Send In The Clowns

At the bottom of this page, you'll find a link to Pink's song ''A Long Way To Happy.'' I may change that in the future, but for now, it's appropriate to my mood, or I should say my condition, which is, like the song says, something that's going to take a long time to get back on track. This is, pardon the pun, a depressing situation. I am usually preternaturally happy, meaning I can find something to lift me out of even the most crappy situations, or at least I could until this one.

I understand that there is some technique by which we can stimulate the left prefontal lobe of our brains (up on the left side of the forehead) to trigger release of whatever chemical is responsible for the feeling of happiness. People with brain problems in the parts of the brain that control such emotions as the nurturing instinct, feelings of elation and depression, and so on, often have to take drugs that do the same thing chemically to counter periodic depression or other conditions that make the brain sort-of cramp up.

I don't know the technique, apart from having read some research on it in science magazines. What I do know is that we could all do with whatever technique it takes to be happier. I wish I could have been able to give my partner my personal sense of happiness. Perhaps I did in some small way, but I certainly did enough else to erase whatever good I might have done beforehand. Still, there are some things we can do to help get those happiness juices flowing. Do good for others. Help people. Be nice to people. Smile at people. Speak softly. No, better yet, don't speak so much. Think first about whether what you say will cause more harm than good.

I know that people in the wealthiest (economically advanced) countries are supposed to be the happiest in general. However, I am sitting now in the capital city of the world's second-largest economy, surrounded by some of the most unhappy damned people I've ever seen. If you've followed my other Blogs, you'll know I wrote a lot about bipolarism, and the "frustrating mess" Jimi Hendrix described in Manic Depression (We're not supposed to call it that anymore). And what I know is that not everybody appreciates the effort to be happy or to make others feel happy. From where I sit, that's pretty depressing itself.