The Abiding Unhappiness

You can always tell when there is a recession; the TV is covered up with 'new and exciting inventions' as people struggle to make a buck on their fondest ideas. Everyone from Dyson to the Bassmaster is hawking the latest thing to make your life easier, more productive, happier, etc.

Lots of folks think that I am a miserable old soul, always grumbling and griping. The truth is that I am unbearably happy in my own life, for the most part. I choose to be. I know that 'things' don't make me happy - but making things, creating things, growing things, and having people buy those things - or enjoying those things myself - makes me happy. Right now there are 150 tiny baby poinsettias in my greenhouse, stretching toward the sunlight, growing new leaves, loving the moist and humid heat I have to artificially provide for them (it is normally about 90 deg with 35% humidity here in the summer). As it cools off here the end of September, I''ll be moving them to my nice warm (50 deg) basement, restricting their sunlight to gro-lites for only 12 hours a day, to make them bloom by the end of November. I already have two places where I will put them for sale. I already have the pretty gold, green, and red foil to wrap the pots in. The challenge won't be in selling them to make the money - but in making them perform exactly how I want, and sharing that performance with others.

I eat things simply; whole-wheat or oat homemade bread, locally grown beef, chicken, and fish. I don't require a lot, and I only like spending money on things that will grow my farm. I don't party a lot, because I 1) don't have time, 2) have too much on my mind and too much on my plate to have a day-after sleep-in. One of the stores I shop online had a massive clearance sale; I bought dress pants for $5 and work dresses, skirts, and blouses for $10. Not that cheap material or poorly sewn crap you get at WalMart or the outlet stores, either... good stuff, sturdy stuff, well made stuff that no one else bought at a premium price.

Yet I watch people going on trips that they can't afford, and then desperately playing catch-up to pay their bills. I watch people spending money as soon as they make it, insisting that they 'deserve a break', 'have a right to enjoy themselves'. OK, maybe they do. But why they need to grasp their 'happiness' with both hands, cling to it desperately, rub their faces all over it like a child with new velvet, then throw it away and regret it less than a month later is beyond me. Why they need the changes, the constant newness, to revitalize themselves and make themselves feel worthwhile all over again is beyond my comprehension. They stink of anxiety, fear, and desperation the way old nursing homes stink of pee, no matter how vigorously you try to clean them, paint them, and make them new.

Either you and your life are worthwhile, or -they're not. Either what you do, who you are, and where you're going are important - or they are not. When you vibrate so rapidly and so desperately that you are in reality standing still, you aren't really moving at all. When your needs cannot be met and your longings cannot be fulfilled no matter how much you run to and fro, buying first this, than that, to make yourself feel better, you are not succeeding at anything... except deepening your own desperation.