Today, for the briefest, shining instant, I realised that I was happy.
I don't think I could capture the moment again, or the essence of that spontaneous realisation. It seems almost childish now to try to picture the moment. Like a mutt grinning to itself, you know? A little goofy, a little simple. A moment of simple joy, of heedless gaiety. Followed by catching myself, and in a glimmer it slipped away from me. I don't even know if I could fully revisit the magnitude of that moment, the significance of being aware of something almost unattainable, yet dimly, unintuitively, within reach. To be happy, it doesn't seem that hard, but it's actually almost impossible, or maybe it's the illusion that you have to kind of jedi mind trick yourself. Why aren't I happy, after all, why Shouldn't I be happy, after all, and then it's down some kind of rabbit hole. It's a jedi mind trick all right. You have to buy it to believe it. Can you convince yourself that you're happy, or is the realisation ever true? It's such a vulgarly constructed paradox. It's completely, completely Sisyphean. Joy is leaving the apex and running after the stone, even if that seems utterly pitiful. Or is that happiness? Is happiness being able to spend time the way you want to? WHY CAN'T WE? Nothing's stopping us from that, but our own minds, and this world, and other people, and Things! That's why we're never "happy". It's so lame. But you can't run from the stone of scepticism in your belly that something is going to fuck up, not today, not tomorrow, but very soon, just around the corner. Going to come up and completely rain on your parade, you know? That's probably why. The more we live, the more time weighs upon us. It's enough to send shivers down your spine. Take that, present self.
