Pursuit of Happiness ...by unhappy souls

An orkut friend of mine once told me some weeks back that he doesn't read blogs (of friends, foes and acquaintances) since they are all depressed and depressing; people are no longer happy.

Another orkut friend of mine told a very-depressed-at-that-point-of-time me (also some weeks back) that we should learn to be happy. Happiness is to be picked up and consumed....it is just lying around.

True. We hear these words from psychiatrists and Oprah, read them in Bible and Jehovah's Witness books and the poster in the xerox machine room and yet these words are tossed around with cynicism of mundane reality. Happiness is a subjective term. Yet, if not all of us, a majority of us that we see around us, live with, meet with, fight with, are deeply unhappy souls trying to appear normal and lucky.

By the way, I'm excluding the happy albums that we hunt around everyday in orkut, in lunch breaks and when we get up. I'm excluding them because happy people do not deserve to be debunked. They should be left with their happiness, left aside, as you can observe them. And it stops at just that. You can only see. You cannot absorb. You cannot learn an iota of the wisdom of happiness. You cannot just pretend life is good for you when it is not; you just cannot presume the happiness in life when your aficionado takes forever to come to you, when your academic career is just in pieces, when your job is the usual grilled sandwich, when your roommate makes it impossible for you to come out of your room, when you eat your lonely dinners and try to find happiness in the testimonials others have written about you in orkut or the "hello" you receive from the white chick whose ass you were eying yesterday evening. These things just do not go away. We do, from life.

Yet, we show how happy we are in our little pigeon hole constructions. There are so many "yet"-s in the story that when you would actually pause and take notice, you would probably exclaim at the need to maintain such a facade. If we are supposed to be happy with the set of life situations we are in, why cannot we just be that? From this perspective, it appears so easy to just to swiss and squish the missing block from our lives and move on.....doesn't it? With so many formulas of happiness around, and so many living legends to be inspired from, why is it such a difficult task to be just content and accepting of whatever life gives us?

No, dear reader, henceforth doesn't come the answer to how to be happy. Neither do I intend to ask rhetorical questions only. In fact, this entry is being written without any manifest and/or devilish intentions. If I would have to put anything in the "intention" box, it could only be "an attempt to describe and just describe" the "Happiness Problem".

We know why we can't be happy. Only this time, like many other "why"-s, knowing and recognizing the problem does not help us find the solution but increase the unhappiness. To renounce all temptations and bounce upon the path shown by Buddha appears to be too unrealistic and certainly....very suicidal. To bounce upon the path of picking up the lying-around happiness as my orkut friend has suggested, appears, at least to me, young, unrealistic and enthusiastic suggestion. If we dig deeper and get into the physiological reasons that enhance the unhappy state....all the chemicals in the brain and the hormones in the body....we all know the counteractive effect of serotonin. Yet, few of us would join a laughing club or go to the gym to be happy.

No, we all want to be happy.

We know why we can't be happy.

We know how to look happy.

We just don't know how to do it.

Even when we have love, when we achieve success, when we look smashing.......some of us are seldom happy.

We've perfected the art of creating the illusion of happiness......perhaps because the real thing is not real? Perhaps because there is no such thing as happiness? Perhaps because the non-existence of happiness keeps us going ......and searching....and going....with life...........and suffice to be the reason of living?

Now....that is quite easy to fathom and accept.....................and be happy about. No?

Ranting, ranting, ranting

Now... why on earth do qualitative (and supposedly, fashionably more intelligent) sociologists do not have a section called "data and methods?"
why? why? why?

I need to rant. I need to beat. I need to ask.

And do I need to emulate the qual people since I belong (right now) to the God-forsaken multi-method camp?

If narratives are good and the uncompromising essence of qualitative writing, quant should also have the wholesome goodness. Why can't we have a narrative style of "My data consists of 25,000 respondents who were telephoned and then interviewed through random digit dialing and then I applied some weights to equate differing income levels........."

Why can't all nighter quant stories have the right to be published? Who listens to our narrative? Why can't there be a quality to un-quantifiable days of agony and frustration?

I understand this is not a blog entry per se and too sociological perhaps without caring a damn about this being so and seriously hoping my daughter/son do not have to choose a medium when s/he is writing up their proposal/thesis and tearing their hairs. IF, EVER they take Sociology, that is.