Happiness?

“I have to confess,” said my friend. “I’m not happy yet.”

We were walking on the beach, and the tide was very low. It was a glorious day. I wasn’t sad.

But I understood. There’s an ominous and persistent thread beneath even the good developments lately. And even if we’re not focused on the barrage of disillusioning news on our twitter feeds or the warnings about the endangered future of our very planet, each of us is dragging around our own private share of sorrow, and it’s always there to contemplate if we’re so inclined.

“I’m sorry,” said my friend. “I don’t want to bring you down.”

He hadn’t brought me down, just made me more introspective. I appreciated his honesty, and it prompted me to more fully examine how I have been managing to remain, if not happy, at least not unhappy. How am I able to contain so many contradictory emotions, all of which are valid? How is it that the sorrow and anxiety have not prevailed? I guess a lot of it is denial and selective perception. It sounds shallow, but when sad and disturbing thoughts begin to catch up with me, I’ve learned to click a mental switch and turn them off…at least for a while.

I don’t know if this is the same as happiness, but it’s all I have.

Yesterday I walked down to the beach just before sundown. There’s a boat that’s always out there equipped with oil containment booms, keeping watch for spills, a sentinel of sorts. It looks silver and shiny from a distance, and I have heard it referred to as “the tin can”. Anyway, I looked out to sea just as the rays of the setting sun hit the tin can and turned it into a floating mirror of orange light, a magic thing. Maybe it was a mirage, and it certainly was fleeting, but I’m glad I got to see it.

Happiness? These words from Rabbi Ariel Burger succinctly sum it up for me:

“How can you sing? How can you not?”