What is Happiness?
What is Happiness? Can you create your own happiness? What are life’s ambitions? What does it mean to live a fulfilled life? Is happiness creating happiness for others? What does it mean to love someone? What does it all mean?
It’s always when I’m at my lowest that I realize how truly happy I am.
No one is happy all the time. Happiness is a state of mind that you can control. As we grow, do we forget what it takes to be happy or does it just get more difficult as we discover the world’s horrors we are so ignorant of as children?
I think the happiest people are the ones who recognize that creativity is the key. You have to be creative in the world or you become a slave to it. Creativity is not to be confused with artistic talent. Creativity is a way of seeing the world in different ways. There are millions of ways to do this. Curiosity is the second part of being happy, you must want to learn new things or you’re doomed. The need to go exploring, learn, and experience new things is essential.
I make sure I create one new thing every day. The simple act of drawing, painting, photography, even writing down your thoughts, creating something from nothing is the idea. I’m not saying that you have to be an all-powerful talented artist. Hell, I’m not. However, being able to break free of everything you’re plugged into and create something special and unique. It’s a sort of freedom that is essential to living a fulfilling life. Creativity is taking control over your own life, it’s the first step towards a happier life and not living according to other people’s notions of how life should be lived.
Love is sacrifice. When you feel strongly about someone you make sacrifices for them. It can be as simple as going to see a movie you might not enjoy because they want to see it or as complex as choosing whom to spend time with. And these are not things you feel obligated to do, but want to do. Your love is so powerful that their happiness supersedes your own. It’s when you can be happier doing what they love to do rather than what you love. When you boil it down, love is just a bunch of choices. Love is living a selfless life with someone who feels and acts similarly, and enjoying every minute of it.
What does it all mean? A question scares some while others embrace.
Everything happens for a reason. It’s a statement that people say to justify the world’s cruelty and empty rationalizations for unfortunate events. Things do happen for a reason, but the reasons are not meaningful, not preordained, nor part of any plan. They are just the cause to an effect wherein that effect becomes a cause for something else. The proverbial domino effect. How many factors throughout history got us to where we are right now?
We might never know answers to many of life’s mysteries. But one thing we do know is we have a life to enjoy right now. And figuring out how to maximize the enjoyment of this one life we have will always be a top priority.
critical mass
Shots fired. Sides taken. The war has begun.
The first casualties of this lifelong mêlée have taken their toll.
My enemy: Time. Age. Myself.
I saw my youth slowly fade from my reflection this weekend. Although, if I had been looking closer I would have seen it long ago, this feeling of getting old creeping up from nowhere and settling in my bones. It began simply, yet suddenly. I felt strangely uneasy all last week physically and mentally; I felt lost, unsharpened, and out of focus. Yet, I carried on in my normal way; a way I’ve traveled many times before, yet this time I found myself in foreign territory. By Friday I was sick unlike I have ever been before. Not virus sick, but “body not right” sick. My whole body ached, massive headaches plagued me, and tightness in my chest made every breath painful. These warning shots would playfully come and go at their own discretion. I felt like shit. Then the tremors began.
Eyelid tremors. They have an unearthly appetite for concentration.
I call them “tremors,” as it sounds kind of psycho to have a “twitch,” or worse, a “spasm.” Nobody likes spasms. “Tremors” just sounds cooler. I must say their annoyance factor defies all reason! Remember someone constantly flicking your ear? Or holding you down and tapping on your forehead? Something perhaps a little painful and massively annoying? yeah…multiply that by a billion. It’s like all the caffeine I had ever drank went directly to my eyelid and it has taken it upon itself to throw a dance party in my honor. And as if I wasn’t going crazy before, this was surely putting me on the fast track to owning my own little white coat wherein I get to hug myself all day long. Sadly, I deserve every second of it.
Myokymia is, according to online doctors, “a common condition where a few of the muscle fibers of the upper — or more commonly the lower — eyelid contract irregularly. Myokymia is closely associated with stress, fatigue, lack of sleep, and too much caffeine.
