“Marketed lifestyles have fiddled with our emotions and misdirected us since birth, making our lives appear unlivable without more.” Can anything ring more true than this? Excellent, Corey!
I can’t read or think about happiness without Michael Cunningham’s The Hours coming to mind: “I remember thinking to myself: So this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts. And of course there will always be more...never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment, right then.”
Jordan Peterson said "Happiness' is a pointless goal. Don't compare yourself with other people, compare yourself with who you were yesterday. No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life. You conjure your own world, not only metaphorically but also literally and neurologically." Life is not about being happy all the time. Life is suffering. If you can have happiness in moments then you can be truly grateful but do not expect them. He really changed my perspective on the idea of happiness.
You wouldn't know it by this piece, but I never even think about happiness. It’s never done anything for me. I am either content and indifferent or struggling and anxious.
“My actions can’t attain happiness, only express it.” I enjoy thinking about this line, Corey, and about what is expressed in the action of your sharing this contemplation. 🎈
I thought, too, as I read of a time, I lay stretched on a road in the state of, well, not soberness, enamored of the glimmering of what I would later fully realize was broken glass.
Thank you for this reflection of the states we can find ourselves in, bring ourselves to, ponder.
I stumbled into your work, being sober for 25 years and hearing your voice often feels so much like my own tumbling thoughts. I want to write them out and have tried many, many times but I hesitate and hesitation turns to inadequacy and inadequacy becomes paralysis. So I read to find my words elsewhere and am comforted by people like you.
I tried to write about these things for three years and couldn't get anywhere. Everything just fell flat. I never intended to write about this stuff here. It just sort of happened, which is maybe why I was able to start writing about this stuff. I was trying to. Happy you found my work. Thank you for reading.
Wasn't sure where you were going with at first but I do agree with some of what you said. I agree with you about learning to love being alone - I do and take time off work just to be alone when I really feel over peopled. Happiness comes from inside and not in having the latest I phone or 90" telly
Oh, I wouldn't want you to know where it was going. Wouldn't that be boring? The paragraphs are not necessarily linked, but they all tie into the theme.
I originally had the paragraphs as crots, fragments with extra white space between each to signify their distinctions, but I hated all the extra space. Substack's editor doesn't give a lot of choices for formatting. Anyway, I said the heck with it and removed the extra spaces. It makes it more jarring, but I kind of like it that way.
Ahhh . . . I am so disappointed in myself. A poem! Why didn't I think of that? Ugh. I am happy you showed me that. Thank you. And steal away (with credit). I like that sentence. It's simple but says a lot, though I feel it might be easily overlooked. I'm glad you noticed it.
I will remember that forever now. No, I probably won't. I'll get all caught up and absorbed in myself and forget everything I've ever learned, as is my wont.
It's supposed to feel like an after thought. I intentionally built it that way. Not to mention, no single sentence can anchor a story. Every word counts. I had my head up ass. I shared the sentence here to ensure I never use it anywhere else. I destroyed it. It's out of my head now.
"Except for the time I told my father I love him, I had yet to tell a real lie." Powerful words. Can't absorb any others. And yet, you are not the narrator? "
I had yet to tell a real lie" You know a big one. So big I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. And why? Why, oh why had I uttered those words? Dumb bitch. Fool... eyes darting ,choking vomit I desperately wanted the earth to swallow me whole. Anything was better than standing here; face red, sweat running, heart thumping like a Wilder beast. Shifting my weight I gingerly tested if I could move and then bolted for the door. No chorus sang, no birds chirped and I don't think he heard me. That's what I decided. He didn't hear me. I walked out safe. Close call, close call. Open the hatch, open the hatch, slam it shut, slam it shut, Melodie. Don't let the cat out, don't let the cat out. Stupid bitch, stupid bitch the crow shrilled. Run away, run away the monkey screeched. Shut up, shut up, I inwardly screamed, rocking and rocking to the beat of the drum. Head bobbing, nails digging as I pounded my legs in the dark. Lights out, lights out he bellowed.
Not that you need a suggestion from me, you're already a great writer, but have you ever tried not changing a single word in your storyline, but making it a sentence in a wider story. Like zoom out from the sentence and see what the story is?
Yeah, I tried that and many other things. I was just foolishly and blindly attached to that sentence for some reason. It fit the story I was writing, but I still hated it, the story and the sentence. But I didn't hate the sentence. But I did. Oy. Publishing it here was a way for me to get rid of it, to relieve my mind from the sentence's ineffable draw. I am no longer plagued by it.
"If the old me chose to switch tracks and veer into sober insanity only to see his daughter and make life easier to navigate, to please others, out of pride, to live, then his self-interest taints my progress."
Perhaps there exists a weighting system.
