Wise words there from Sheryl Crow - a profound sentiment actually because there is so much which we believe will make us happy but which in fact ... doesn't.
There's barely anything I can think of which could make me happy unreservedly. At the moment it seems as if the near and promised hormone treatment is the answer - and I'm sure it will make me happy. But even then the effect will probably be less than I want - or too slow - or something else.
Or maybe - as often happens with happiness - I'll just get used to it, take it for granted and yearn for other changes.
Happiness is like that - it seems to me. You can't plan it, you can't schedule it. When it does happen you often don't even realise it - only afterwards does it become clear, in the memory.
That was what interested Proust so much - he believed all pleasures couldn't be experienced directly, but would rather be developed afterwards in the 'dark room' of the mind. Makes a lot of sense.
He was in good company. Questions of happiness have occupied thinkers and philosophers since the whole thing started - much more so than the spurious line of enquiry - 'what's the meaning of life?'. Which is surely a theological question if anything.
Certainly happiness has crept up on me now and again, and I see those moments clearly now. Walking to school when I'd just started my A-levels, just one morning, chasing Freddie in the turbine hall at Tate Modern, getting drunk with friends, slipping a dress over my head in the changing room and thinking, hotly, yes it fits - and I'm going to buy it!
Being, becoming, a woman has made me happy. And sad. Every step has made me positively, definitely happier. But right now I'm sad. And you can't help but think - if it makes you happy, why the hell are you so sad?
The answer is, I suppose, that happiness is hard won. You have to squeeze it from a nettle. It hurts to get happy. And when it comes you don't realise it. But then sometimes you do - and we live for those moments don't we?
No comments:
Post a Comment