Authentic joy through play
There’s this thing that some happy people do that turns out to be quite annoying.
Whether or not these particular people are truly happy is up for debate, but the kind of happy person I am talking about is the one that tries to make other people happy. On the surface, this seems like a good deed, but in reality it is just another attempt by someone to control their environment. I am fully aware of the fact that I sound like a grump right now, but I’ve really struggled at times wondering how I could be so miserable to not always feel like laughing. Then I came to realization that it really isn’t possible to remain happy all the time (especially if you like philosophy), even if you are grateful for everything you have. We move through emotions all day.
This requirement that we remain pleasant for the sake of those around us is assaulting people’s thought space. Now, I want to point out that I am not talking about the people that crack a joke to light up the conversation. I am referring to the ones who can only exist in good energy. In fact, those very people likely avoid struggling through tough feelings. If they don’t, they certainly do give that impression from a lack of empathy for those that are visibly struggling. While we like to think its as easy as ‘don’t worry, be happy’, sometimes its important to process deep emotional wounds, which tends to expose us to a longer list of our feelings.
The more I’ve lived, the more I’ve learned to be mindful of myself projecting. To proceed with the thought experiment, it’d go something like:
“Am I noticing something inauthentic about this person that is actually present within me?”
So yeah, maybe one of my ultimate fears is being perceived as inauthentic, as that is something I can smell like a bloodhound on a scent trail. Its a perspective from which I learned to determine who I could trust. I’ve begun to use this feeling for the purpose of detecting bullshit. Not to call it out, but to know whom to avoid. If I’m uncomfortably forced to be chipper when I clearly am not feeling that way, I won’t grant that person, place, or thing advancement into my future. I consider this sacral-knowing to be part of my filtering process. I do have concerns of having my detector sensor being turned up way too high. It became quite overdeveloped with my ex who used shame and embarrassment as tools to control me.
I do get it. I get a similar anxiety with people that oppose the discussion of divination or spirituality. I light up when people want to talk about astrology but it feels like part of my identity is attacked when people think its bullshit. It starts to make me question it, which ultimately isn’t really a bad thing. I find, the more I learn archetypes and apply them to my life, the more I can also step out of that and see from the perspective of that being too ideal. “At the same time, what better story do I have to believe”, is ultimately where I land every time.
Just like forced happiness gets on my nerves, my enthusiasm for celestial occurrences has quickly ended some conversations. And just like my natal chart brings me joy, whatever it is that these militant joy deployment units focus on brings them such joy that they wish to always be engulfed in it. This elated hysteria can be experienced by those that spend time with it. Its something our human minds use to manipulate this world. We are all on our own separate mission but we will all end up in the same place as far as we know (dead). So what is with the need for group consensus? If we can agree that we are all different people, we can agree we serve different roles in this organism.
In the end, this entire post boils down to me trying to justify not being happy because of what others do… maybe I am the one trying to control my environment. I have to admit, despite my efforts to remain in play, I can be a bit of a hardliner on the softer parts of life. Its now been revealed to me that this is problem has an internal solution.
Originally written for Collective Journaling at The Stoa
