On Joy Redux

  Annamaria on Monday

A number of things that I have been working toward are coming to fruition and require my attention, so, lacking the time to write a brand new essay, I am updating a post from 2019.  If you are one of those folk who find my zest for life jejune, feel free to lambaste me in the comments below.  But here they come again, edited for today, but not altered in their message: my pre-pandemic thoughts on how to find joy.  It seems to me that this pep talk is more relevant than ever. None of us had any idea in September of 2019 of the challenges that the humans on Planet Earth were about to face.  In retrospect, I am sure that my optimism and focus on the positive is what got me through the past four years, which included over a year of solitary confinement.

This post was originally inspired by Michael’s thought-provoking essay, in September of 2019, titled "Authentic Happiness." You can find it here. It began by naming me and Stan Trollip as folks who ought to be discussing such a subject. 

I wondered why Michael said that.  Perhaps he will tell us.  My guess, when it comes to me: it’s because I am generally a cheerful person.  As far as I have seen, Stan is too.

My default mood, I can assure you, is happy.  Thanks to reading Michael's blog, I now have evidence to support that statement. Here are my results from the Happiness Questionnaire described in Michael's post:

**If you want to take the test, you can find it here. Like many such questionnaires, the questions themselves are revealing of the sorts of things that make a difference, so it may be worthwhile to take it, just to find out what those factors are.

 My rating is right up there. Compared to people like me in gender, age, occupation, and zip code, I was in the 97th percentile.  Why so?  I have had and am having, after all, my share of difficulties and tragedies.

In an effort to understand what makes some people happier than others, I’ve been ruminating about possible causes of my own elation.

One theory that I’ve long held is that my cheery personality comes from my natural body chemistry.  Here is me at fourteen months old: 

I can feel that joyful kid still inside me.  Perhaps the people who find my pretty much unrelenting enthusiasm annoying ought to forgive me.  After all, if I am hard-wired to be blissful, what choice do I have?

Lately, I have read about how the mix of flora in one's gut has a great deal of influence on the mood of any individual human being.  There's quite a bit of  research into this.  Here is a list of articles if you are interested.

If it's my intestinal critters that make me elated, I think I understand why.  They have had a steady diet of Italian food.  This in fact, might be the explanation for the high energy and positivity among Italians in general.  I know that, by and large, the cultural norm among Italians is to joke in times of adversity.  Go little pasta, parmigiana, and coffee-ized microbes!

Be Italian!  

I do get sad, of course, like anyone else.  And angry.  And disappointed.  And doubtful.  But negative feelings never stick with me for very long.  I consider my situation and compare it to others.

I had a very difficult childhood. But until I was six, when he was nearby, I could run to my grandfather for solace.  Shortly before he died, he told me this ancient Neapolitan fable: Once upon a time, on Easter Sunday, when all the people were enjoying their pascal feast, a poor beggar was in the piazza, sitting on the steps of the church feeling sorry for himself because all he had to eat were fava beans.  Chewing on the beans and tossing the pods over his shoulder, he lamented his miserable fate.  Until he turned around and noticed that behind him was a man, picking up and eating the cast off pods.

Those dark days I suffered long ago taught me that the world does not owe me bliss.  I have always known that if I was going find happiness, I would have to go out and earn it.  And my upbringing also made me feel incredibly lucky when lovely things happen to me.  And they regularly do, much to my delight.  Jaded people, I think, find the small joys negligible.  Some people may mock a cock-eyed optimist like me who embraces life's little gifts and says "Whooopie."

Happiness often comes to me but when it doesn't, I stay with the sadness, disappointment, or hurt for a while.  But then I go back to the basic issue: it's up to me to go looking for joy.

Where does one look, you ask? As with all searches, success in the hunt for happiness depends on where you go looking.   As far as I can tell, a lot of people are looking in the wrong places.  

Here is where these ruminations may appear jejune.  My childhood was not sophisticated.  Hence, my poetry as a child was the words from the Great American Songbook.  What those lyricists wrote has given me my sense of what makes people happy.  LOVE.

 

I think all those glum university students described in Michale's blog, who report such sorrow and ennui, are victims of the times they live in.  Current mores and customs have taught them to focus so much on themselves that they can't let go and fall in love.  Not with another person.  Not even with an idea.  For instance, from everything I have read about twenty-first century social norms, people don't make love anymore.  They have sex.  How liberated!  How sophisticated!  How modern!  How very sad.

I know. This is a bit graphic for a family blog.  But really.  When I say love, I mean in all its forms. I feel sorry for those people who using apps to find quick relief.  Does what they do then make them giggle?  Are they giving themselves to one another as a gift of affection?  If not, they are robbing themselves. 

Most important: getting love is not the answer.  Giving it is the key.  "Make someone happy... and you will be happy too."  How trite?  No. How true! This can be had with one special person, whose very presence, whose voice on the phone fills your brain with endorphins.  

Or it can be a whole group of people.  Seeing smiles that you have put on other people's faces will make you do the happy dance.  It will lift your spirits so high, you won't come down for days.  Believe me.  I know!

Want to be happy?  Make someone happy.  Make as many people happy (or better off or less lonely) as you can.

You will see how lucky you can be!