Where the part of old you that had thought of another - your daughter, any others - counts for more and skews any measurement of progress in your favour.
Love it all, Corey. The way your mind seems to lurch along, with intricate zigzags, towards SOMEthing, something ultimately unnameable. I agree with you that happiness doesn't really work as a full-time way of being.
"To be constantly happy for your entire life would be unbearable and boring, I think. How would you even know you were happy?"
I think this is why we're here. (Bear with me; I am not a religious man, so take as much metaphoric license as you wish; or don't bear me at all and vehemently disagree.) God got bored with the sameness of everything. So he Banged, Big time, and he's still Banging, and we're all part of that. The universe continues to expand, and our minds' main "purpose" (which is a word God laughs at, at first, but then sobers up and thinks, "Maybe there is something to this thing I/Me/Us/We seem to be doing." He wants to be as uncertain as we are; he is, in fact, us.) is to expand along dimensions beyond the four we so easily see and measure.
I like the cut of your jib, Corey. Your daughter will learn a lot from you (and does already, of course). Thanks for doing your thing.
Oh, and your story about laying in the road reminds me a bit of one time I had a horrible bout of insomnia in college. I ended up slipping on my cheap flip flops and walking around campus, late at night on a school night, for hours and hours. The calluses on my feet reminded me of the strange wakewalking for many days thereafter. Sometimes the body just decides it needs to try something.
I believe I replied to this comment on a restack. So I will just say thank you. I appreciate your profound comments and love that you're such a thoughtful reader.
“Marketed lifestyles have fiddled with our emotions and misdirected us since birth, making our lives appear unlivable without more.” Can anything ring more true than this? Excellent, Corey!
Thank you, Paul.
My pleasure, Corey.
I can’t read or think about happiness without Michael Cunningham’s The Hours coming to mind: “I remember thinking to myself: So this is the beginning of happiness, this is where it starts. And of course there will always be more...never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment, right then.”
Thank you for this!
Thank you, Caroline. I'm not familiar with Cunningham's work, but I am intrigued. I'll have to add it to my lists.
Happiness is an inside job...Heard that at a meeting more than 30 years ago. Still seems to work.
Haha. I like it.
Jordan Peterson said "Happiness' is a pointless goal. Don't compare yourself with other people, compare yourself with who you were yesterday. No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life. You conjure your own world, not only metaphorically but also literally and neurologically." Life is not about being happy all the time. Life is suffering. If you can have happiness in moments then you can be truly grateful but do not expect them. He really changed my perspective on the idea of happiness.
You wouldn't know it by this piece, but I never even think about happiness. It’s never done anything for me. I am either content and indifferent or struggling and anxious.
As usual your essay brings so much to mind! Hail you! Thank you. I've been thinking about the same subject for quite some time now.
Thank you!
“My actions can’t attain happiness, only express it.” I enjoy thinking about this line, Corey, and about what is expressed in the action of your sharing this contemplation. 🎈
I thought, too, as I read of a time, I lay stretched on a road in the state of, well, not soberness, enamored of the glimmering of what I would later fully realize was broken glass.
Thank you for this reflection of the states we can find ourselves in, bring ourselves to, ponder.
Thank you, Holly. It seems I'm not alone on the road, an unexpected turn of events. Thank you for reading the piece.
I stumbled into your work, being sober for 25 years and hearing your voice often feels so much like my own tumbling thoughts. I want to write them out and have tried many, many times but I hesitate and hesitation turns to inadequacy and inadequacy becomes paralysis. So I read to find my words elsewhere and am comforted by people like you.
I tried to write about these things for three years and couldn't get anywhere. Everything just fell flat. I never intended to write about this stuff here. It just sort of happened, which is maybe why I was able to start writing about this stuff. I was trying to. Happy you found my work. Thank you for reading.
Wasn't sure where you were going with at first but I do agree with some of what you said. I agree with you about learning to love being alone - I do and take time off work just to be alone when I really feel over peopled. Happiness comes from inside and not in having the latest I phone or 90" telly
Oh, I wouldn't want you to know where it was going. Wouldn't that be boring? The paragraphs are not necessarily linked, but they all tie into the theme.
That's what intrigued me - there seemed to be disconnection but there was
I originally had the paragraphs as crots, fragments with extra white space between each to signify their distinctions, but I hated all the extra space. Substack's editor doesn't give a lot of choices for formatting. Anyway, I said the heck with it and removed the extra spaces. It makes it more jarring, but I kind of like it that way.
I wouldn't 'say jarring, as much as jumping from one thought to another, but all on the same theme.
As the saying goes, from one thing to another to another.
I love me time also, and was in heaven during shelter in place...
It was such a treat.
Yes, it was.
