How to be Intermittenly Not Unhappy

I was going to join the crowd and title this "How to Be Happy," but I just couldn't. That implies Happy all the Time!!!
It implies ~

"Fun fun fun till her daddy took the T-bird away". Life does take things away. The line in the Five Remembrances gets it: "All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change." (The whole chant is at the bottom of this blog.) Fun is especially ephemeral. Every series has a finale, and sometimes it's a great disappointment.

The alternative is to invest yourself in the world. I thought I'd suggest one way to do that: Listen to someone else.

I don't mean listen the way therapists do, with intent to help you change. Don't do that. You don't know what someone else needs. And definitely don't listen the way most people do, thinking of the next thing they will say, even downright impatient. Just pay attention to that other person.

You can briefly take in yourself at the same time. Your self might be cringing before someone else's misery or bored with their same old story. Maybe at some later time you should examine that cringing or boredom that is taking the space where there could be compassion. Meanwhile, why not let them talk - they must have a reason for repeating that story - and just really listen, look. You can nod. You don't have to say anything. Or fix them. In fact, they'd probably pay you not to.

Listening to other people is actually a good way to chip away at our devotion to Wun, my term for our own constructed selves, that Wun who seeks everywhere for happiness when, in fact, the moment is right here.

Getting Over Their Self

I have been enjoying Jeni's ice cream and thinking about writing a post.  I was touched to find three comments on old posts sitting there, waiting for moderation, going back to July 11. I think notifications are going to my old email, and haven't figured out how to change that.  A couple of people have also told me they tried to comment and couldn't, so I want to get on the forums and see if other bloggers are having that problem.



One of the comments asked me to write on deprogramming from an alcoholic family, which is such an interesting term. Makes you think of what some people did to young people who were sucked into weird cults, I'm thinking back in the seventies.  A reversal of brainwashing. Then again, it's interesting to think of your conditioning as brainwashing. Here is the insight that has helped me recently:  the past does not exist.

Meanwhile, I've been watching the above video of a talk by Thich Nhat Hahn about The Art of Happiness.  Tom liked it a lot when his Zen group watched it, and I like it.  Thay (as he is often called by students, meaning Master) says we can learn how to "make good use of our suffering." Joko Beck called this "Suffer intelligently."  This is where Buddhist teachings are about human psychology, but older and better, and might lead me on in this topic of getting out of the sucky quicksand of the past.  Okay, enough for now.
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update:  When you comment on a blog, you might have to "prove you're not a robot" by transcribing some letters and numbers.  Scroll down and make sure you've done the whole thing.

DalaiG has a webcam

Voila, the world today is full of toys!

Woman trying to look pleasant all the time, just looks goony.*

Woman trying to look like nice grandma, looks fundamentally harmless.  Of course, that could be useful.

How woman actually looks when not trying - like she is thinking.  Oh no!

I feel perpetually guilty for not posting here (make up your mind!) so this morning I was trying to copy in a little sign I made for myself in a text box - words of teacher Yvonne Rand. But I can't get it to copy and it doesn't matter, anyway. So here is the text:

Why be unhappy
about something you can change?
Why be unhappy
about something you can’t change?

Now, why be unhappy?  

I don't set out to be unhappy.  It's just that this morning I feel this certain hmm . . . I don't know. Actually. I can't say anything's wrong.  I just have no goals, no drive.  And don't feel like doing what I think I should do.  Hmmm, that's different.  I'm not, like, amused or delighted, dopamine flowing, whatever we mean by "happy."  My senses are not being occupied by something like Grand Budapest Hotel, thank God (they were yesterday - I was too bored to walk out).  I'm just - oh, here.  Kind of interesting.  Of course I hurt somewhere, but that's life at 71 2/3 years old.

