The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Not-Quite-As-Good-Prequel

Hi everyone.

This will be a short post as it is a response to a comment made on my previous post by a man I admire, respect and love. Well at least enough to dedicate a whole post to his comment. The question posed is as follows.

"We can be happy any time, just by letting go of being unhappy. Why would anybody WANT to be unhappy -- and we do. What's the payoff supposed to be for withholding our happiness?"

I have a number of theories. However, I shall only elaborate on one.

We CANNOT be happy all the time, otherwise we wouldn't be happy. Stay with me here there is logic in these words..........somewhere. The key thing about being happy is its great. We enjoy it so much and why shouldn't we? Being happy makes the people around us happy and altogether improves our quality of life; but would it feel as good if were never unhappy?

Think about it. We've all had those periods in our lives when we feel truly awful. Its a terrible feeling but when we come out of that feeling and find happiness again the sense of relief is astonishing. I think if we were never unhappy we would never get that sense of relief. We wouldn't be able to appreciate what a brilliant thing happiness is.

In the end that's what happiness is: the realisation that we are no longer unhappy. We take risks, push boundaries, expose ourselves physically and emotionally, work hard, fail, sacrifice, berate ourselves and in general put ourselves into situations that will most likely cause us misery. Why? Because once we get through it all we get that sense of relief, we're happy and ready to do it all over again....

Till next time.

The Pursuit of Unhappiness: A Trilogy

Lately I've had a fair amount to be happy about. I got good results in my exam, my job interview was successful and I start next week, my English coursework is FINALLY getting somewhere near the grade I want and my musical endeavours actually seem to be going in the right direction. All of these things have combined to make me a rather tired, yet extremely happy individual.

There is, however, a down side.....

I've noticed a pattern over the last year or so that every time i find myself in a generally happy mood, those around me are miserable. It seems that I can never be mutually happy with any majority of my friends or family.

I have spent quite a significant amount of time (perhaps too much) pondering this situation to come up with a cause. I narrowed it down to three.

The first and perhaps most logical: Coincidence.

Pure coincidence can more often than not be the reason for everything. As a people the Human Race has spent most of its existence trying to find order and meaning in things that most probably don't have one. We see this in the sheer number of varying religions, the way we analyse literature to find some deeper meaning in an authors words when really they're just talking about how crappy the weather is and many other things that appear to have an improbable significance. If something bad happens and someone asks their priest "If God exists then why would he let this happen?" the stereotypical reply is "The Lord works in mysterious ways". An Atheist's interpretation of that answer, and a suitable one for this scenario, would be "Sometimes life just sucks. There's no real reason for it, that's just how it works sometimes." So maybe sometimes my friend's just have a bad time of it when I'm not. Luck of the draw I suppose.

The second possible cause and in the words of Aardman creation Mr Tweedy: "It's all in your 'e'd!"

Maybe it is. Maybe my current heightened state of happiness is warping my perspective of the situation. The fact that I am happy at the current time could make it seem as those others are more miserable than usual; or perhaps they have always been this unhappy and my common miserable state of mind caused it go unnoticed. Either way perhaps I'm making too much of it all.

The final conclusion I came up with.........well I couldn't.

I don't see any reason for people to be unhappy with their lives. Yes sometimes your life sucks and sometimes you can't do anything about it but I'm a firm believer that unhappiness is, for the most part, self inflicted. People seem to find it so easy to take a negative view of the world and treat it accordingly. More and more people are spending their time feeling sorry for themselves. Misery loves company and it NEVER struggles to find any. Perhaps these people need to focus on the positives in their lives, ignore the negatives, leave them in the past and look toward all the amazing possibilities in their future. I know I sound harsh and inconsiderate but sometimes people just forget how much potential to be happy they really have.

So maybe it's that great force of coincidence, maybe it's me or maybe it's people struggling to notice how amazing and happy they can really be. Whatever the case I think most importantly what people need to remember is that their friends are always there. Even people who feel like they have nobody still have someone in their lives who is happy enough to help them through the hard times. Maybe it's somebody close to you or maybe it's a person you wouldn't expect it to be but there is always somebody.

