The pursuit of happiness

So, the time is almost at hand to begin again.  Well, not begin again exactly, but to have a refresh - to shake the old out my hair and take a dip in the pool of new.  So, before I do, I thought it a good idea to think about what I want to do, about what I want to achieve and how I shall do it.

I suppose that by the end of it all I want to be happy, but that is such a fuzzy concept.  You see, I am happy.  True, I don't feel great when I'm at work but it's not as though I am wallowing in misery.  Far from it.  I am blessed with a beautiful partner, a loving family and I have a great imagination which means that for a worryingly-large portion of the day I do not actually live on this cruel planet.  Anyway, happiness is not really anything at all.  It is our nature to focus on the next thing once the last thing we experience is done with.  Therefore, the resulting happiness from now can only ever be a fleeting thing.  And so it should be, otherwise the world would grind to a halt as we all sat round in bovine, chewing contentment. 

So, let us proclaim that it is not happiness which is the point at all. Rather, it is the pursuit of happiness that is the thing.  When that famous phrase appeared in the United States Declaration of Independence it was probably the most revolutionary notion ever.  In 1776 you were supposed to accept your lot in life - handed to you by God or your king or lord whoever - and if that lot included poverty, disease and violence, well, so be it.  You were born to it: accept it with grace.  If you lived a godly life you might, just might, attain happiness in heaven when you died.  Hurrah!

But that brilliant, beautiful nation which eschewed the concepts of rule by monarchy and embraced, not only Christian non-conformity but even - shock horror! - atheism, decided that it was okay to be happy.*  They did not promise happiness, only that you could go after it.  I have a list to assist me in my pursuit which might strike one as being amusing; a list on how to be happy seems contrary to the ideas of freedom and giddiness. Though by nature I am a planned person, that does not mean I am not without spontaneity.  This is a menu of things I want to do, but how I do them shall be down to me and the fates that guide me.  For instance, I should like to write a poem, but if in order to do that I need to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope, then I shall do it.  So here goes:

I, Joanne Victoria Krawec shall in the next six months pursue happiness by these acts or notions:

• Learn how to write a poem and write it;
• Write a book about a super hero;
• Publish research in a magazine or journal;
• Shall never again listen to something that I disagree with and pretend to agree for fear of offending the other party (ies);
• Shall never again suffer dishonesty and instead will call the person out, directly;
• Direct my most worthy and brilliant anger towards the issues of violence against women and poverty instead of getting wound-up by a lack of toner in the photocopier;
• Complete a good dissertation;
• Research and propose an idea for a thesis;
• Collaborate on an artistic project with her new friend, the Black Country artist Natalie Jones (more on this in future posts);
• Publish at least one essay per month on my blog.

Reading this list through makes me feel fantastic.  That, in its distilled intensity, is what I want to do before the clock strikes midnight on 2014.

*A blog entry on American history and the American dream is definitely called for.  Batman and I talk about it all the time.