long answer: that's quite an interesting question, and a very apt one for where i find myself right now. any other time i would have said yes, regardless of if my world was falling apart yes because of my my firm belief that happiness is default. after my world stops falling apart, i will revert to being happy. i would ask my friends if they're happy, they'd say they're ok and i would get worries? why are you not happy? are you unhappy? and they would tell me they are OK and one doesn't have to be happy all the time and you can be normal once in a while in fact tell me are you happy? and i would say yes, even if my world was falling apart because the state of unhappiness is momentary anomaly, a mere hitch the normal order of things, which must be solved as soon as it can and it will resolves itself probably- natural order of things and such.
the last one year is where i have found myself experiencing in binaries happiness, non- happiness and sadness. i have experienced positivity and negativity and a state of nothing at all. and this is not numbness i talk about here, its just this feeling of okay. right now i am ok. i am not experiencing fear, grief or pain, the absence of which leads to the conclusion that i surely i must be happy. but what does it mean. when i was 14, i told myself everyday that i am happy. i am content, i have all what i need to sustain myself and my goals, so i do not have an option but to be happy. this daily self talk is the reason it took me six very long months to realize that i simply am not feeling anything at all. i am not sure if contentment means happiness, in fact how are you fully content if you are not happy, and how are you happy when you are not fully content?
i have been thinking about this for a couple of months now and i don't think i know what being happy is the way is used to anymore. i was decidedly sad for a while in between, for completely objective and justifiable reasons, experiencing sadness proper. when i came out of that i just was, again, not feeling numb but a lack of what i can define in the binary of sadness happiness. i felt like i had everything i needed. and i was fine, but was i happy? what defines happiness, do i make one myself which suits me? i am happy when i have a meal, when a laugh with a friend, i should, by all respects, be happy as i sit here in comfort expressing what i feel with ease. my brain releases some chemicals and poof happiness is here. and that is what i am-- a sentient bag of fluid and bones and muscle, which is not demeaning to my existence, but actually pretty cool in my opinion.
but it feels ungrateful to say i'm unhappy. i am privileged beyond what is considered extravagant. it also feels ungrateful to say i am happy, the world is burning literally and figuratively, a lot of things are directly affecting the well being of my loved ones and i, and several of these things are not my fault which makes me frustrated and helpless, and the things that are make me feel guilt and shame. lying down and wallowing in despair is quite clearly never the answer so the above situations are not sustainable.
its supposed to be simple, 'childlike joy' is the word that we use for lots of joy, while we talk about sadness as something old, aging, withering. maybe i am older, but i am also not that old. i quite shudder to think that i will keep losing happiness. analyzing if i'm happy and what it means and why and how is probably not the path to happiness either. so dear ask, i do not know if i can give you a yes or a no and fully believe it, i still don't love this idea of the 'okay', this weird middle state. i hope i am.
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