Meaning-laden. Away from the altar of Me. (LOH #212)

This week's Ladies of Hive questions got me reflecting - am I happy? (Quite). But how often? And why?

Do you believe that we are happier today, than we were in times gone by? What brings true happiness and how important is it to you, to pursue it?

I cry an exorbitant amount for a woman who considers herself quite happy. I am quite an emotional person. My mom says it's because (in Jungian terms) I am more feeling than I am thinking. After some grumbles, I'm forced to concede that might be the case. I am heart-led by nature, and my chosen metier doesn't make things much easier. You need to feel in order to write well.

What's happiness?

From a chemical perspective, it's the release of serotonin and dopamine. Except, already, we've identified a few pitfalls with the theory. Dopamine and serotonin release have been linked to addictive behaviors like drug consumption, binge-drinking or endlessly scrolling social media. Believe it or not, staring at your 'reels' for an hour is making you chemically happy.

Surely, by that logic, we're the happiest we've ever been as a society. And yet.

When I Google it, I find happiness explained by easy, banal terms like "being present" which albeit wonderful (if you manage it) also seems to be putting more pressure on us. Be here now. There's a lot to be written about being here now. It does bring happiness. At times. Somehow, we've created this myth around presence that it's walking around in a perennial state of bliss. I don't think so. I think being here now ties into feeling a lot, and that also implies feeling shitty sometimes. It means being here now when the thing staring you in the face is dark and foul. When there are monsters and evil-doers afoot. Or worse, perhaps, when life is dull or painful all on its own. When you're angry or frustrated, feel small and not-enough.

I don't think being here now is at all what we make it out to be. Besides, it is a work-in-progress, often spanning lifetimes.

So then, how can we get happy now?

Personally, I don't think you can really be "happy" as long as you anchor yourself to a lifestyle devoid of meaning. And really, so much of our modern society is shell-oriented and lacks meaning. There's a lot of focus on the material, on career (and often in fields where they'll replace you tomorrow and not even notice you're dead), on our physical bodies (work that can be extremely meaningful, that we've relegated to soul-dead gym mentality, where we stare into our iPhones while we "take our body for a walk").

I think it's hard to be happy in our modern times because it's harder and harder to find meaning. We are, still, in the desert of desolation and nihilism that Nietzsche predicted, having killed God. And you know I'm not into that, but you'd have to be deluded to deny that religion for a very long time offered humanity a wealth of meaning and purpose.

Being as we are now often purposeless, we've fallen into worshipping false idols like wealth, reputation, luxury brands and easy sex. Woe be us, we dare be surprised at the lack of happiness in our society.

How do you find meaning?

By tethering yourself to what's real. And by returning to something larger than yourself. I don't mean God, though again, for some people, that can be it (and good for them, really). But even if that's not you, I think you need to identify "others", people that are not you and do as much as you can (without robbing yourself) to be of service to them.

It's a great tragedy that more and more people are going it alone. Exhausted with the hectic dating market (what a transactional, depressing construction), terrorized by anti-natalist agendas, and highly driven by me-me-me social platforms, a lot of young people are throwing up their hands and doing "self-care" to the detriment of others. They are freely labeling anyone they don't like as toxic, subverting the narrative of the nuclear family, and chasing ever-more-elusive productivity and hedonistic goals.

In other words, we've denounced not only God, but the old world of generations past for its less than ideal ways, and replaced it with tiny, identical altars of Me, where nothing we do is ever really good enough.

Well, fuck me. How do you find meaning indeed?

For me, it's learning to shut out much of that modern noise. The self-conscious voice that dismisses the old ways. Lately, I've found meaning in listening to strangers talk about what makes them excited. In cooking for the people close to me. In laughing over silly, shared things with someone despite our glaring differences. In writing.

I went through a period of self-focus, of trying (and failing) to buff everything from my fitness to my reading to my work to my lifestyle to my music to my my my. But it made me miserable. I still do things for me. Writing, cooking and recently dancing have been bringing me so much joy and satisfaction. It seems silly. But I've also found a great deal of meaning in stepping back and letting others take center stage. In reaching out. In doing things for someone else. For my family and my friends. Sometimes, for total strangers. And that's brought with it a wealth of happiness.

It's not easy, taking the time to really see the person standing before you. But then, most good things in life aren't meant to be.