Online doctors say that myokymia is associated with “brainstem neoplasms,” which sounds even cooler than “tremors.” “Brainstem neoplasms” is bound to get people at the office to pay attention when I talk about my problem. But then, the treatment for that includes a “lumbar puncture with an examination of cerebrospinal fluid,” so maybe it’s best not to milk this neoplasm idea too far. Especially for a stupid eyelid twitch.
So, I guess it’s time for a change.
As some of you know, ever since school ended in May, I’ve been obsessed with working my ass off, staying up till the wee hours, and running myself into the ground using caffeine as a crutch. On top of that, my eating habits are worse than ever. In these last few months, I feel my life has been set into overdrive with so many changes and so many things going on. But, I was sure I had a handle on it, I always had before. It’s only recently that I’ve started feeling overwhelmed and tired, but I thought I could just battle through it. It’s strange; I’ve always had the will, energy, and gumption to handle all the going-on’s in my life. It’s been the one thing I’ve come to always count on. But, there is always the first to die in war. So, whether I want to admit it to myself or not, my body seems fed up with the way I’m living. It has fired this first shot, warning me of things to come if I don’t make some changes.
So, it’s with a heartfelt sigh, I say au revoir to coffee and its hitchhiker friend caffeine. Our short romance, I will treasure always. And along with that, getting to sleep before 1am might be on the agenda as well. Buying that elusive cookbook now seems like a desperate act. Also, a massage seems quite overdue; I’m still not used to sitting for nine to ten hours at a time, as a result, my back feels crooked and wrong.
And so, now begins a new dean.
Current mood: *twitch*
Currently listening: Chet Baker Sings by Chet Baker
thirty
Do you ever find yourself nostalgic for moments as you live them?
Age, experience, memory are my burdens, my blessings. My thoughts sometimes have a way of escaping time and avoiding reality in order to travel across vast distances where they find themselves cold, alone, outside themselves, looking wondrously at the world in a wholly foreign way. It’s in these moments of clarity that I see. I see how old I feel and how young I truly am. I see that age begets tragedy with beauty just a kiss away. I see that I am continually in the middle of saying goodbye to everything I know to be true. Synchronously, my heart is warmed in the constant welcoming of all the unknown newness into my life. I see dreams die every day only to see them reemerge in the most unlikely places. I see people disappear never to rematerialize again. I see death can not thrive without life. And then, sometimes, my thoughts have a way of trapping themselves and never breaking free.
Thirty. A milestone. The truth is we all age at our own pace; no one can possibly fathom where a person has been and all they have seen in their lives — in this respect, we are and will be, forever alone. Thus springs our need to share ourselves. “Intimacy is the principal source of the sugars with which life is sweetened.” Days fly by where sometimes I barely notice their passing, my fleeting memory has me trained to relish in the here and now because soon that feeling, that look, that touch will disappear forever. Then, I’ll find myself alone. Alone, lost in the sound of that second hand snapping my life away with its steady rhythm creating its captivating beat. And as I read over everything I’ve done in my life, I can’t help but smile and tap my foot and become captivated once again.
Current mood: nostalgic
Currently watching: 49 Up
depression / elation
I ended my relationship with painkillers today. Our breakup was not unlike those of previous romances — it was sad, we had our tearful goodbyes and then we went our separate ways. It was followed by that similar feeling where I’m not really interested in jumping back into bed with another drug for a while. Although, it has been quite a trip these last few days; most of the time I was high as a zeppelin and just as volatile. I must say, I have to thank Diflunisal, my little reliquary of ecstasy. They helped me through some hard times, even if they also created some in the process.
You see ecstasy always comes with a price, these pills of righteousness bound and gagged my pain quite sufficiently, but they left baggage. As the pain melted away, so did my cognitive abilities. My thinking, talking, and emotions were casualties of my war on pain. Ironically, part of the reason I had to take these sabotaging tablets was to help me concentrate on my massively immense workload. In my defense, I only drooled once during business hours. As I mentioned above, tears were shed. Diflunisal is a depressant and it truly lived up to its name. Even though I had no thoughts of jumping into a barrel full of starved piranha, there were many times I was consumed with an unrelenting heaviness that wore on me deep inside. My enemy of enemies, regret, came back with unimaginable force, pounding in my head, trying to break me, for what seemed like ages. Other times, perhaps due to the nature of the beast, I was mellowed out to a point of perfect contemplation, often lost within a haze of melancholy. Any art produced within these spells would have been wondrously foreign, that is if I had the ability to focus on anything external.
