"Where did you find that? I've been looking for it everywhere!"
"I made it myself."
Happiness
I have always been an advocate of homemade happiness. People try hard to grasp that elusive thing. The point is, it can't be grasped by force.
Alle rennen nach dem Glück / Das Glück rennt hinterheras is sung in Brecht's Dreigroschenoper of 1928. I saw this on stage once. During this scene, all the actors ran round in a circle, with one holding up a placard saying "Glück", either at the front or the back of the line ...
An earlier poet, William Blake, had a brighter idea, when he wrote
He who binds to himself a joy / Does the winged life destroy. / He who kisses the joy as it flies / Lives in eternity's sunrise!
Last year I acquired (or won) from a travelling group of Chinese subversives a scroll of Chinese calligraphy. Shown on the scroll are a depiction of the characters reading
Yiqie jie xiaoshi / Wei dangxia yongcunmeaning: everything fades away; only the transient moment stays forever. This is hanging on our living room wall now.
I believe that the secret is to seek and find happiness in very simple things: a breath of fresh air after a morning spent indoors, the smile heard in an old lady's voice, the warmth of skin on skin, a bunch of flowers from a friend, a familiar song, a technical problem solved, shared laughter after a funny use of words, or the sun shining on snow as when, a couple of days ago, we drove through the pure white fields between Bourget and Rockland after visiting a bathroom showroom in Bourget (this last clause is irrelevant to the subject of my blogpost).
Young children know how to access happiness without trying. You'd only have to observe our Australian grandson sprinkling the hot patio stones with his toy watering can to realise how intense is his appreciation of the momentary bliss he has made for himself.
If only we could all retrieve such an ability. Homemade happiness costs absolutely nothing.
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