...a way of seeing beyond inner and outer.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Happiness is not a rant, damnit

     ...not a rant, I say.
     Sometimes the temptation to rant is mighty, but it does not make me feel any better. Ever. If anything,  the shrill pitch of anger let loose just turns the soil around the hostile brain brambles so they can grow deeper and darker.  This morning I swear I was (am) this close to spewing vitriol and had (have) convinced myself that if I cloak my anger in humor and sweet words of tolerance then I'm not really ranting, I'm.... expressing my feeeeeeeeelings and it's healthy! yes! emotionally healthy!
     The undecorated truth that is barely concealed behind those expressions of frustration and annoyance is something horrifically violent.  If you don't believe me, the next time someone cuts you off in traffic or pulls a full grocery cart up to the express lane, allow your mind to go to the very extreme of what you're feeling and there will be blood, unless, unbeknownst to me, I am a serial killer and/or you have attained enlightenment, in which case you wouldn't experience annoyance or frustration in which case, I want you to come teach me everything you know.  Convince me you have and I'll give you my address.
    I don't believe I am the former and I know I'm not the latter, but I do believe that psychic violence is only marginally better than the physical kind, in fact I believe the difference is only semantic. That's not to say pretense is an option. If these feelings exist, and at the moment, they so very much do exist, then they are there for a reason and are more than a mental delivery system to facilitate a pretend meat clever to someone's real head.  Ironically,  I often find what they give me is a view of myself as scared or deprived in some way but an examination of the "gift" makes the violence disperse in a real way, leaving behind, grace, peace, and the sense that the Universe has conspired with the sweetness of my momentarily mismanaged soul.
An image search for the book "Happiness is a warm puppy." 
lead me to Jill Freedman's work entitled "Happiness is"
Jill Freedman, Happiness Is, gelatin silver print, 1968
Happiness is..~~Jill Fredman 1968

Which lead me to this image
Jill Freedman, Happiness Is, gelatin silver print, 1968
Hands like a shawl~~Jill Freedman 1968

and to the remembrance of what I want my soul to look like.
One thing I know...
...is that there is nothing like this to be found anywhere in a rant.

1 comment:

  1. and as if you hadn't figured it out, the meandering dander towards happiness is not a straight line and some lessons will be repeated. As in, "repeated, repeatedly."

    ReplyDelete

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