Torture and Contentment

Isn't it fascinating how some people love things that other people hate? I know, I know...that's a simplistic statement. But emphasis on "love" and "hate" in the most literal sense.

It is a real testament to how different our inner worlds are.

Sitting on the beach is a great example. There are people for whom sitting in the sun on the beach is a Sublime experience in the most seriously Wordsworthian sense. For me, sitting on the beach is a few degrees short of a living hell. I despise sitting in the sun. (It almost induces in me a feeling of panic.) Walks on the beach and swimming? Sign me up. Sitting on the beach in the evening? Delicious. But to sit in the sun for hours at a time...no thanks. If I wanted to feel that way, I'd have gone to college and majored in being a dinner biscuit.

But as humans, how can we all be humans and have such wildly different instinctual reactions to things? It's mind boggling. That is why I recoil so violently from generalizations, even when those generalizations are made by the experts -- psychologists and sociologists, etc.

Often, I have seen advice on "how to be happy." Often, I have given advice on how to be happy. But how much is that worth if there are guys like me running around hiding from sunlight and other people literally basking in it? (I even have a friend who has said she adores the feeling of a sunburn. I can't even imagine. Sunburn, to me, is natural torture.)

This being so, how can we say: People are happier when they spend time outdoors; people are happier when they have a large network of friends; people are happier when they have dogs"? To answer what you probably expected to be a rhetorical question, the answer is: because these things apply to most people. I think it is really important that the "most" part be emphasized. If not, the minority who like being alone; who only have one or two good friends; who don't like pets...these people might come to the conclusion that they are broken. That doesn't help anyone.

Another simplistic statement to close this out: The bottom line is that we are similar and wildly different, but I think we pay more attention to the similarities because that is easier. I'm only suggesting we almost use a boilerplate qualifier when suggesting formulae for contentment; a "your mileage may vary."

....because if being around friends is good for you mental health but gatherings drive you crazy...

Dream X

Gene Krupa -- nourishing himself.

My son didn't want to go to karate class the other day. I asked him why not, even though
I knew: It was Saturday morning. He was in his jammies. Cartoons were on. Sloth was calling.

I pointed out that he sometimes complains about going but always has a good time when he is there. He acknowledged this and grumpily pulled on his uniform. He went. He had a good time. He returned to glorious Saturday sloth.

While the boys were at karate, I stepped out in the the rainy gloom to load my drums into the car for that night's job. I was grumpy. I didn't want to leave the warm house to go out into the fog and drive for half of an hour to a crowded room where I would be until two in the morning. I wanted to stay home.

I looked up at the iron clouds as I loaded my bass drum into the car. My winter breath rose up toward them. To my surprise, the clouds slowly took the shape of my father (he's very much alive, by the way, but this is too dramatic to pass up) who looked down upon me and slowly shook his puffy-cloud head, little ribbons of cottony moisture twirling in wisps to disappear into the gray ceiling.

"Dad? What the hell are you doing up there?"

No Job Too Small

While I am on record (in pieces I could link to but am too lazy) as someone who believes that the individual human heart changes from day-to-day and from decade-to-decade and that one of the biggest mistakes made by your average human is to think that there is a permanent state -- that one thing -- which will bring about constant happiness, I must say that I have narrowed down my own contentment to the necessity for one surprising ingredient: the accomplishment of a mundane task per day.

We arteests are supposed to be driven by wine and a passion that rockets like fiery brushstrokes -- red comets of molten jois de vivre -- slashed across the starry canvass of life. We (if the movies are right) would rather burn out than fade away; we choke to death upon our own vomit in Parisian bathtubs (with those little lion’s claw feet) with dog-eared copies of Rimbaud clinging wetly, melancholically, to our soapy breasts; we’re inspired by pain and loss; we stand at the bows of doomed cruise ships and declare ourselves kings of the world; we die young and live for sensations of the mind and of the body…

But I’ll be damned if I don’t feel pretty darned inspired after I empty the dish washer.

In the end, a day without writing a song or a post or a chapter is just about equally as bad as a day without vacuuming the rug. And I do find that the mundane tasks often lead to the more profound: an evening of puttering in the studio, wrapping cords and dusting, often turns itself into a tune. 

I shouldn't be surprised -- it is all quite Taoist, isn't it? I used to criticize my neighbors who seemed to take such pleasure in grooming their lawns. Now I get it. I mean, I'll never be that guy, but I get it -- as long as something profound follows up the weed-wacking.

Redecorating the Head

Constable's "Willy Lott's Cottage"

If only people, including myself, could keep in mind that there is no quick-served happiness, especially when it come to "getting out of here" -- that phrase so commonly uttered by the young on late nights in home towns. Grown-ups do the same, though. I actually used to discuss, with my wife, the idea of opening a "bed-and-breakfast." What was I thinking?

What I was thinking was that changing everything would change everything for the better. What I was thinking was that running a bed and breakfast would be an escape from the unpleasantness of  humdrum life. We'd be in an idyllic place. We'd meet interesting people. We would not have to work "jobs".

This is a flawed and common problem in the thinking patterns typical of the human beast. The only way that running a hotel would be a pleasant life for me would be if I liked pouring coffee, making beds and making small talk with total strangers. I would like none of that.