Right now I'm one of those people. Maybe next week I won't be but for now I'm here to help those friends who need it. Just thought you should know.

Till next time....

Work and Work

Hi Guys (I use this term collectively as political correctness has never been one of my strong points)

Long time, no Blog.

It's been a busy week, however it's seemed to be one of those weeks where I have done so much yet managed to achieve so little. Do other people get this? I am exhausted this week and it all seems as though it's all ahead of me to do.

My life over the last week can be broken down into two things: Work and Work.

I'll start with Work. It seems that no matter how hard I try my academic life just will not let up. I am reminded almost everyday, by at least one of my teachers, that there is only nine weeks left of my schooling life. On top of this I am also reminded that there are only two outcomes at the end of those nine weeks: Failure or Success. Failure of course means no university and no basic education. I will not get a job which will of course cause me to take up drugs, get someone pregnant and effectively ruin my life. Success on the other hand appears to mean paradise. Teachers make it sound like getting good A-Level grades will cause the heavens to open and paradise and happiness to reign down on us all for eternity. BULLSHIT.

It seems that, in the eyes of the Sixth Form academic staff of this world, these are the only paths which we as students can take and that these outcomes are destined for all students. Surely this can't be the best way to encourage your students to do well during their last few months at school. What about those of us who are unlikely to get the top grades and be opened unto the paradisiacal gates of life? Surely teachers, who have been doing this for quite some time, could take a more positive approach to their graduating (or flunking as the case may be) students. I am a firm believer that positive reinforcement is a far greater weapon than destructive fear mongering and this must apply to students. If you tell someone that they can do something, in combination with hard work, then they are more likely to feel that they can and work towards achieving that goal; however if you tell people that their lives will be ruined unless the learn how to do something, then I guarantee you'll have less success. Teachers want us to succeed but sometimes they are fairly clueless as to the best way to get us there.

This brings me onto my second topic of the week: Work.

I have been looking for a new job for months now. Much longer than I care to have been and I clearly have not been successful so far. There are all sorts of reason for this, my education restricting the hours I can work, travelling distances and the just extreme lack of jobs for people my age in Maidenhead; but one thing that has really prevented me from getting jobs and annoys the hell out of me is that ever elusive attribute for people my age: Experience. It seems that with the economic situation (once again something we're constantly reminded of by teachers), that employers are now able to pick and choose who they hire. The lack of higher paying jobs that require qualifications is forcing more and more people to settle for the lower paying jobs that students such as myself crave in order to pay for holidays, new clothes and our weekend drinking habits. As a result employers are now asking for experienced workers for jobs that would previously not have requested it. Yet they never seem to offer a way for us to gain this experience.

Now that all the jobs for us younger, inexperienced people are gone, the world is beginning to create a generation of people who are just completely inexperienced. We students used to rely on the weekend bar jobs, the dishwasher jobs and the waiter positions to beef up our CV's so we don't look like worthless idiots when we come out of uni. Now, however, we are once again being told that we are not good enough and that a 30 year old ex-banker can pour a beer much better than we can. When will the world tell us that we can do something and that even if we screw up our lives will be enjoyable???

It seems that Work and Work are really not positive aspects of a young person's life these days. We've inherited a world of "put up or shut up" and it seems that I'm now at that point in life we're I'm expected to do both - "Shut up" and do some work so you can "put up" your grades to a level that will "shut up" your employer so he/she will give you a decent job that "puts you up" in the world.

Well now it really is time for me to shut up and put up this post.

On another note I have a job interview tomorrow. Wish me luck. I'd also like to shout out to Suzy who's joyful 18th birthday I will unfortunately miss tomorrow. Happy Birthday Suzy.

Till next time......