Many times I laughed out loud, to what must have seemed very odd to the casual observer; the laugh would come upon the realization that I was a living breathing space cadet. While on my space cadet voyages people would rudely interrupt to ask me something, usually of great importance. As the message traveled slowly through the dark emptiness of space towards me, my brain, which had now popped out of my body to grow its own arms and legs, frantically tried to process what was being said a trillion miles away, then finally it just looked back at me and shrugged. At that moment I knew it was time to toss my brain back in my head, sans arms and legs, and click my heals once or twice to snap myself back into reality, if only for a few minutes to figure out what the hell I should be doing…and who I was.
So, today, I am drug-free…well almost. Still poppin’ the antibiotics for another few days. But, I must confess, I woke up extremely cheerful today. And the feeling never really left me. I blame some of it on the Mountain Dew I had at lunch, but for the most part, I finally broke free of that melancholy haze. I had a productive day at work and ended it with an art show at Chapman university wherein I chatted it up with some design professionals — rubbin’ elbows with professors, deans of colleges, and a plethora of artists as a whole. For the first time, I felt like a professional designer outside the workplace. I’ve found my niche. I’m in the right place, doing the right thing, and damn if it doesn’t feel fantastic.
Current mood: elated
Currently listening: Animaniacs: 16 Original Songs By Richard Stone
Stupid Teenagers Must Die!
The most highly acclaimed independent film of the decade! Well perhaps acclaimed isn’t the right word. Either way, Stupid Teenagers Must Die! first crawled out from under the stairs as Blood and Guts before deciding to be Stupid. I was approached by the Stupid producers to help bring some semblance of class and professionalism to their Stupid film, I turned them down. Then they offered to pay me. After much haggling we cut a deal and I created their Stupid title treatment and poster.
drugs, nora jones, and bonobos
I’m on drugs.
Listening to Norah Jones.
So. This won’t be very coherent.
Because of the drugs, not Norah Jones.
So I figured I should tell everyone: I survived.
And so far the aftermath exceeds June’s venture tenfold in the amount of pain, disorientation, and swelling. October 24 really doesn’t exist for me except for a brief car ride, a few moments where I was struggled to drink a Jamba Juice, and fading in and out of consciousness listening to Animal Planet. Got to love them bonobos.
I awoke from my drug-induced slumber only because my face was pounding with every heartbeat. A bit dazed and confused, I look around for my mom who was just there. Just there being about 10 hours ago when apparently she told me she was leaving and to give her a call if I need anything. Yeah, it was now 1am. So I took some drugs. I then stumbled off the couch and almost broke my head. It seems my legs weren’t quite ready to do their intended job of, you know, standing. Luckily my arms were up to their duties as they caught me before my head slammed into my coffee table. Then I managed to find my brain and turn it on just enough to compute where I was and why I felt like a Sumatran Asian Elephant had stepped on my face. Once that was done, I proceeded to haul myself to the kitchen and somehow cook some scrambled eggs. I also threw in some sausage because I was in need of a pork fix after an amazing (pork-infused) breakfast at the Stewart’s this past weekend. Plus, after not eating for an entire day I was quite ravenous. This is where the drugs kick in and I really don’t recall what I’ve been doing for the last few hours. Planning to go to work in the morning. That should be pretty funny. Take care.
Current mood: drugged
Currently listening: Come Away with Me by Norah Jones
tooth and consequences
I handle stress well. In fact, I thrive in it. Knowing that what I do has an impact on other’s lives especially my own makes me want to work hard at it. And the more I have going on, the more stressed to get things done, the better I perform. Anxiety, on the other hand, I do not handle well. Thankfully, there isn’t much that’s ever gotten me very anxious, at least not for an extended period of time. And in many cases, I don’t realize how anxious I am until after the fact when I feel this extraordinary sense of relief. Now, for the last few months, I’ve been trying my best to ignore and bottle up this growing anxiety. And so it continues that tomorrow is a day that will add a little more fuel to this fire, as well as mark the halfway point in the journey.
