Think Happy Thoughts

It's a pretty classic question: is all the best music sad music? I was talking about this today with my friend Mike. Is it because you only [feel like you] need music when you're sad? Or maybe there really is good happy music? The best example Mike could think of was The Smiths' song "Ask". So we listened to that. But I think we both came out agreeing that of course it's not completely happy. Mike summed it up as hopeful, which is right.

How close to "happy" is "hopeful"? I think hope is the most interesting emotion, maybe. Things have to be bad to be hopeful. That is, you can't really be happy: you want something to happen, to change. But you think (but no, you don't think! You hope!) that change will come. So it's something like happiness, hope. You are more likely to smile when you're feeling hopeful, I think. That must be a good sign.

So but what's happiness? We wondered if it was the same as "contentment", but that doesn't seem enough. There's something banal and empty in contentment. Maybe that's just our prejudice. When you feel happy, though, you feel something; contentment seems like you would feel nothing (like nirvana I guess). Is happiness the feeling of achieving what you hoped for - is it just a momentary feeling, an adrenaline buzz that wears off quickly? It does seem like happiness is fleeting. But people talk about a "deeper happiness" - what's that about?

I've decided on a project. For the next 100 days, I will write down one thing that makes me happy. I thought of this when I was about to "tweet" something negative about my insecurity and sadness, and I thought: you know what, maybe the first step to not feeling these things is to not tweet them. Then I nearly tweeted that thought. Then I thought, it's one thing to try to cut out negative thoughts. But surely better to replace them with positive ones. So: this project.

People sometimes deride people for trying to be happy. Maybe they're right in a way - moments of happiness seem to be self-forgetting moments, which defies trying. But in the moments when we are not happy (most of the time), when we have not forgotten ourselves, it must be better to think about our happiness than to think about our sadness, right?