We must mend what is broken

"We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century." -Camus, The Almond Trees

How to Be Happy in 101 Days

I love this poem so much.

How to Be Happy in 101 Days

Tishani Doshi

Adore stone. Learn to manoeuvre

against the heat of things. Should

you see butterflies gambol in the air,

resist the urge to pinch their wings. 

Look for utilitarian values of violence.

Use the knife lustily: to peel the mango's

jealous skin, to wean bark and cut bread

for the unending hunger of stray dogs. 

Renounce your house. Take just one 

object with you. Slip it in your pocket. 

Marvel at how a simple thing can

connect the variegated skeins of time. 

On the 99th day, you must surrender

this object, but until then feel free 

to attach sentiment to it. Find a forest

to disappear in. Look for thirst-quenching

plants. Rub the smooth globes of their roots 

in our palms before biting in to their hearts. 

Lean backwards and listen to the slippery

bastard of your own arrhythmic heart. 

Remind yourself that you feel pain, 

therefore you must be alive. Stain

your fingers with ink. Set out into 

the world and prepare to be horrified. 

Do not close your eyes. Catch a fish. 

Smash its head and watch the life gasp 

out of it. Spit the bones into sand.

Offer your bones to someone. 

Clavicles are the chief seducers

of the human body. When you hear

the snap, allow yourself a shudder. 

Find a tree to hold all the faces

of your dead—their hair, their rings. 

Hang their solemn portraits from branches. 

If you cannot find happiness in death

you will not complete the course. 

Give your child to a stranger. 

If you are childless, offer the person

you love best. Do not ask about possible

ways of mistreatment. Trust it will be terrible.

Climb a mountain. Feel how much larger

the world is when you're alone. 

Try to find words or images

to explain your loss. Give up. Stand on your head. 

Grow dizzy on your own blood. 

Spend the night in the cemetery. 

Keep still and listen to the dead chortle. 

Tattoo your face. Do not bother with the stars. 

They are for romantics (who are not happy

people). Learn to steer through darkness. 

If you're attacked, spread your legs and say,

Brother, why are you doing this to me?

​​​​​​When you approach a crossing in the woods, 

take the one instinct tells you to take. 

When you are knee-deep in mud, turn

around and try the other path in order

to understand how little you know

of yourself. In a few days you'll be ready

for the sublime. Before that, meditate

in a cave. If a tigress finds you, offer her

the meat of your thighs, give her cubs

your breasts. If tigers are already extinct,

wait for some other hairy, hungry creature

to accost you. It will happen. 

It is important for you to lose both

body and mind. Dig a hole in the earth

with your hands. Place your treasured 

object in it and thrill at how little

it means to let it go. On the 101st 

day, search out a mirror. Strip

away your clothes. Inch up to

your reflection. Much of the success

of this course will depend on what you see.

The attractive fallacy of logic and accuracy

"the logic lover . . . wishes not to understand, but to use again and again their favorite magic words, as a shield against criticism and as a weapon against others."

There is a cultural foundation to the framework that the author explored: Logic can be used as a shield against personal feelings of unworthiness because being correct is evidence of moral superiority. This cultural notion of verifiable personal worth through factual accuracy is not only wrong; those who use it are doing so as a security blanket against feelings of unlovability and a lack of self worth.

The danger of acceptance of accuracy as moral high ground is that it is itself a cover for what we really are running from: that we hold inaccuracy to be proof of immorality.

Inaccurate = Wrong = no good = worthless.

The notion of unlovability then becomes validated by the argument (or spell in this case) of accuracy used to disprove the application of unlovability. Disproving the application of worthlessness in a specific instance validates the general cultural equivalence of accuracy and worthiness.

Therefore, the more insecure someone is, the more important it can feel to be right in a single instance. As if everything hinges upon it. Because, in fact, it does.The everything" in this case is the idea that one can prove ones status as worthy of love.

When someone rejects the notion of accuracy as evidence of moral superiority, the house of cards falls, leaving adherents feeling worthless. This is when adherents often became dangerous, lashing out at any naysayers, using attacking behavior and defensiveness.

Only when we walk away from the underlying foundation of verifiable (un)worthiness can we get to the point where being wrong is an opportunity. Verification of any quality necessitates the possibility of the absence of that quality.

Worth cannot be verified, because it can't be denied - you are worthy of love and happiness. Living a life of assumed worthiness opens the door to authenticity and freedom.

Art and Happiness

There is no non-creative path to happiness.

Love is the path to creativity.

We must live and create, "in the very midst of the desert." (Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1955, p. v)

Materialism is the First World response to Insecurity and Low Self Esteem

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.

"By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth," they write in the study.
"Growing up in a Material World: Age Differences in Materialism in Children and Adolescents," Lan Nguyen Chaplin Deborah Roedder John
Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 34, Issue 4, 1 December 2007, Pages 480–493, https://doi.org/10.1086/518546

In the book Happiness: Lessons From a New Science, Richard Layard exposes a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most of us want more income so we can consume more. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. In fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. This paradox is true of Britain, the United States, continental Europe and Japan. (e.a.)

Growth

This morning as I was writing, I realized that I have gone from

to

Life is good.

Places Rated, yet again, but differently

Check out the latest Gallup poll on places, called "communities" in this poll with the happiest people.

Again, we are seeing metropolitan areas compete in ways that resemble colleges or theme parks more than as municipalities. Notice that Lynchburg and Charlottesville scored higher than Roanoke (168 at +60.5) or Asheville (26th at +63.7). I would be interested in seeing the non-rated similarities between these high-ranking towns, as off the cuff I'm seeing a low level of diversity in race or culture and a high level of small towns in the positive rankings. I love Gallup, but as everyone knows, it's all about how you ask the question and how you group and weight the answers.

This life is yours.

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy. ~Susan Polis Schutz

Just For Today

Just for today I will

be happy.

What Abraham Lincoln said is true, that “most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals.

Just for today I will try to

adjust myself to what is

and not try to adjust everything to my own desires.

I will take my family, my business and my luck as they come and fit myself to them.

Just for today I will

take care of my body.

I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse it, nor neglect it,

so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding.

Just for today I will try to

strengthen my mind.

I will learn something useful. I will not be a mental loafer.

I will read something that requires effort, thought and concentration.

Just for today I will

exercise my soul in three ways.

I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out.

I will do at least two things I don’t want to do, as William James suggests, just for exercise.

Just for today I will

be agreeable.

I will look as well as I can, dress as becomingly as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise,

criticize not at all, not find fault with anything, and not try to regulate nor improve anyone.

Just for today I will try to

live through this day only.

Not to tackle my whole life problem at once.

I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime.

Just for today I will

have a program.

I will write down what I expect to do every hour. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it.

It will eliminate two pests, hurry and indecision.

Just for today I will have a

quiet half-hour

all by myself and relax.

In this half -hour sometimes I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective into my life.

Just for today I will

be unafraid.

Especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoy what is beautiful,

to love, and to believe that those I love, love me.