Anyway, hello everyone.  Do me two favors today:

1.  Don't smile when you don't mean it.

2.  Don't ever tell me to smile.  (Or your daughter, either.)  Hey, if you don't like someone's mood, go away.

~~~

* I know I should edit those washed-out photos, but they don't pay me enough.
update:  I have no drive, no goals today either, but that's fine with me.  Maybe that's the secret.

Winter Bloom

Today I am over the cold and most of the symptoms; not anxious, though I have the usual problems I am sometimes anxious about; and neither high nor low.  I feel balanced.  Not blissed, but happy in a quiet, contented way.  I thought readers might like to hear from me in that mood now and then.

It does seem that an occasional day of feeling balanced and at peace with life is nothing to remark on, but I guess it is for me.  Or has been for quite a while - but who knows what tomorrow will bring?  Meanwhile, art is more fun than words, so I will conclude by posting photos of some of the things I'm grateful for these days.

Tashi luminous in morning sun

 

Mums Tom picked up grocery shopping last week, in a vase that was a housewarming gift from Marie

Rules in the Sunday School room we do creative movement in

.  I count myself among the Nice tigers.

Watercolor sunset tonight after Art Journaling

Winter bloom (red-orange) on a tree in the church courtyard

A note from an old - really old - friend led me to look up this song this morning.  It turns out to be an impressive effort of digital collage, no clue to the artist.  I am studying collage right now, and it made me think how you should never do art for posterity, or for the future, to gain something, because it will very soon be dead and gone.  Do it for ourselves, for the enjoyment of doing it.

Sometimes in art classes or writing we struggle.  There is an hilarious image in the writings of Ajahn Chah, how we have are like water buffalo - we have to be all bound up hand and foot before we will take our medicine.  This makes me smile just writing it, to see myself writhing around, trying so hard sometimes.

And as for the grand self-improvement project, the happiness project, how far have you gotten with it, really?  (See song.)

What Oprah Doesn't Know

So was looking over a Nov. 2011 O magazine, a workbook on finding your bliss.  You did exercises and then looked to say what “type” you are, that is, what motivates you.  So, what you need in your work.

Five clusters were given, and as I read them and thought about my answers, none of them were about me.  But on the next page was one lonely left-over motivation - enlightenment.  Well, that’s a relief.  Surely that was me.  Though connection and reward and security matter to me, I want most to be my authentic self (or, for you Buddhists, my authentic changing self whose identity is never fixed).

And I think that all of us fundamentally want something we believe security or enlightenment will bring us: happiness.  That’s the flaw in Opah’s whole scheme - it doesn’t go down to the deep layer.  If we are not fundamentally contented and in touch with reality, nothing will make us happy.  If you want an example, look at the latest dead celebrity, or go back to Michael Jackson.  There is no such thing as enough achievement - external reward - if that really matters to you.
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Health Update:
Monday I went up to my doctor and gave a urine sample.  If it shows too many bacteria, they send it out for sensitivity culture.  You’d think that would be back by Wednesday, but it was after hours Thursday when they called to say it’s a bad UTI and I need to go on an IV antibiotic.
 
So today the Home Health nurse came at 12:30 and made four (4) attempts to get an IV in my one poor skinny overworked arm (the other arm has lymphedema).  She got more and more distressed, but at 1:30 had to give up and make phone calls.  So the word came trickling back that I would have to be admitted to the hospital to have a PIC line put in, a sort of long, fancy IV that stays in place.  Not through the ER, I said.  No, no, we’ll have you admitted directly to the Med Ward.  We’ll call back. 

No call back yet.  I know the PIC team usually works until 5:00 and is in a very bad mood if they are kept over.  So, sigh.  And they just called.  And yes, I’ll be there.  And will have to add a photo to this later.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Update 11:00 pm
Admitted to hospital 4 pm.  Total confusion, what a mess.  Finally at 7pm. PICC inserted, X-ray comes back, it isn't right.  PICC re-inserted, X-ray says okay.  Home 9 pm beyond exhausted and hungry.  Enjoyed grilled cheese and tea and Lilyhammer.  11 pm, PICC bleeding.  Call the help line.  It's normal.  Go to bed.  That's good, because I did not have it in me to go back there.  Turns out you can have a PICC inserted outpatient; you make an appointment.  My doctor didn't know that.  This is so typical.  It's all too complicated and specialized, so nobody ever knows how the system works.  Not for the first time, I wish I was one of Queen Elizabeth's Corgis.  You bet they get good medical care.
Yeah yeah, accept reality.  But you don't have to like it.

Frills, Thrills, the Essence of Life

You can make this apron for yourself.  See below

