Just what is happiness? A hugely popular song tells the story, and I have to admit its contagious listening to the tune and watching people dance as they move along to its beat. Pharrell defines it as
"A room without a roof"
"Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you know what happiness is to you
Because I'm happy
Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do"
Great lyrics! Love the variety of "the people" called on to dance and participate, -- that's half the fun, watching all of the lovely and ordinary do a jig for the song video. You can hardly help catching the fever.
Yet some of us find happiness elusive. Here's another very different 'take' on happiness, and its inverse - our cultural dilemma where we too often feel stuck:
No wonder - life is tough, bliss is elusive in an economy where everything has to be converted to machined, mass produced widgets in order to 'make it marketable' and make a living, and where almost anything, and I mean anything, can be commodified.
Its not without reason that many struggle with depression and yearn for a more natural life that they can't quite envision or put their finger on that can get them out of such a trap, off the treadmill of our ordinary lives in our current 'economy'.
It takes much creative thought and a context of support, being 'heard' to be able to even believe escape 'in place' is possible -- for there is, as we've learned, no "away" and no Planet B. We must plumb the possible from the lofty and ordinary land of our very own neighborhoods and communities and find some foothold to a new land right here, now, that will make real that hoped for Possible --
"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing".
Arundhati Roy