When I was deep in depression around 2021, I had this analogy that explained a lot about who I was. The idea was simple: I don’t want to be happiest, I want to be happier. To some extent, the idea of reaching a stage often synonymous with enlightenment and spiritual healing still feels unobtainable. In a contemporary worldview, I can’t see how any could humor the notion. But still, the idea was there: happier. Something about the world presented a perpetual motion that was aspirational. There was no end goal in happier. There may be in happiest, but happier simply meant that you stood to be more happy. Something about it for me spoke to the individual and not to some social hierarchy of emotions; the old good, better, best model of third, second, first place winners on a podium.
Frankly, those who are happiest scare me. Their lives, at least externally, don’t feel like they come with enough nuance. This isn’t to say that they could be having a stable existence and have achieved their dreams, but personally, I’ve grown up in way too skeptical of an environment to believe anyone is devoid of some trouble. After all, I was a child during the AIDS crisis, in middle and high school during the War on Terrorism, and entered adulthood on the cusp of the 2008 economic crisis. This isn’t to count more contemporary issues or even things more personal and traumatic. It’s just that in an environment where sadness runs alongside a journey to personal happiness, I have to ask… why shoot for happiest AT ALL?
I am not a nihilist. I find works like Joker (2019) to be repugnant for giving the defeatist notion that “The world is terrible and there’s nothing we can do.” To me, there is always a good reason to be optimistic about the world, to believe that even amongst tragedy, there are those sacrificing themselves for better things. I think of 2019-2021 when COVID-19 was at its most abysmal of the doctors and nurses who not only risked contact with the virus, but had to deal with emotional stakes that overwhelmed me just hearing about them. Their ability to care in some small way has made the difference for many. The world hasn’t been the most pleasant place to live in the past three years, and yet… I am trying to be happier.
I suppose there’s a lot to unpack about why I wasn’t always trying to achieve this. Maybe it was becoming a writing major who was taught early on that “conflict is the essence of drama.” Maybe it’s that as an undiagnosed autistic, there were small ways I felt isolated from the community around me even when I felt genuinely involved with a group. It could even be that a year before 9/11, I had started what remains the worst school year of my life as I was bullied and ostracized to the extent that I had to move schools. The kicker was that Back to School Orientation at the new school was the week after 9/11, so it was canceled and as a family unit, we felt disconnected from the parish. It started when I was 11, and that is a moment years onward I’m still trying to unpack and ask… is that why I’m so scared of happiness now, so unwilling to openly trust someone on such an intimate level? Why am I so guarded, so skeptical of the world around me for people who genuinely seem to be supportive of me?
The truth is that I don’t know if I’m happy. There are moments that bring me joy and I currently feel fulfilled in my direction of life. I’d even argue that my 32nd year of life was one of the best in a long time. However, there are those times when you notice the voids, the lessons that were ingrained in you, rather perversely, at too young of an age and never given the chance to notice their own dark undertones. It was a struggle that made my most recent bout with depression very difficult. For the first time, I was unpacking so much at once and some of it really was playing with fire, too painful, too resonant of an absence I was struggling to escape. Thankfully, that’s been almost a year and a half ago when things finally reached a breakthrough. But alas, the ambiguous answer to “Am I happy?” remains omnipresent, and I can’t fully explain why I lack more confidence in an answer.
I think on some level, the only time that one can truly feel happy is when they’re SAFE. Imagine being vulnerable and freeing yourself of potential criticism. The idea of having that with someone is breathtaking. I suppose on some level I was also taught that success was something someone worked towards, and wrongly emotions got mixed into that equation at some point by someone. This isn’t to say that I don’t feel safe with anyone, but sometimes there’s this methodical shield that keeps me from being fully vulnerable, to recognize what joy is because I’m so distracted about keeping my hand on that shield. Again, masking to please the world likely contributes to this, but even then… how do I become happier?
Because I do want to break free of this skepticism. I want to be able to not feel obligated to sneer at cute things, where I’m allowed to see effervescence and just smile at it. I don’t think I’d ever be able to achieve the innocence a child feels, nor should I, but I want to be able to be vulnerable without having someone laugh that I enjoy something so trivial, sometimes devoid of this greater substance. I guess I envy those who smile and dance for joy so carelessly. Some tempos of music still intimidate me, if just because to love them is to remind me of being bullied as a child, where liking Britney Spears during the nu-metal and gangsta rap era was one of the worst things you could do. I envy those who can break free of these confines, but the wishy-washy reminds me too much of those negative comments. I’ve mostly escaped them, but again… content designed expressively for joy and joy alone feels so calculated to attack me sometimes.
