OK – Confession time:
My entire life I’ve struggled with this nagging sense of enthusiasm, this annoying sense of unbridled inspiration, this unyielding dread that life should be boundlessly engaging and joyful.
Please understand, I do realize how radically naive this perspective is in a world of ‘level headed’ realists and cynics, but still. This sense..this joy.. It hasn’t gone away. It just won’t respond to my efforts to dull it. And I’ve tried.
In grade shool I tried to dull it by being tough — lifting weights, punching the bully and shooting birds with my pellet gun. But it didn’t work. The weights just made me stocky, humiliating the bully felt awful, and killing that bird tore my 4th grade heart out, but the joy just didn’t go away. There it was. Waiting.
In high school and college I tried to dull it by academic ambition and local Florida rock star ego inflation — late night study sessions inter-spliced with tawdry love triangles and lie tapestries fastened to cover over drunken backstage indiscretions. But the hangover would always pass, the games would always end, and there it was…waiting. That joy. That sense of life as unconditionally happy and infinite.
In my twenties I thought I might’ve finally put a nail in its coffin. I left grad school mid-stream, moved to New York City, fell in love with an evil Russian temptress, lost my job, drank nightly for years, lost all ambition, ate lots of potato and cheese omelets, read Schopenhauer, and fell in with a group of Brooklyn underground artists so snotty that the slightest inkling of open eyed enthusiasm was regarded like a cloud of torrid flatulence at an English tea ceremony.
But there it was — even then, even there — as our country plummetted into post 9/11 paranoia, at the bottom of my darkest night, hiding from myself in an intoxicatingly hip web of artistic self-deceit — that blasted joy! That damned unquenchable inkling of life as an infinitely beautiful creation for silly people with nothing to better do. Nothing serious. Nothing scary. Just joy — pure, solid and simple. Why wouldn’t it go away? Was there something wrong with me? What was I missing?
And so, eventually, joy won.
I gave up. Gave in. Surrendered. I knew it wasn’t cool or chic or level-headed or ‘responsible’ — but I let that damned river of enthusiasm work right through me. I let it drag me through the coals of all the creepy fears I’d been buttoning up for decades. I let it show me how unfounded and optional misery and pain are, always. I let it teach me that the meaninglessness of life is what actually makes it so goddamn meaningful. I let it rip the security blanket of shrewd cynicism from my approval seeking brain cells, and help me admit that being a wide-eyed intelligent optimist is exactly what the world needs.
And so, here I sit today, in a coffee shop. A hopelessly happy man of 36, a fellow prone to bouts of joy and passion so intense that my sanity often falls into question. I’m loud. I’m opinionated. I’m prone to picking rambunctious word fights with egg-head academics and overly officious postal workers.
I’m what many people refer to as ‘a pill’… a strong willed, rambunctious type with a gut level desire to punch the status quo right in the face.
But even in anger I feel joyful. And even in fear, I feel laughter. Because I’ve discovered something, a truth so deep and radical that everyone, including even the most militant-minded jihadist, must ultimately bow to its timeless essence:
As humans, Joy is our only calling, our only inalienable birthright. Everything else is up for grabs, but Joy isn’t. As humans we were not made to spend lives in longing. We have chosen exactly that which we feel we need in every moment. And when we finally admit this we become grateful in ways that no jaded mindplay can destroy.
Joy is our essence, laughter is our real agenda, and cynicism is only undigested pain.
Why waste another minute pretending otherwise?
love love love..awesome read, and so very true!!!!
John, your story is a great analogy, "cynicism is only undigested pain". I absolutely concure!
In fact I posted a similar Intent today about bitterness-based action. great reminder !
john, THANK YOU! i can only smile and my heart is open to you. this is so true! we see it everywhere! people seem to fall into a steroetype of cynisism when they really just want to bust out with smiles, laughter and dance!
=-) i hope more people see your post!
I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion entirely, although it may often be the case that cynicism is undigested pain. For someone who has never experienced it, if your description of yourself is entirely accurate, making such a judgment is a bit simplistic I think. I responded to a post about depression not long ago by saying that depression was unacknowledged anger and provoked a tirade of unacknowledged anger, confirming my conclusion at least in that case. I think it's wonderful that you've managed to retain your enthusiasm and joy in a world that brings frustration to many in their attempt to make sense of very challenging personal and collective events, whether they have digested their pain or not. Cynicism, like humor is a coping mechanism that many find preferable to anger or depression so I think it better not to cast aspersions on it and let people work through their past pain or current frustrations as they are inclined.
Unless you have a pain digestion remedy to offer the world, of course … that would be something welcome, indeed!
That doesn't come in a bottle or is already known to many of us as meditation…
John I am totally with you on this…life ultimately is all about experiencing ultimate joy and happiness but sometimes we don't trust that joy and become cynical or paranoid.
We have been accustomed to the saying 'nothing lasts forever' or 'this will all end in tears' or the famous ' if its too good to be true it probably is'.
This conditioning has led us astray and we have moved away from our unconditioned self which is happy and joyful. Its truly great that you have stayed with your true self and overcome the bitterness and cynicism that a lot of us face. I for one am willing to choose happiness and joy over pain and anguish.
In the end, I agree, we all choose for ourselves and if we can also plant a seed that may help someone else make a good choice, all the better. Namaste