I want to do some deeper thinking about the subject of yesterday's post---leading the no-frills life---which has inspired some people to say, Hey, please, I need some frills.

In my thinking - and as far as I know, I have invented philosophizing on this subject - "frills" are those things or experiences that are superfluous, additions to our lives above our basic needs.  In my thinking, basic needs stand above mere survival needs.  To know what those are, consider the homeless Vet holding a sign:  Will work for food.  To stay alive we need food, water, shelter.  To stay alive longer we need other people - we are a social animal.  In a very real way, we must have the protection of society so we can relax and sleep, be helped when we are not able to help ourselves.  Society lends a stability to our lives.  Our non-magical Western science has demonstrated repeatedly that people with friends and social-spiritual groups (such as churches) live longer.

What I see people wanting is a break, small or large. There is so much marketing of short breaks these days, as the number of single mothers increases, as so many women both work and run a home.  Can't afford to travel, but you can afford a day at the spa.  A pedicure.  A massage.  Wine and whine.  New shoes, hey, more new clothes.  Breaks, a little sense of being nourished.  Groupon is one of the most successful new businesses now, and these are the things it offers day after day, pounding in that incentive to believe they will heal you somehow. Or refresh you so you can slog on.

Then there are the way bigger, more expensive toys and breaks people feel will make them happy.  You know what I mean - a new house, redecorating the one you have, a boat, a remodeled kitchen, a Mediterranean cruise. And wait, wait, a new person, undying romantic love.  I could go on forever. [I almost left out A Great New Car that will make a real man of you, or alternatively, be sleek and pretty and you'll feel carefree and it will provide some moments of pleasure every day.  Right? ] These are the things Americans bought on credit these last years and can't pay for now.  Are they any happier for having them?  Not that I can see.  Because the dream vacation ends, and all you have left now is memory and a whole lot of pictures of you obscuring the view of some monument.

I'm not against these things (though I can't stand even the idea of someone working on my toenails, so I hope I never get too old to clip them myself.)  Enjoy yourself.  But - they are only breaks.  They do not change your life.  And if you are desperate for this kind of luxury, your life is too stressful and there's no buying your way out of that  Changing that means actually changing your day, what you do, and yourself, how you do it.  Changing your habits of action and thought.

So what is the essence, what is basic to happiness, what makes life satisfying and rich?  Here's one inroad to finding our own answer: take, oh, an hour to get started write and expand on a list of ten things you've done in your life that you really enjoyed doing.  Think about this not from the standpoint of ecstasy or our-of-body experiences or super fun, think more about what skills or faculty you were using.

I'm sorry, I have degenerated into advice.  Forgive me, I'm a grandma.  That's what we do.

[Instructions for the apron are free at this delightful website.]

When you'll be happy

[photo: Sherlock contemplates the news of the day]
I don't know about you, but . . .
wait. I do know about you. You're like me. You have a mental list of conditions that need to be met before you can be happy. (They can also be Conditions that Should Have Been Met, which is more rock-solid, because the truth is, no matter how much you pay the therapist, you will never have had a happy childhood. . . . "You will never have had." I actually wrote that. Some sort of fantastical verb tense like they have in French. When I think of all the time I wasted, years in classes, years with books and flash cards and dictionaries, trying to learn French - if only I had spent that time studying molecular neurobiogenetic macroeconomic fashion, I'd be rich today . . . ) But I digress.

That's my name, you could say; I am One who Digresses, who keeps wandering off the path to inspect a little white violet. I used to think I'd be happy when I got a handle on that sort of unremunerative impulse and got Normal and kept a clean house and ate right. But come to find out the world is full of people yearning not to be Normal. We call them human beings. There's the problem. It's not about normal or ab-. It's about that ability to yearn.

Human beings have far too much brain, and yearning is what we use it for. On the other hand, consider the cat. His brain is the size of a walnut. Half a walnut. He does not even understand emotion, let alone Art or commitment. Whenever he tries to meditate, he falls asleep. He has one simple drive, to survive. When the territory's all snug and there's food in the dish and water in the bathroom sink, and no other cats around, is he bored and restless? If so, he will devote himself to dashing out the front door when you go to get the mail. If not, he naps, storing up energy in case something to pounce on appears. Not that he yearns for something to pounce on, not really. He's just ready. It's his nature.

