“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” – Albert Camus
But isn’t the search for the meaning of it all- life, universe and everything- a close second to the contemplation of the ultimate question-What is happiness? How can I be happy?
Happiness is not as basic a concept that I thought it was. . I have never been able to master its meaning and the means to it elude the most of us. Many a times I think that I have defined what happiness means for me, but then the hollowness hits. I am hurtling again searching for the answer.
Is happiness a gossamer tapestry weaved from delicate threads of fond memories and pleasurable ongoing experiences that make you smile?
Many of us think we know the results/ events that will bring us happiness but most of the time happiness is oh so fleeting, a hummingbird stuck in time but for a moment, then frittering away, an emotion with a whimsy of its own or so it seems.
To some happiness is loving someone, to some making others smile, to some landing a dream job, a sunrise does it for someone, traveling for many ,a good night out on town, a good time with friends, to someone making love and to someone just holding hands. To most, all of the above, and many many more such events that make up our time here on good old big blue.
I think I have to realign my thinking to seek happiness in everything I do rather than seek things to do that provide me happiness. That is , to be happy for longer than I am capable of being now. I am happy in certain small segment of my day and then the shroud of misery envelops me for the flimsiest of reasons. I want to make flimsy reasons the basis of my happiness and the big ones the cause of my occasional unhappiness. So to say reverse the parameters and their occurrence patterns within my routine.
For example the highlight of one of my days – watching a small girl holding her father’s hand as she jumped down 3 stairs and the smile that lit up her angelic face. A genuine smile exchanged between me and her father. Such moments of a stranger’s joy shared in that ephemeral moment, of innocence remembered and of nostalgia for simpler times all rolled into an infinitesimal speck of time and space are what keep me going. What keeps me hoping that the world and my life is not as lost or as tedious as I am bound to believe in my darker times.
“We do not remember days, we remember moments. The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten” -Cesare Pavese
