This Boat is Real

I am thinking of writing a self help book, and it isn't a joke. I see too many people who genuinely believe they are a piece of shit. PLEASE bounce other ideas off of me! We can cheer the world up.

I have always been fascinated by happy people. Obsessed, maybe. I have learned some tricks, I have learned their ways.

The first thing I have found! is to look at is how unhappy people view happiness. Like love, they seem to think it is something the very fortunate stumble across, while happy people view happiness as a decision. They decide to be happy with the spread before them even though it's a bagel they dumpster dived (or especially because, as the case may be). And there is a trick to it! To put it into words, you learn to remember, remember that whether the universe is a churning chemical accident and there's no deeper meaning or whether providence is the motor of our existence. Either way it is astonishing. And glorious. And ours.

The second trick I've picked up on takes some cultivation. Happy people learn to tell what they are compelled to want from what they really want. If you act on what you truly, genuinely want! not what you want out of spite or what you are tricked into wanting by media and all the people who buy into media, then you can unhesitatingly forgive yourself. Even if you feel differently later. At least I do. I can't speak for everyone.

Trick # 3 is one that I'm doing well with but slip on sometimes. I have found that the less I feel entitled to, the less I am hurt, and the more my self-worth grows. Every time I have been angry it has been a direct result of feeling like I was owed something and not having it come to pass. It isn't just about not being disappointed by circumstance. It should be about autonomy. Gambling, by relying on other people or the "system", brings you anger and confusion when you lose and an air of entitlement when you win. Autonomy brings you validation when you succeed and redoubled resolve when you don't.

The fourth is probably the simplest, particularly after you get comfortable with the former tricks. You learn to let yourself feel sad when things are sad, concerned when things are tenuous. Placation is the enemy of emotional health! If you believe a person when they tell you "it's not that bad," or you listen to them when they tell you to "get over it", then you can feel wrong for a reaction that you shouldn't ever even have to defend. You have a right to air the state you are in without being told you are wrong for feeling that way. Even though the other individual is just trying to help.

These tricks get to become a discipline.
for example, for #2, I always do silly things and lately I can't stop thinking about DJ names. There's no reason, no possible gain from thinking up the best dj name EVER, but I am happy that I lead the kind of life where I can take some time out and just think about dj names. Or how with the fourth trick, I have learned to stop coming to the people who would rather placate me than help me deal with real issues that are going on in my life. If you find your rhythm, you can be happy every day. Every. Day.

The Dynamic

Non-Painters Painting

I suppose the art is in the method. I painted something which I really like by spreading my colors out and then manipulating the paint into what I wanted it to be. Trying to take the photograph you see here to look like the painting itself proved incredibly difficult and I am glad that I have a camera and didn't have to use photobooth.

I do not think that the colors in the photograph are quite right. However! I did end up taking a photograph in the process that I like a little bit better than the painting. I love the depth and interaction and everything about this happenstancial little photograph.


The painting is called Eater