe, not based on what will be popular or comfortable or normative. It's an appealing conceit, and one I agree with totally.
I want to be happy. That's a revalation for me, saying it so starkly and unequivocally. There are things in life I enjoy or desire, moment to moment. But what I really
want is to be happy. That doesn't mean doing or getting what I want all the time, that doesn't mean pleasure or comfort or respect or love or money...or hope. It doesn't mean I'm not sad, that I'm never angry, that I don't suffer. It doesn't mean anything will ever turn out the way I think it will, that I can expect anything.
Maybe I can't define it, but I know how it feels. I know the signs-I feel powerful in a way I never have before, feel capable of anything, undaunted. I am rarely afraid. Even when I'm nervous or stressed or faced with the significant, I'm not afraid.
It is very good, being me. Every day. And so, I'm happy.
It's odd, because from an objective (pun intended) perspective, I feel like I lead this squalid, small life. I make terrible money, do hard/wet/cold work. I'm old, uneducated, stagnant, unattractive, poor, felonious, in debt, single. Hopeless, hapless, feckless, restless...from the outside, quantatatively my life is nothing like what I suppose it should be, what so much of the world tells me it should be.
But I'm still happy, and when I think about how I focused and strived to lead a life I thought I should, one that revolved around controling my life in an attempt to be what
I thought I should be...that control was what made me unhappy. Needing to be right, needing to be in charge. Feeling as though my life needed to look like something specific, and never getting what I thought I wanted, whether it be practical and concrete, or more abstract...like people.
Happiness is less for me about what I do to achieve it, than avoiding those things that stand in its way (goddammit, one of you gave me the
Tao Te Ching for my birthday. You know who you are). If I want to lead a happy life, I will cultivate those relationships that make me happy. It is difficult, in my experience, to have relationships with people when you're trying to control them.
I have to be both conscious of how I do things and why I do them-I must be accountable to be critical of my own life. If I lie to myself, I will lie to others, try to present them with an image that I think they want to see. I must be sensitive to the feelings of others and aware of my motivations in order to make choices that counter the beliefs I have that make me unhappy. I need to win, need to be right, to be liked, to be taken care of. I feel as though I have the
beliefs of a child, and it's only as an adult that I can really be happy.
If I judge someone, then I will treat them differently because I have judged them. If I lie to someone, I control what they know. If I know what's good for others, I ignore their right to choose something else. If I am right, then I have to make someone else be wrong. If I hurt someone to get what I want, even if
I feel justified, I've still hurt them.
I may get what I want by doing these things, in the short term. Ultimately, though, all of these things get in the way of the people in my life, and thus, obstruct my being happy.
Don't get me wrong (I can see this coming up later). I hardly think that I'm pulling this off. I don't feel as if I'm better, as if I'm fixed. I make my own
unhappiness all the time, but I know that it's mine, not anyone else's. And I think about this stuff
every day. All the goddamn time. I feel as though that helps.
It is my relationships with others, knowing and being known, trusting and being trusted by other human beings that are the source of my happiness. My loves and friendships and community are the finest things I've ever done, the best and brightest things in my life. Maybe I won't do what's best for the rest of you, but it's because I don't think I should wander around pretending to know what's best for the rest of you. Y'all are adults-you know what you're doing. You get the chance, you should tell me about it(what you're doing, I mean)-I can guarantee that I'll care, and I'll have something to say back.