Creativity

As you know from my first post I am in the process of developing a vlog for my YouTube page and so far all it has brought me is grief. It turns out my creativity is not what it used to be. I've been thinking about what I should put in my first vlog and so far I'm coming up blank. Friends have suggested that I start with an introductory vlog in much the same way that I began my blog, however I personally think this would just be a cop out. I refuse to believe that my mind is devoid of interesting thought and that somehow I should be able to drag up from the dark and desolate dungeon that is my imagination some kind of interesting, and hopefully humorous, thought to share with the world.

The thought that my imagination has in been in some way wounded or killed in the last few years got me thinking about the imagination in general. Most people seem to think our imaginations are most active when we are children and this would seem to be the case but in a rare show of individuality from myself I refuse to believe this. I hope I'm not alone in thinking this because, contrary to what I opened with, adults have extremely vivid imaginations we just don't give them the time of day anymore. Children are free to let their imaginations run wild whereas we older members of society just don't have the time. The pressures of finishing your A-levels, keeping hold of your £15,000p.a. job during the recession or just trying to find a girlfriend to spend your spare time with are just a few of the things that prevent adults form utilizing their imaginations. I think this idea that children have better imaginations has just spawned from the fact the older people barely have the time to use theirs.

Case in point: my vlog troubles.

I think..........or should I say I hope that my imagination is just as sterling as it was ten years ago. The only reason it has hit a wall is I am rarely called upon to use it and it has forgotten what its supposed to be doing. It's like meeting an old friend you haven't seen in years. It's hard to recognise them at first but once you get past the awkward stage of forgetting their name, you're off having beers and telling embarrassing stories.

So in summary imaginations need to be used for them to work properly. Our day to day routines are causing us to neglect our creativity and it's making our lives so much less magical. I hope that you agree with me on this and that you'll start to use your imaginations more often like I will soon be doing.

Now who wants to give me ideas for my vlog? My imagination sucks....... :P

Till next time.......

"Become a Fan"

Some people absolutely amaze me. Even people I don't even know surprise me but lately it has been for all the wrong reasons. Today I saw that one of my friends on Facebook had become "a fan of Not Being Raped". This just served to remind me of all the other crap that gets put up on Facebook lately. I mean sure I once joined a group called "Not Being On Fire" because I thought it was funny. And it is. People dont normally just end up on fire but making a joke about rape, as far as I'm concerned, is vile.

Rape is NOT funny.

Its one of the most disgusting and hateful crimes that exists in this world and I just don't see why people would want to make a public joke across the internet about it. I mean think about people who may have genuinely been through such a traumatic experience and then they go on the internet and have to see people making fun of it. It is just one of the many things that has made Facebook less and less attractive to me personally.

A couple of weeks ago a 12 year-old boy in Queensland was stabbed to death and a tribute page was set up in his memory but unfortunately some people took it upon themselves to desecrate this page. They posted porn, bestiality and picture of the boy himself with captions like "yay I'm dead!" What the fuck is wrong with there people? I'll state the obvious again for anyone who doesn't get it.

Young children being murdered is NOT funny.

On the plus side these people were tracked down and criminally prosecuted but they set a precedent and week later when an 8 year-old girl was abducted from her bed and murdered similar things were done to her tribute page.

I understand that people in society today are bored. You wouldn't think so with the amount of technology, sport, tv, music and cinema we have today but people, especially my age, are bored shitless. And this causes us to do stupid things, however I still don't see how the heinous crimes and the genuine suffering of others can cause joy for people.

There are things about this world I love so much but unfortunately people just make me lose all faith in humanity sometimes.

Well I best end my rant/expression of disbelief there. My last posting was waaaayy too long and I could complain about people for hours here.

Let me know your thoughts on this people. I am being unreasonable or have you noticed this stuff too?

Till next time.....

Dramatic happenings

I think I'm losing my touch.

Let me explain that statement a little better. For those of you that don't know me I'm normally fairly quick witted and observant of what is going on around me however today (technically yesterday but i haven't gone to bed yet) the ability to see a situation for what it really is completely abandoned me.

