4/5/21 & 4/19/21 - 11:21 PM & 10:17 AM
This chapter includes an excerpt from "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," by Ursula Le Guin, interspersed throughout this piece. I highly recommend it, it's a four page short story that's freely available online, so you should check it out.

• • •

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid."

• • •

I feel like a fraud for being happy.

Frankly,
I feel like a asshole just for saying that.

As if simply declaring my happiness invalidates and mocks my own and others' suffering.

• • •

"Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting."

• • •

Feeling happy
always feels like
a lie.

As if
moments of happiness
can't exist because
there are
moments of sadness.

That's not how this works.

The presence of one emotion doesn't invalidate or neglect the past or future presences of another, contrasting emotion.

If anything,
the presence of a contrasting emotion
is what gives its counterpart emotion
its true value.

When I
read or
write or
perform
poems,
I have noticed that myself
and many others
do not take poems about
simple, happy things
seriously.

As if writing
a happy poem
is something
elementary,
everyone can do it!

As if only
suffering
can carry any
artistic value
and merit.

I've written a little about this before.

Written about how I felt
broken
because I was
happy,
and I didn't think I could
create
without any
pain.

• • •

"This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."

• • •

I've witnessed art about the
simple, young, happy,
be discredited for no reason
except it's subject matter.

We are taught to value suffering in art.

Why do we value suffering over happiness?

What makes suffering a better muse?
Is it even better?

Maybe we just romanticize pain,
and put down happiness,
because we want it,
but sometimes
can't find
it.

It's become pervasive.
This insecurity-driven shunning of the happy.

It even prevents the shunners
from enjoying and accepting
their own happiness.

• • •

"If you can't lick 'em, join 'em.
If it hurts, repeat it."

• • •

If you think about,
it's entirely stupid.

Suffering is not enjoyable.
By its very definition it isn't.

This glorifying of it
takes away from the fact
it is suffering.

Suffering should not be striven for,
not even for the sake of art.

Not when happy can make art of its own.

• • •

"But to praise despair is to condemn delight,
to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else."

• • •

So why do I feel like a fraud when I'm happy?

Why do I feel like an asshole
when I say I'm happy?

Why do I find myself
intentionally neglecting all of
the happy moments,
in favor of ruminating
over some made up
deprivation of joy?

Why do I feel like
some sort of spoiled child
complaining about not having one small thing, when I have everything already,
while so many have so little compared to me,
while writing this?

Like I'm some petulant, privileged, brat,
for pointing out that I,
and many other creatives,
carry so much hatred for the happy.

Does no one deserve to be happy?

Because that's is insane.
It's insane!

You're telling me that
you and I know what suffering feels like,
and we still ostracize those who are happy, simply because we are not?

Does no one deserve to be happy then?

Do we not even deserve to
let ourselves be happy?

That isn't right!

That like saying that
if you or I are happy,
we deserve to be suffering.

No, no, no, it should be
if you or I are suffering,
we deserve to be happy.

We can all exist in different ways and feelings,
one's feeling doesn't detract from
the suffering or happiness of another.

This is not some time everyone must serve,
this is not game of limited feeling.

We should want happiness for one another.

Just as much as we should
want happiness for ourselves.

• • •

"We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy."

• • •

I am a fraud when I say I'm not happy.
That would be a lie.

I'm happy, and I suffer.
I am human.

I cannot be summed up in a singular emotion.
I am made up of many.

We all are.

We should not feel shame for feeling happy,
nor should we feel insecure in our suffering.

We can have both,
neither takes away from the other.

We are not wrong for declaring our feelings so.
Both can make art that has equal value.

We should want everyone to be happy.
We should want to be happy.

I'm happy,
Eliza