Happiness Is...

The predicate of this sentence is a tricky one to define. The Beatles said it was a warm gun. An NPR study says it's contagious. Some believe it is handcraft dollhouse miniatures for the collector.

I don't know if I fit into any of these definitions, but I've been trying for some time to define happiness on my own. This definition quest has been a journey to find happiness, one which I undertake each and every day of my life.

I recently finished a class for my graduate degree entitled Seeking Happiness: A Philosophical Journey. We read works professing ways towards happiness, written by philosophers Lao Tsu, Buddha, Epictetus, Al-Ghazzali, and the contemporary author Derrick Bell. I learned a wealth of information on the topic, and I can give you a general idea of what type of happiness I am necessarily seeking, but I cannot tell you when and if I have found it.

I summed up my quest for happiness and my overall definition of myself (as I think they should be one in the same) in the following meandering way:
I like to think I am defined by the small things that make up my life. The movies I watch, the songs I listen to, the books I read, the quotes I love. I can assign titles to myself--English teacher, Graduate student, ardent Delaware Blue Hens fan--but those titles don't mean much to define me as a person. They are too broad. There are thousands of English teachers, Grad students, and Blue Hens fans out there, of which I am only one. My intricacies make up my personality. I am a thinker. I am a philosopher. I am a teacher and a student. I am a person who cares, sometimes too much. But I am also a person who will never stop searching to find out who I am. I will constantly be in a quest for happiness, to fulfill Socrates' doctrine that "The really important thing is not to live, but to live well." If I can be myself and figure out how to live well in the process, I have succeeded.

I am content with my definition (note the word choice), but I'd like to include here a quote from a fellow classmate, Lisa Caselles, who had a very unique and inspiring definition of happiness, one that I think if I lived by, I'd live a life of happiness.

"Mostly, I will remember that happiness is a choice and that I have the power to choose to be happy. I will practice gratitude and solitude and ground myself in that which is important and forget that which is not." - Lisa Caselles

sitting on the floor, meditating

sitting on the floor legs crossed breathing in and out the airs of the fumigated scented candle in and out of my lungs I feel awake I feel illuminated I breathe. I say in and out I am the master of myself I am the master of myself I am in control in and out I breathe. my hand up and out I stretch down towards the candle relax my diaphragm I breathe. in and out. a realization I need to go on a spirit journey in and out. I breathe. the scent billows up into my nostrils I take a long breath pause let it linger feel the asphyxiation then release in and out. I am the master of the situation on a pillow on the floor the light of the candle illuminating the shaded figures of my room. are you out there? I am calling to my soul. I feel in and out with every breath that I need to make my soul happy, so I call out, are you there? I need to make you happy and the response is the flickering of the candlelight and it wavers and I squint to see it straight but it flutters and it is just ebb and flow and I don’t know if it’s there. my soul. and is it happy? it flickers. in and out I breathe. in and hold it, and out, and so is my light.

"Paradox" Looks Awfully Like "Paradise"

Sometimes i feel like saying Eff the world of everlasting misery, of giving and taking, of ebbing and flowing; To hell with the world of hot and cold, of light and dark, of night and day; Abolish the globe of noise and silence, of forwards and backwards, of screams and whispers; Relinquish your hopes of high and low, of rich and poor, of young and old; Eat your share of salt and sugar, of bagels and lox, of chocolate and vanilla ice cream; Drink your sorrows of beer and wine, of gin and tonic, of rum and coke; Immerse yourself in good news and bad news, in rock and roll, in the world's ups and downs.

This world is a seeming contradiction.

Response to "The Icy Pall"

It's a blizzard outside. It's March 2nd, and there are eight inches of snow piling up outside my window. The frost is adorning all the windows on cars and houses. The temperature is below freezing and everywhere I go, I feel cold. But this time, during this storm, there is a warmth inside me that melts the snow that surrounds me, that defrosts the frost on the windows. Because I have a warm feeling, and I have had this feeling ever since the last icy pall that overtook my veins in January. She is a beautiful defroster, a lovely ice melter, a luminous snow plow.

So this time, during this blizzard, the cold temperatures are not freezing my insides as much, and my blood is not frozen, all because my heart is pumping even more vigorously with this feeling of warmth contained inside me, the feeling of warmth that she has given me during this cold winter.

The Fallen Ziti, written in Summer 08

The air in the house was gloomy. The downstairs was full of family members who traveled in from New York, Connecticut, Maryland, California, Philadelphia, and all around northern New Jersey, all because the upstairs was now empty. I had had my moment, my time to reflect on the loss, the absence upstairs, as everyone who came into the house that day had. But we needed a way to get our minds off the subject, at least for the time being.

Aunt Eileen and Uncle Armand's house is small, since they shared it with my grandparents, who lived upstairs. When they have the family over, the rooms come alive with conversation, mostly involving laughter, but sometimes involving tears. Beer and wine flow through the house, but combined with the company surrounding us, this small house turns into the best bar or party you've ever been to. But those who are grieving are not typically in party mode. And we weren't. But laughter, in this case, proved to be the best and only medicine.

Hanging out in the kitchen with my cousins, we yelled at Aunt Eileen--who was sweating already--for putting more food in the oven. We had been full of appetizers and delicious catered food that generous friends had dropped off when they heard the news. But, ziti tray in hand, making a bee-line for the hot oven, Aunt Eileen insisted. She pulled the oven open, the hot air steaming out, smacking against all of our faces and BAM! all of a sudden, the tray was overturned and ziti was everywhere, sizzling on the door and floor of the hot stove.

Aunt Eileen let out a shrill wolf-like howl that sounded like a cross between a dying cat or a horse in labor. I pushed the sweating cat-horse hybrid out of the way and immediately went to work, as if I held a doctorate in the art of oven-cleaning. My cousins were now my assistants, I their leader, shouting out orders of "Spatula! Paper Towel! Water! Oven Cleaning Spray!!"

I attacked the oven with such force because I knew that this was the last thing Aunt Eileen--and all of my family--needed, and hell, oven-cleaning could be fun--Why not! I'd never done it before.

My head immersed in the steaming hot bowels of this ancient anti-diluvian oven whose self-cleaner just so happened to be broken, I scraped the ziti, took out the racks, and gave the oven the best scrubbing it had ever had. Aunt Eileen, as well as her sisters and my cousins, were now laughing at my beet red, sweating, ziti-scented face.

My ziti-covered oven-cleaning grief-relieving mission had been successful, and for that reason I am completely grateful that the ziti fell the night after the sorrowful day I will never forget.