Trust. Come to think about it, I’m not a real trusting person. It’s not that I don’t think people are essentially good-natured, but people are also naturally self-regarding…hummm, not that it has anything to do with my situation. My true problem is that in many ways I’m a realist. Well, perhaps trust does play a factor. I have a problem not in, not trusting people, but instead in trusting that everything will work out. Of course, I want things to turn out for the best, but I know that sometimes they simply don’t. So things like “surgery” are a wee bit scary. And the fact that I’m a little vain when it comes to my smile creates a huge pot of anxiety that has been brewing in my head for almost a year now. Then the heat really got turned up when they yanked my tooth out back in June. And tomorrow they will dive back in to turn up the heat with more cutting, drilling, and [gasp] tissue grafts. Yeah, folks, I won’t get into details, but needless to say, I’m a little freaked. So these last few weeks have been a little racking, I’ve been trying to keep myself busy with work, freelance projects, and learning CSS and DHTML coding. And as you can see, to keep myself from growing crazy these past few days, I used my newfound knowledge to make my space here a little less ugly.
Lastly, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten around to writing these last few weeks, especially about my exciting weekend in Vegas with weddings, babies, booze, gambling, ice cream, vans with no seats, film festivals, movie screenings, hard ways, beef jerky, COPS, Dracula, sharing margaritas, blueberry pancakes, almost dying (twice), thunder, lightning and of course being knighted, Sir Uncle Dean. Yes, folks. It’s a trip that will not be forgotten.
Related entries:
the tooth and nothing but the truth
Current mood: anxious
Currently reading: Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
postcards from a volcano
I woke Monday morning with no vacation plans at all. So, as chance befalls chance, by the time my head touched a pillow again I had purchased a round trip ticket to Maui. I leave in less than one week and I must say, I love being impulsive.
2006 has been a crazy year of ups and downs, from romantic relationships lost and found, finally graduating college, painful surgeries, becoming an uncle, deaths in the family, having friends get engaged/married/have babies, finally having a career job, reuniting with long-lost friends, having my first car accident with the Malibu, roommates moving out and new ones on their way in, having my designs published and most of all an overall feeling of contentment, excitement and euphoric exhilaration. And I still have four months to go with Halloween, my 30th birthday, and x-mas right around the corner!
So, when this perfect opportunity to vacation for a week in Maui came my way, the choice was no choice at all. This week is definitely a bit crazy getting everything planned and done before next Tuesday. My only regret is not having the time to get scuba certified, although I’ve learned I can still scuba dive on what is called a “resort dive” with minimal training. And after only a day reading a book on Maui, I’m more excited than ever — swimming with dolphins and sea turtles, hiking through rain forests and up active volcanoes, exploring lava caves, hang gliding over the ocean, diving off massive waterfalls, and drinking foofoo drinks with little umbrellas in them while sitting on the most beautiful beaches in the world. I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave.
Aloha.
Current mood: chipper
Currently listening: Facing Future by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole
crushed — part 2
You see, I own a car. This October I will have owned it ten years. And unlike the crazy drunk girl tonight who was trying to pick up on the cops, to me, it’s more than “just a car.” When I first heard the crash my heart froze, it sounded bad. I was visiting friends and it was 3 in the morning. We all rushed outside. Then my frozen heart sunk.
I have no problem admitting my vanity. I even wrote an entry here about my affection for this hunk of metal. I love driving it for a multitude of reasons; one being it’s simply a beautiful car. So when I saw the huge black scar ripping down the twisted metal that was the side of my car, my sinking heart broke a little. I was in pain. When rational thought slowly started creeping back into my intoxicated mind, my sadness was joined by anger. Someone (more-than-likely a drunk someone) side-swiped my car and many others, then drove off.
My anger has been interrupted by remembering a conversation I had a few nights ago about quantum physics. With that, I started to feel better. Later, while waiting in line at Lowe’s, I accepted what had happened. And in accepting it, I know that it has changed my life. In that, whatever happens from now on might not have happened if that idiot didn’t hit my car and drive off.
The past — it’s who we are.
Current mood: numb
crushed — part 1
everything happens. not for any reason, in particular, it just does. such is life. and things happened tonight that crushed a part of my faith in humanity, among other things. I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same.
pictures to come.
Current mood: devastated