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Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Happiness

Happiness dresses in silly sparkling robes and wears a hat. It changes to fog to slip your grip. It bleeds to the margins.

Sometimes it is liquid. You can distill it from life's rinds if you put it before everything else, including and especially yourself. You might lose everything. You probably will.

You'll have to be vulnerable, your heart left open. Be willing to suffer, bleed, watch someone else bleed, endure ridicule, have bad teeth or a terrifying smile. You will deserve it, you foolish ass. You'll give marathon effort and fail. You'll be poor, your world a ghetto.

And then in a tidal wave of glitter you're free, you're above it all, you're naked and beautiful. And belly laughing. And not concerned about what belly laughing will do to your naked body, what will come out of it. Unconcerned. Ha! Ha-ha-ha!

(ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha)

Me? I'd settle for contentment. Contentment is mild, pleasant, like liquid hand soap and warm water. You can smile when you're amused and look grave when something bad happens to someone else, or vice-versa. Just float right through life. Ahhhh.

Ah! But somewhere in me there's a crazy notion stirring, like a living Glo Worm, and it won't be easy to quash. It's in there. Happiness is out there, pure.
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5 Comments:

Blogger Jay said...

:)

That was awesome.

4:51 AM  
Blogger John Dantzer said...

I rode on a tidal wave of glitter once, it was really uplifting. Unfortunately, it threw me into the cess pool of moldy assholes. You can't have the up with out the down, I guess.

9:54 PM  
Blogger Crys said...

here is one of your only posts in which i think you have prevaricated. maybe that's strong --- prevaricated --- maybe you're just deluding yourself a wee bit.

you're not the type to ever settle for contentment, JMH --- are you kidding me? you understand it, sure, maybe you've even lived it, but it's nothing you want. you live on the periphery of probably everything, scathingly observational and above it all. because you are, for the most part, smarter than it all.

and kinder than it all.

to feel alive a guy like you needs to be challenged. you could handle a woman in a scorching hot red dress and long, dark hair, talking Dostoyevsky to you, or the spiritual implications of fractal geometry. that's what you need, and it's far more than "contentment". maybe it's even trouble.

a mousy haired English major is cool too and all, just like Us Weekly is cool...but yeah ....

no.

Not for you.

11:07 PM  
Anonymous Bluesilk said...

I'm off out to buy some nice liquid hand soap, contentment sounds lovely

9:18 AM  
Blogger JMH said...

Jay - Thank you, yes.

jorg - It's odd that only the hole grows mold.

Bluesilk - I hope it works for both the hands and the mind.

Crys - Thank you. There's a lot here, and it's strong in pain and pleasure. Even if I could, it would be wasteful to try to respond all at once. Yours is the kind of comment to let seep, a challenge in many ways, something to be actualized.

I had to look up prevaricate.

7:21 PM  

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