I've always considered perfect happiness to be largely an illusion, and I'm slightly suspicious of people who are perpetually happy and optimistic.
While they're blissfully scanning the horizon for rainbows and unicorns, I'm looking down at the pile of cow crap they just stepped in.
I'm positive that my pessimistic nature was inherited from my father. He saw the bad side of everything.
I remember a trip my parents took to northern California when I was twelve years old. Our objective was to see the redwoods.
While I was gazing in awe at the giant, magnificently majestic trees, my father started screaming at me because I somehow got my shoes dirty. He grabbed me, sat me down on a large rock, and presented me with rags, a big bristle brush, and a pail of water. He forced me to scrub until my shoes were spotless.
To this day I can't look at a redwood tree without seeing a bristle brush and a pair of muddy Kinney shoes.
(if you don't remember Kinney shoes, you're too young to be reading this blog)
Happiness to me is freedom. Absolute freedom from restrictions, complications, and debilitating excess baggage.....
This undoubtedly stems from my Hungarian blood:
Cigany lelka
Soul of a gypsy
I'm thinking of autumn, 2014, when I finally sold my house in Texas (after an agonizingly long wait). I put all of my belongings in storage, crammed my three cats in the car, and drove to Tennessee (at that time I had three cats - but since then Scruffy died).
On the road - with no home, no belongings, no job, no ties of any kind, and no worries. Absolute freedom! At that moment, for those few days, I was intensely happy.
In fact, I never wanted to arrive in Tennessee. I wanted to go on driving forever, lost in flight......like a highway version of the Flying Dutchman.
I'm remembering that dark, long-ago autumn in Southern California when I was nineteen. The final physical blowup with my father - when he choked me into unconsciousness and knocked me through a sliding glass door.
That night I got his gun, sneaked into his bedroom.....with the intention of killing him....
Instead, after my physical wounds began to partially heal, I took off for Hollywood. Freedom!
For the first time in my life I abandoned every semblance of restraint and delved into the darkest realms of the hardcore underworld:
alcohol, drugs, endless one-night stands. I savored danger and had an intense death-wish - - but I was strangely elated with my freedom.
I lived an extremely toxic and unconventional lifestyle that the decent, uninitiated readers of my blog could never understand, but I have absolutely no regrets.
It was my distorted version of freedom and happiness.
Keeping with the theme of unrestrained freedom, I'm thinking of the two blissful weeks when I lived on the beach in Mexico. A brief but satisfying sojourn.
My work as a professional pianist was extremely fulfilling and afforded much inner happiness. I performed with a chamber orchestra for several years, and was also an accompanist and soloist throughout Southern California.
When I moved to the Missouri Ozarks I was a journalist and freelance writer. The only thing that marred my happiness was my own brutal self-criticism of my writing.
The biggest drawback to happiness has always been my profound lack of confidence and persistent self-loathing. I've learned to mask it admirably - but it's always there.
Perfect happiness? The times I was in love. I had some extremely intense relationships that enriched my life immensely. Of course, love isn't exactly freedom. It's more like a form of incarceration. But it's a delicious incarceration....
So, here's the Big Question:
Am I happy now?
Let's just say that I could be sufficiently content if a myriad of problems weren't continually in my way (I can't mention all of them on a public blog - I've already revealed too much....)
Health problems definitely impede happiness.
Due to several old spinal injuries that never healed properly, I'm experiencing major issues. I have extreme difficulty standing and walking. Lately, I often lose coordination and get partial paralysis in my legs.
It's rather unnerving to lose your ability to do physical things when you live alone in the wilderness....
(moving is out of the question - - I've already moved far too many times in my life, and couldn't handle another one)
I'm hesitant to post this haphazard missive, but it might be one of my last. I'm still deciding whether to keep this worthless blog after the new year.
My heart is no longer in it. And I've certainly said more than enough.
Question:
Does perfect happiness await us somewhere over the rainbow?
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