On Happiness.
You ask me now, as followup to my last post, “Are you Happy?”
Must I say?
There are, I believe, some basic parameters that must first be submitted for considertion. Our personal definitions of these benchmarks is ever more complicated as we grow to live in more sophisticated and complicated times.
1: Meeting basic needs
(Does that mean wifi and a new cel phone every month? prestige? respect? drugs? getting fucked regularly? being able to walk around naked? having the right to marry? Reaching financial goals? Creating art everlasting? Conquering SSX Tricky? Having fresh coffee?)
2: Accepting circumstances
(I can’t change the way I feel about X. Y can’t deal with the fact that I can’t do _blank_. My father never apologized for _blah_blah_blah. I never got enough breast milk as a kid and now I’m lactose intolerant *and* have emotional abandonment issues)
3: Recognizing control and lack thereof
(I can leave my heart open to change. My hapiness and validation does not rest on *one* person. And I can be forgiven. I can be healther. I can accomplish more. I can’t make that person love me. I can’t make that person love me less. I can ask for forgiveness. I can choose that some things are not worth my time. I am allowed to be selfish. I am not obliged to martyr myself. I do not have to be altruistic. Politeness is sometimes for pussies. I can ask my boss for these concessions. I can negotiated for this. I do not have to accep tthings as they are. I am mobile. I am not static. There’s a predicate of this sentence. And school house rocks. I am capable of choice and action in this, any, all circumstance. I am an agent to my own change.)
4: A plan of action/goal/etc
(I will talk to someone. I will make this decision. I will commit to this. I will take classes, see this person, write this, be this place in my career. I will go to group counseling at the senior community center. I will learn polka on tuesdays. I will compete next august.)
5: Reasonably accurate self assessment
(Fuck that, I suck at polka. Cha cha is a better choice)
6: A willingness to allow oneself to be happy.
(Are you ready? Willing? Can you allow yourself this moment and just be?)
The English language fails me….even though I consider myself a reasonably loquacious writer and communicator.
Consider this:
We usually think of accuracy and precision as pretty much the same thing. But in science, these words are used in significantly different ways. A result is considered accurate if it is consistent with the true or accepted value for that result. The precision of a result, on the other hand, is an indication of how sharply it is defined.
Additionally, there are two words in Korean which are difficult to define in English (especially for yours trully who is terrible in Korean).
And these are…at best, my attempts to express what I understand these words to mean.
Jhung: (not to be confused with analytical psychology) A sense of connection. A spiritual allignment. Trust. Loyalty. Affection without condition or explanation.
Ma-umeh: Comfort. Where or with whom your heart finds ease. Understanding. A sense of being home. When everyone, everything, every situation, or the person you’re with feels completely right. Gut confidence.
Ancient Greek has the words philia, eros, agape, and storge, meaning love between friends, romantic/sexual love, unconditional (possibly sacrificial, unreciprocated) love, and affection/familial love respectively.
And my name, according to popular definition of the theology in Korea (not going off of the chinese symbols that make up my name …which according to my Dad means something like charming woman who has compassion for the people….yeah whatever little feather of the bull pucky moon…)
minjung theology describes the so-called
“losers” of society.
And minjung theology explains why they make
so many bad choices.
In Korea the lowest class of people
are called minjung.
Since the rise of the Yi Dynasty in 1392, four social
classes have existed in Korea:
“Literati” have ruled.
Professionals and officials;
then farmers, artisans and merchants are the middle class.
The minjung are a class of outcasts: slaves, butchers, actors and
shamans—those so-called “crazy” religious exorcists.
Have I prevaricated overly much?
Am I happy?
Yes. No. Maybe.
That answer is absolutley accurate. But no where near precise.
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