How to be unhappily happy

Random thoughts on a paradoxical conundrum

Everyone wants to be ‘happy’ right? Yes, even I would prefer that blessed state to what I am living in at the moment, which could be labeled a post pandemic slump or just plain old pissed off, exhausted, and furious. With the state of the world and my Canadian world in general. The Big Question is, can anyone be ‘happy’ in a country run by a woke, Marxist moron like Trudeau. I have tried, really I have. And failed. I just can’t get past the fact that an erstwhile Democracy elected this guy and millions continue to think well of him. Georgia Meloni in Italy agrees with me:

https://www.toronto99.com/2023/05/20/trudeau-gets-slapped-by-giorgia-meloni-for-falling-victim-to-fake-news/

Who are these people? They are the people who just ‘want to be happy’, live in a tiny self constructed bubble that gives the old saying ‘ignorance is bliss’ a bad name. Once upon a time, this was A-OK. In what we now realize were ‘normal times’ that ended with the pandemic. But let’s get serious for a minute. What exactly do you mean by ‘happiness’ my friend. You see there’s the rub. I think of it as a relaxed state where I am not constantly having to edit what I say to my nearest and dearest, where people in general are not getting whipped into a state of permanent panic about things like ‘Climate Change’, the Economy, more pandemics promised by the WHO, more bad faith coming from our so called leaders, more lies from Big Pharma. Plus, no jokes allowed. Speaking of which, here is an excerpt from Harpers Magazine, summarizing the previous week, May 15 to 20, 2023:

Russia accused three academics who worked on the technology of high treason and barred 500 Americans from the country, including the late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers. China fined a comedy studio nearly $2 million for a joke in which the country’s military were compared to stray dogs. The World Health Organization warned against artificial sweeteners…

I believe the WHO is entirely correct on the subject of artificial sweeteners. If only they were so smart about ‘vaccines’! And it’s no surprise that neither Russia nor China has a sense of humour; it is a continuing surprise to find that we, the erstwhile wonderful West, are heading down that same dark path. Just look around you, say something outrageous and watch what happens. If you can get away without getting cancelled, browbeaten or simply beat up, you’re lucky. Remember, in Canada Laugher is verboten!

And why is that? Because laughter makes people happy, releases tension, makes you feel more kindly towards the person you are laughing with or even at. It is freeing. Go figure. We can’t allow that in the New Normal Reich we find ourselves in. People might get the idea that laughing at oneself and others is a simple fix to overwhelming, soul crushing problems. They may even attempt to collaborate, and solve problems on their own instead of leaving that to the kindly bureaucrats and technocrats we all adore. Who have, after all, created the wonderful world we now live in and insist on doing more of just that.

I regret to inform you but the laughter coming from this corner sounds rather hollow. And when I think about ‘happiness’ a rather famous experiment involving rats and a powerful drug that induces bliss comes to mind. The rats, being rats, just kept pushing the lever that delivered the drug, stopped eating, just kept getting high and eventually, dropped dead of happiness. Raising the question of are we lab rats or are we human? Are we allowed to be unhappy, pissed off, exhausted but basically fine?

However you choose to answer that, it’s clear to me that even happiness ain’t what it used to be. I’m happy to report that I am unhappy most of the time and that’s fine. It’s appropriate to the times I live in. And that makes me happy. See what I mean?