The thing about being human is, we are able to desire to be like a cat. Think about it. Don't you wish you had their simple, straightforward mind, the ability to be perfectly contented when lying in bed between your humans, shedding? To purr only if and when you felt like it, without hypocrisy or guilt? If only you could get rid of this thinking, worrying mind of yours and be like a cat, then you'd be happy.

Here's where I'm going with this, if I can be said to be going anywhere except offroad: That thing that would make you happy If Only - it wouldn't. How many examples do you need? Remember how you longed for high school graduation? Free at last! Or your driver's license. Or Love. Or then, to get rid of the guy. To lose ten pounds. To finally deliver that baby. To get that teenager out of the house. When the weather changes. You get the idea.

Once in a while, it is true, something actually meets our expectations. Recently I was reminded of how thoroughly I enjoyed my sixty-fifth birthday. I got to wear a big pink sombrero while lots of people sang happy birthday to me, and then I got toys and cake. For a moment there, I was the center of my universe. I've always thought I'd be perfectly happy if only that would come true. It did, and I was.

Those readers who are not cats are probably ahead of me here, thinking, Aha, all I have to do is get rid of my selfish, unrealistic desires, like the wish to always be the center of everyone else's universe. No, I wasn't going to say that. I can't cure your big brain that easily. All I know to do is make a list. Write down your preoccupations - today's will do - all those conditions that must be met for you to be happy. All of them. Don't leave things out just because they're impossible, like, to be young again.

Think about it. Keep adding to the list. At a later time, maybe, we will discuss how to invent a personally meaningful ritual to distance yourself little from some of these conditions. Crumple the list and eat it. Or throw it in a bonfire while walking counter-clockwise. Laminate it on styrofoam and throw knives at it. Like I said, I am a fountain of creative ideas. I can't help myself. Wish I could.

I'm going to help you

It is never necessary to cue Sherlock that it is time for one of his favorite products. He knows what happens when the mail comes in - he gets his daily Petromalt. ( Cat people know what it is.) On Sunday (note the funnies under his dominating paw), no mail, so the Petromalt can come out anytime someone opens that drawer in the kitchen.

I thought about this the other day as I read an old New York Times article ("Warning - Habits May be Good for You") about how advertising agencies work to change viewers' habits. An example given was trying to get people to use the product Febreze, a spray deodorizer whose sales were languishing. People bought it once, but then forgot to use it. The psychologists advised the agency to tie the use of the product to the regular weekly housecleaning that, apparently, someone actually does. The idea was to make spraying the clean room with this perfumed water a habitual final step in cleaning.

It is somewhat consoling to think that this is another product that will be increasingly seen as an unnecessary luxury in these days of new attention to our spending. (Have you seen what happened to Starbucks' stock?) At the same time, it is a little scary to remind ourselves how marketers think:

“OUR products succeed when they become part of daily or weekly patterns,” said Carol Berning, a consumer psychologist who recently retired from Procter & Gamble, the company that sold $76 billion of Tide, Crest and other products last year. “Creating positive habits is a huge part of improving our consumers’ lives, and it’s essential to making new products commercially viable.” [my italics]

The thought that there exists an academic specialty called "consumer psychology" strikes fear in those of us who used to teach books like Brave New World. The fact that there are people who believe that manipulating others to buy something improves their lives, that should not surprise us. It should sadden us, and help us remember to be skeptical.

I remember my dismay when my mother talked about a course in advertising she took in college, which she attended in middle age. She did not see advertising as manipulation, but explained to me what she was taught: "Advertising is all about giving information." She was of a generation unable to question the powerful white man who stood in front of the class, and who wrote the textbook.

The crash of the global economy is related to its basis in the constant purchase and discarding of luxury products. Well before the crash, it had become obvious that this was an unsatisfying lifestyle, so obvious that psychologists began to study happiness. Their findings about what makes people contented with their lives are so much like those of the Buddha, you sometimes have to smile. It is a conclusion many people had already come to: once you have the necessities of life (which do not include a Swarovski rhinoceros), more doesn't make you any happier.

This could lead me to a whole discourse on how I escaped buying a robot vacuum cleaner. I'll save that for another time. Suffice it to say now, Sherlock would not have approved.