Here, fixed it for you (it wants to be a poem, not a story):
Except for the time
I told my father
I loved him,
I had yet to tell
a real lie.
Plus, I’m totally stealing this line (will give you credit):
“My life wasn’t terrible, though it seemed unnecessary.”
Ahhh . . . I am so disappointed in myself. A poem! Why didn't I think of that? Ugh. I am happy you showed me that. Thank you. And steal away (with credit). I like that sentence. It's simple but says a lot, though I feel it might be easily overlooked. I'm glad you noticed it.
Been there. I spent years trying to write a story that wanted to be a 15-line poem.
I will remember that forever now. No, I probably won't. I'll get all caught up and absorbed in myself and forget everything I've ever learned, as is my wont.
"Except for the time I told my father I loved him, I had yet to tell a real lie."
I don't feel that line as an anchor to build around. It struck me as the last line ... almost as an after thought.
It's supposed to feel like an after thought. I intentionally built it that way. Not to mention, no single sentence can anchor a story. Every word counts. I had my head up ass. I shared the sentence here to ensure I never use it anywhere else. I destroyed it. It's out of my head now.
It strikes me as being the entire story- a lot said in very few words.
Pessoa has a way of showing up when you need him.
Appreciated your part about lying down, yellow lines splitting... 🙏
He does, doesn't he? I feel like he's got an aphorism or an epigram suitable for any occasion. Thanks for reading, Van.
One of the best pieces I have ever read.
Thank you!
"Except for the time I told my father I love him, I had yet to tell a real lie." Powerful words. Can't absorb any others. And yet, you are not the narrator? "
I had yet to tell a real lie" You know a big one. So big I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. And why? Why, oh why had I uttered those words? Dumb bitch. Fool... eyes darting ,choking vomit I desperately wanted the earth to swallow me whole. Anything was better than standing here; face red, sweat running, heart thumping like a Wilder beast. Shifting my weight I gingerly tested if I could move and then bolted for the door. No chorus sang, no birds chirped and I don't think he heard me. That's what I decided. He didn't hear me. I walked out safe. Close call, close call. Open the hatch, open the hatch, slam it shut, slam it shut, Melodie. Don't let the cat out, don't let the cat out. Stupid bitch, stupid bitch the crow shrilled. Run away, run away the monkey screeched. Shut up, shut up, I inwardly screamed, rocking and rocking to the beat of the drum. Head bobbing, nails digging as I pounded my legs in the dark. Lights out, lights out he bellowed.
Not that you need a suggestion from me, you're already a great writer, but have you ever tried not changing a single word in your storyline, but making it a sentence in a wider story. Like zoom out from the sentence and see what the story is?
Yeah, I tried that and many other things. I was just foolishly and blindly attached to that sentence for some reason. It fit the story I was writing, but I still hated it, the story and the sentence. But I didn't hate the sentence. But I did. Oy. Publishing it here was a way for me to get rid of it, to relieve my mind from the sentence's ineffable draw. I am no longer plagued by it.
I love how this piece meanders. So many gems.
Thank you, LeeAnn.
"If the old me chose to switch tracks and veer into sober insanity only to see his daughter and make life easier to navigate, to please others, out of pride, to live, then his self-interest taints my progress."
Perhaps there exists a weighting system.
Where the part of old you that had thought of another - your daughter, any others - counts for more and skews any measurement of progress in your favour.
Interesting take. Thank you.
Love it all, Corey. The way your mind seems to lurch along, with intricate zigzags, towards SOMEthing, something ultimately unnameable. I agree with you that happiness doesn't really work as a full-time way of being.
"To be constantly happy for your entire life would be unbearable and boring, I think. How would you even know you were happy?"
I think this is why we're here. (Bear with me; I am not a religious man, so take as much metaphoric license as you wish; or don't bear me at all and vehemently disagree.) God got bored with the sameness of everything. So he Banged, Big time, and he's still Banging, and we're all part of that. The universe continues to expand, and our minds' main "purpose" (which is a word God laughs at, at first, but then sobers up and thinks, "Maybe there is something to this thing I/Me/Us/We seem to be doing." He wants to be as uncertain as we are; he is, in fact, us.) is to expand along dimensions beyond the four we so easily see and measure.
I like the cut of your jib, Corey. Your daughter will learn a lot from you (and does already, of course). Thanks for doing your thing.
Oh, and your story about laying in the road reminds me a bit of one time I had a horrible bout of insomnia in college. I ended up slipping on my cheap flip flops and walking around campus, late at night on a school night, for hours and hours. The calluses on my feet reminded me of the strange wakewalking for many days thereafter. Sometimes the body just decides it needs to try something.
I believe I replied to this comment on a restack. So I will just say thank you. I appreciate your profound comments and love that you're such a thoughtful reader.