On Happiness
Happiness isn’t the easiest thing to define. There are all sorts of contingencies, mainly temporal. Happy moments pop up in the midst of sorrow. Joy in the form of relief is necessarily preceded by a painful drama. An amalgam of happy sadness is conveyed by a wan smile. Mellow joy might be evoked from a poignant, touching vignette steeped in melancholy. One looks back fondly on cherished moments, but the memories are tinged with regret that they exist only in the past. Occasions of pure exhilaration, when all cares are cast to the wind, never avoid contamination for long, for the wind blows where it wills, and disquietude returns with the next fickle shift in direction. Of happiness I can say this: it is not a purely blissful state, unfettered by threats from without or the aching of wounds that linger within, blemishes that persistently remind of unhappy ...