[0262] the paradox that is happiness

Whenever I'm reading and I come across a quote that I like, or a quote that inspires thought, I type it into a word document. I started doing this when I was 19. I'm 22 now and that word document is more than 100 pages long. I found myself scrolling through it today, trying out different systems of organization and subheadings. Here are 5 of them that are either thought provoking or produce a certain type of imagery; both in terms of the fickle idea of happiness. Enjoy.

“It is almost as if happiness is an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche, to which you can eventually become accustomed, but despair is something surprising each time you encounter it.” 
― Lemony Snicket

“It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.” 
― Chuck Palahniuk

“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” 
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“I swear since seeing your face, the whole world is fraud and fantasy. The garden is bewildered as to what is leaf or blossom. The distracted birds can't distinguish the birdseed from the snare.” 
― Rumi

“And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.” 
― Milan Kundera 

[0261]

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, 
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, 
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.                 

— T.S. Eliot

[0260] read 'em n weep

[0259] midnight revelations

Self-destructive behaviour gives me some sort of catharsis that laughs in the face of resilience. I've got 99 problems, much like Jay Z, and probably much like everyone else on the face of this planet. But when it comes to a decision between sitting there in a bucket of venom or getting up and taking proactive measures to feel better, I usually choose the former, if at least for a bit. If you'll allow me the irony, there's something about self-destruction that makes me feel good, so darkly good. The pain I feel is magnified tenfold yet it simultaneously stops looming so large over the horizon of my life. I'm pleased when my mind races to places it shouldn't race to, I like the adrenaline rush that comes with paranoia. I feel human in those moments, I feel like myself.

I luxuriate in the throaty burn of one part reality and two parts gin. 

[0258]

Why don't you tell me that "if the girl had been worth having she'd have waited for you"? No, sir, the girl really worth having wont wait for anybody.

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

[0257] Y

That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass.

The question we ask over and over. Why?

With my arms outstretched, feet in first position.

The chromosome half of us don't have.
Second to last in the alphabet: almost there.

Coupled with an L, let's make an adverb,

A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course.

Upside down peace sign. Little bird tracks in the sand.

Y, a Greek letter, joined the Latin alphabet after the Romans conquered Greece in the first century - a double agent: consonant and vowel.

No one used adverbs before then, and no one was happy.

Marjorie Celona, Y

[0256]

[0255] Words with no English Translations Part II

Schadenfreude (German): refers to pleasure derived from another’s misfortunes

Itoshii (Japanese): longing for an absent loved one

Ijirashii (Japanese): a feeling associated with seeing someone praiseworthy overcoming an obstacle

And conversely, frustration may be a word with no exact equivalent in Arabic languages

[0254]

"Writers are forgetful but they remember everything. They forget appointments and anniversaries, but remember what you wore, how you smelled, on your first date. They remember every story you've ever told them, but forget what you just said. They don't remember to water the plant or take out the trash, but they don't forget how to make you laugh. Writers are forgetful because they are busy remembering the important things."

I saw this and it made me smile. Because it reminds me of so many people I know. It reminds me of all the passionate busy-bodied people in my life because the same words can be said about more than just writers. It can be said of anyone with a fire in them. And so it made me smile. 

[0253]

I was in the winter of my life, and the men I met along the road were my only summer. At night I fell asleep with visions of myself dancing and laughing and crying with them. Three years down the line of being on an illness road to earth, my memories of them are the only thing that sustained me and my only real happy times. I was a singer, not a very popular one. I once had dreams of becoming a beautiful poet but upon a series of unfortunate events, I saw those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken. But I didn't really mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted and then losing it to know what true freedom is. When the people I used to know found out what I had been doing, how I'd been living, they asked me why, but there's no use in talking to people who have a home. They have no idea what it's like to seek safety in other people. For home to be wherever you lay your head. I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality, just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean. And if I said I didn't plan for it to turn out this way I'd be lying, because I was born to be the other woman. I belonged to no one, who belonged to everyone; who had nothing, who wanted everything. With a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom that terrified to me the point I couldn't even talk about it, and pushed me to a nomadic point of madness that both dazzled and dizzied me.

Every night I used to pray that I'd find my people, and finally I did on the open road. We had nothing to lose, nothing to gain, nothing we desired anymore, except to make our lives into a work of art. Live fast, die young, be wild, have fun. I believe in the country America used to be, I believe in the person I want to become, I believe in the freedom of the open road, and my motto is the same as ever, I believe in the kindness of strangers. And when I'm at war with myself, I ride, I just ride. Who are you? Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them? I have. I am fcuking crazy. But I am free.

[Prologue and epilogue from 'Ride', written by Lana Del Rey]