happinessHere’s what I think: True happiness is finally realizing that what you have is infinitely better than what you don’t have. The grass is not greener. The things are not bigger and better. And even if they are, you still aren’t missing anything not fulfilled by the thing you’re replacing. That longing for a new world is simply your primal instincts spurring you in the shanks so that you never stay in one place for long. It’s probably a survival mechanism that your primate ancestors developed so that the crocodiles couldn’t gain a deadly advantage by eating you when you’re at your most comfortable and thus at your tastiest. I say this, of course, after having moved but once in my adult life. Across town. From the rental house that my parents owned. I guess this isn’t really an endorsement to settle down in the town you grew up in. I know plenty of acquaintances and friends of friends who got the hell out of one of the countless little burgs (and even some of the big metropolitans, but not New York, never New York!) that dot this great nation and are all the better for it. Some doubly so, because they escaped the sexed up, drugged down, fluid receptacle that is the life of a young, wide-eyed, potential-laden, small town hooligan. No, those dubious misanthropes needed a change, if for no other reason than for the benefit of the inevitable smack down that only a life-altering mistake can deliver. But, I tell you, when they finally figured it out, they saw the beauty of the known. The wonderment of the familiar. The harmony of the home and the comfort of the comfortable. And it’s not just the safety and neutrality of it. It’s going through an otherwise routine day and finding a bit of magic where you didn’t expect it. Anyone can be tickled by the obvious excitement of a trip to a new place or get amped up by the challenge of a new job. It takes a real lover of life to look at his spouse of 20 years and see a new reason why he’s the luckiest guy from Ridgemont High or to get a contact high when she finally puts on that cheap Louis Vuitton knockoff suit she’s been saving for months for. It’s not easy to roll out of the same bed, in the same house on the same street, rolling out in the same damn mid-year, mid-model sedan, going to the same freaking job, for the same freeeeaking cut of the profits, in the hopes of affording the same good-god-damn trip to Vegas along with the usual 401k contribution, so the same fffffreaking weekend barbeque can be relatively argument free, everyday and still be able to smile and laugh and not be a damn freaking cynic. God freaking damn, I’m a cynic. Thank you sir may I have another.
Now then, where was I? Ahhh yes, back to some attempt at a point. Here’s where the bottom drops out due to a pang of uncertainty. It’s also a good time to engage the active audience overdrive. This is the deal: If, at any time in the course of this book I have answered a question of yours, you good reader, must now answer one for me (if I haven’t dropped any pearls along the way, humor me and I’ll owe you one). A discerning reader like yourself has probably heard the cliché that “there are two types of people in the world: those with the cahones to roll the dice and take their chances and those who’d rather watch TV on a Saturday night” (haven’t heard that one?! wait a few months after this book hits the internet…). Well, it’s true. And I know the mentality of the couch potato all too well. (Keep reading, there’s a question here somewhere) He thinks that the dice are loaded and the cahones are a plastic masterpiece courtesy of Dr. 90210 and that the unparalleled variety of modern-day high-def digital satellite-fueled television programming is far superior to the so-called “wonders of the world”. But, what of the adventurer? What makes a somewhat sane, critical thinker, similar to yourself, drop their life and set out into the relatively unknown in search of the holy grail of self-fulfillment?Here’s what you’ll need to read this book: A comic book type imagination – you can see pictures move, but can’t make Moby Dick seem real. A Dubya type sense of humor – one that belches laughter at a joke about a midget and a hooker, but draws the line at photos of a quadriplegic in a pool named “Bob”. An un-Dubya type intelligence quotient – you know that a square root has nothing to do with four sides or the lower extremities of a tree. Something that you don’t need, but that might help you decipher a few of the more cryptic comments herein: a secret love of things not normal, like the taste of plastic or the smile of a schizophrenic.
First blog. First entry. Jumping on the bandwagon is fun.
I'm going to write a book and paste some bits here and there in here (and there) to see if anybody likes it. Even if they don't like it, I'm still going to write it. Maybe just to spite those bastards.