Then again, it’s maybe just that I grew more strategic at what makes me happier in the decades since. In my Mid-20s, that was watching “dark” movies as a way of building tolerance. I think on some subtextual level, it was helping me cope with conflicts like feeling aimless and my parents’ separation. Still, I believed that by appreciating stories where people overcame suffering that I was somehow becoming a stronger person. I think it was during a more impersonal time of my life, where detachment was more common in my decisions. It was before I really noticed how my sometimes antagonistic dark humor correlated with reality. In some ways, I’ve softened up, but the one thing that I carry from that time is a comfort from very sad stories. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, they make me happy still, as if working therapeutically through something. Sometimes it was counterintuitive as they molded into their own separate lingering thoughts. Did I need them? No, but they’re there… thanks, Lars Von Trier. Mi trauma es su trauma.
This could be why the idea of coping with children’s entertainment has sometimes been a confusing affair. I don’t get how people regress into a Disney movie for comfort every time they have a bad day. I’m not against it as I still love watching Mulan (1998) three or four times a year. Still, I don’t get swept up in those big emotions with every new release. I appreciate them. I like most of them, but I guess on some level I’ve become too critical as an adult, noticing the poor LGBTQIA+ representation and that almost every film they’ve released since 2018 has been about how they’re not making quality stories but just a monolith sucking up everything you held dear. I know it’s a cynical way to read all of these, but I promise I don’t dislike some of them. Frozen II (2018) is actually a lot of fun.
For the most part, this is the way I cope with the world. As much as escapism is appealing, I’m someone who seems to favor addressing it through a simple prism. The idea is that everyone can work together to lead to change. To me, that is what comforts me.
I think children’s entertainment is too calculated to reach into the truly complicated emotions that I desire to be happier. I want people grappling with difficult matters, to feel like even among this crazy world that there is some sanity. I want writers who are creative and challenging the nature of narrative. I’ve mostly found it in indie comedies, where Greta Gerwig meanders through life trying to find solace without her friend by her side. There is an honesty and disconnect that ties me to these stories more than any fantasy about space or being a hero. I’m not a hero, just someone trying to make the most of their time.
With that said, this past summer has been a phenomenal period for trying to be happier. In what ended up being one of my most eventful few months in a few years, I decided to go impulsive. After feeling restricted by the world, I allowed myself to consume everything that seemed the least bit intriguing. It’s listening to Dora Jar sing about being a “Bumblebee,” or just taking in a basketball game. Most weeks I went with my nieces to the park to just walk around and kick a ball. We’d look at ducks before they met new kids on the playground.
There is something cathartic about simply getting out of the house. As miserable as the heat is, especially as I realize how much more hypersensitive I am to it somedays, there is something about being out in the open air, surrounded by so many spontaneous elements. You may have the most mundane day of your life, but there is something to just being out on a field and having to free yourself of the dread of social media, of closed quarters that are in constant need of shuffling. You’re just free to do everything or nothing. Time doesn’t exist when you’re kicking a ball, and while there are occasional meltdowns, there is some connection to reality that has largely been missing from life.
I also have taken up going for walks, and it’s mostly helped to keep a productive mindset. Still, nothing compares to stopping and just appreciating the world. Everything is still kinda terrible, and the sun will not let you forget that, but my journey to being happier has mostly existed by untethering myself from expectations. I haven’t fully dropped out nor am I able to just randomly watch a Disney movie for fun, but there are moments where I look at the day and feel accomplishment. Sure, writing has its catharsis and so does social interaction, but I suppose the search for self remains the most challenging part.
Maybe this has been among my more meandering pieces that lack a central focus. I don’t have any answers for being happier, but I think maybe just enjoying life can. It can be deep introspection that makes you appreciate the complications of the world. It could be coping with your own life, or avoiding triggers if you’re not ready. Maybe it’s just going to the park for an hour. Or maybe it’s going to live theater and appreciating the beauty of enjoying entertainment with a crowd. I’d even put buying a progress flag on my list of things that made me happier this summer.
I don’t think I’m anywhere near happiest. Even then, I can tell you what has made me happier. It’s everything that I’ve mentioned here. The Memory Tourist as an outlet has given me so much joy over the past two years and I’m grateful I’ve taken on this unnecessary, laborious challenge. It’s forced me to be more vulnerable, to feel more safe in my identity. I don’t know that it will ever be a perfect mix of personal diary (I wish to keep some things private) and media criticism, but it can’t hurt to try… right? I’m just going to go for it, see how this goes. Either way, I laughed more than I expected this summer, and that is such an amazing, amazing feeling.
You have no idea.
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