I'm not always a big fan of The Onion, but yeah, I found this to be incapacitatingly hilarious. The headline is "Grown Adult Actually Expects To Be Happy," and that pretty much sum it up. Here's some elaboration, anyway:
"Despite possessing a fully developed brain and a general awareness of the fundamental nature of existence, sources said Peterson apparently continues to believe that achieving long-lasting happiness is somehow possible. "
I've long suspected that much of the rest of the world believes this, too, but it's still startling to see it in print! As a card-carrying pessimist, I find positivists both bemusing and disturbing. It's as if I'm watching a clown eat his own wig. I don't understand it, but I can't look away!
I keep one eye trained on the antics of the optimists, but I do wonder if the Rob Petersons of this world can even conceive of folks like me. One of my husband's colleagues recently came to him, brow furrowed, and commented that I didn't seem happy in Richmond and "we would have to work that out."
When my husband relayed this to me, I just blinked. Of course I wasn't happy. But it had never occurred to me that I would be. Eight months into a major move? Far from family, friends, and the landscape of my heart? Having exchanged a job I loved for one that was OK, a house I loved for one I tolerated, the culture in which I grew up for the strangeness of the South? Who, exactly, expects to be happy then?
The thing is, it's OK not to be. Your teeth still work. You still have cheese.
5 comments:
I loved this post, especially the end. I read it to a friend of mine last night, when I felt that she was being overly self-indulgent.
This whole optimism vs. pessimism business is funny, because I remember when we used to do stuff together you would take a pessimistic view and I would take an optimistic one, and both of us would think that the circumstances validated our own view. So I guess you can view life whichever way you like and you'll probably end up thinking you're right. Or is that statement overly optimistic?
p.s. Is there any way to add comments to the polls? Or is that not possible and/or would ruin the whole thing?
I think, though, it's important to be clear about what optimism is. Is optimism the act of trying to find glimmers of happiness in a gray situation or is optimism the belief that the gray situation will somehow, magically turn pink. I think the latter belief could be classified as naivete, rather than optimism.
Basically, I think the concept rightly being mocked in this article (a concept that, in my opinion, is embraced by too many Americans) is that happiness arrives via some sort of deus ex machina. It's the difference between a Disney movie and an Ivory Merchant film: The former ties up all loose ends with a bow after 90 minutes, with the aid of some cartoon animals. The latter frequently leaves us with an imperfect ending, but reminds us that life is not relentlessly bleak and that we can often find quotidian pleasures somewhere. And, arguably, expecting the gray-to-pink transition can actually lead to more bitterness in the long run, because people are setting their expectations unrealistically high.
Yeah, basically I'm not so much targeting optimists as the American idea that happy with a capital H is a) out there somewhere and b) is something to expect/deserve/need. The Onion said it better than I did...
But also, optimists are wrong ;)
Mara, I can't figure out how to get comments onto the polls. You are welcome to comment in a nearby post...
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