You see on the advice of my Performing Arts teacher I spent some time over the weekend (admittedly not a huge amount) reading about Augustus Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed. She believed it would be relevant to a forth coming project of mine and she had mentioned that she would be running a workshop on it on Monday. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Theatre of the Oppressed I will summarise it in an almost insultingly simple way. Basically Boal believed that the audience should be put in a situation that causes them or people to be oppressed in a way that causes them to react and either stand up for those around them or take no action at all, thereby realising something about themselves. Basically he would put people in really awkward and sometimes harrowing situations without people realising it was all an act and not real. (This is know as Invisible Theatre)

Anyway when it came to my performing arts lesson on Monday I assumed that this is what we would be working on and had even mentioned it to my dad who has a great deal of experience with theatre. This, however, was not the case. I arrived to the lesson with an extremely agitated and almost irate teacher who was determined that we were going to work on the use of puppetry theatre and given the nature of her mood pushed Boal completely out of my mind. The reason, as it appeared at the time, that my teacher was so angry was that apparently the quality of some of our recent work had been below standard and she was, understandably, frustrated with the class.

It wasn't long before a friend of mine decided that she was not going to take part in the lesson. Now this is not uncommon in our class and often our teacher is quite understanding if we don't feel comfortable with what we're doing or just simply are having one of those days where we hinder the lesson more than help it. Soon after another friend of mine turned up late, which is also not uncommon for him. My teacher then proceeded to pull them aside and tell them both off out of earshot from the rest of us which seemed to irritate the both of greatly.

For the rest of the lesson my teacher grew more and more frustrated with them and the rest of the class, aiming snide remarks about their behaviour directly at them, threatening to kick them off the course and altogether treating them like small naughty children rather the young adults that they are. My two friends where not making the situation much better for themselves either. They refused to participate, stormed out of the theatre, threw things, banged chairs and just generally acted like toddlers who haven't had their daily nap.

This behaviour would seem generally unacceptable but at the time and given the ferocious nature of our teacher the class seemed at a consensus that our teacher was in the wrong and on the numerous occasions when she stormed out the theatre after the two to tell them off we would gather and bitch.

Yes we were bitches. Men and women alike.

As far as we were concerned our teacher was completely out of line, our lesson was being disrupted and we were considering storming out as well. However out teacher would often return to class, catch us bitching and not doing work and then yell at us. As if it were an instinctual reaction we would obey, not daring to challenge the authority of teacher half a foot shorter than most of us. We all felt powerless while she was in the room and it was only when she left that we gained any form of confidence only to have it ripped away from us every time she re-entered the theatre.

It was not until the end of the lesson that the teacher asked our two friends to come and sit down and then asked us all to give them a round of applause for their Invisible Theatre performance. After a few seconds of shocked and blank looks towards each other we all felt felt a few moments of relief that it had all been fake. This did not last long unfortunately as we were soon all ashamed. We had failed to stand up for our friends even though we all clearly believed that our teacher was being too harsh and we had all been so quick to ridicule our teacher over the situation.

I however was ashamed as well as kicking myself. Less than an hour earlier I had been thinking about exactly the kind of thing that had just happened around me and I had not even noticed it. I normally take pride in myself for seeing the world as it really is and yet in that lesson I had not even noticed a thing. I would like to think that maybe it was the fear of the situation that put me out but really I know I was just generally an idiot.

I feel bad that I didn't notice it and even worse that when I thought it was real I did nothing to stop it, however that was easily the best lesson I have ever had in my life. It reminded me of the thing I love most about theatre and acting. It has so much power. Theatre (much like music which I'll talk about another day) has the power to challenge people's perspective of the world. It can create emotions and reactions in people that even they didn't know they could experience. Without theatre I think I would genuinely hate my life......or at least be very dissatisfied with it.

Anyway now that its like nearly 1am and I've finished my this blog (or should I say extended essay) I am going to go to bed!

Thank-you to those of you that actually read this all the way through and to those of you who didn't...........I don't blame you!

Till next time.....