I Am Not Miserable
Sep. 15th, 2021 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
takethisforexample… And although I boast about hatred and anger, I can’t help but find myself a constant victim of love. No matter how much disdain I harbor for everything, I can never truly shut down and reduce myself to a bitter state. Sincerity is the trait I value most, even if it has no place here.
I don’t like when people write me off as sheltered or foolish for being cheerful. As if I don’t see what’s fucked up about humanity or feel negatively about it. I think it’s a side effect of a deeply rooted societal or maybe artistic standard. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin,
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting.”
There is a happiness that exists outside of the themes of ignorance and optimism that we are used to. What turns people away from it is the manner in which we judge feelings relative to our intelligence. Where suffering is genius and happiness is idiotic. We believe that knowledge should come at a cost, that it must be grandly punished for what it is. Those who suffer from their knowledge are unknowing martyrs of this unfortunate trope.
But hatred is a single story of doom and defeat- an imposed narrative that needs to be broken away from. Misery then, in these cases, is a state of complacency, isn't it? If being intelligent strips us of our authenticity and benevolence, then can't we at least try to preserve it? If not out of necessity, then at least out of spite?
I don’t like when people write me off as sheltered or foolish for being cheerful. As if I don’t see what’s fucked up about humanity or feel negatively about it. I think it’s a side effect of a deeply rooted societal or maybe artistic standard. In the words of Ursula K. Le Guin,
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting.”
There is a happiness that exists outside of the themes of ignorance and optimism that we are used to. What turns people away from it is the manner in which we judge feelings relative to our intelligence. Where suffering is genius and happiness is idiotic. We believe that knowledge should come at a cost, that it must be grandly punished for what it is. Those who suffer from their knowledge are unknowing martyrs of this unfortunate trope.
But hatred is a single story of doom and defeat- an imposed narrative that needs to be broken away from. Misery then, in these cases, is a state of complacency, isn't it? If being intelligent strips us of our authenticity and benevolence, then can't we at least try to preserve it? If not out of necessity, then at least out of spite?
