72 Degrees In The Head, All The Time

This is a topic I've been thinking about for quite some time, and just got reminded of it the other day while working at my lowly "paying the bills" job. I tend to get rather frustrated and angry at small things pretty often, and during a typical peak dinner rush at the restaurant, I quickly got pushed into one of my predictable "hate everything and everyone" moments.


This actually does not bother me much (the fact that I'm in that mood. . . I know, strange) as often times I can use that mode to come up with some pretty witty, and vehement things to say, or stories to write down later. What DOES piss me off (besides getting pissed off in the first place) is when someone tries to calm me down, or tell me that I should not feel that way because [insert ridiculous optimistic bullshit reason here].

When someone tries to do that I can't tell you how much that makes me want to rip off their genitals. It literally increases my negative mood by a factor of 10, easily. How dare you try and tell me what things should and should not affect me and how I should or should not respond to them.

But what this really gets me thinking about (after I am no longer filled with pure buttery rage), is the perspective of the person thinking I should not be feeling such and such way. Whether it's anger, stress, or depression, supposedly I'm not supposed to feel that way. Were you aware of that?

If you talk to most people, or (*gulp*) watch TeeVee, you'll notice a common notion: all people are supposed to be happy all the time! Seriously, who doesn't encourage you to look on the bright side of things, or tell you not to feel bad about something, or not to get upset about things? They all do, and I'm fucking sick of it. Allow me to explain. Seriously, allow me to explain, you're pissing me off.

Since the moment I hit puberty (<-- heh heh, puberty), I've been a very emotionally affected person. I'm not sure if I would go all the way to "bipolar", but I regularly hit some pretty low lows, but not so much of the highest highs (which I guess would rule out manic depression). Still, my emotional self has had a strong grip on me, and even more so in the last five-ish years. Depression, and long bouts of it, are quite common for me, with my amazing counter-balance being indifference, or dare I say the rare, and sought after "meh". (That, to me, is wonderful).

I'm sure a few of you may be already saying, "that doesn't sound very good."

Well, sure. On the surface using traditional social values and a short-term generation-X inspired dualistic approach, it does seem that way. Try looking at it in a non-obvious way for a moment please.

It's as if most people think that feeling anything below happy is unnatural and therefore bad. Since when did we get this foolish and deluded notion that we are supposed to be happy all of the time? Well, there are some interesting theories that go back to the turn of the century. No, the other century.

In the early 1900s, life was a bit more challenging than we have it today, and regular people did not have the impression that they needed to be constantly happy. (Don't believe me? Go back in time and ask them). Most people only purchased what they needed, and what was absolutely necessary (like building the eiffel tower, which serves its much needed purpose as a . . . let's get back to the story). However, Freud was just beginning to publish papers on human psyche and emotion, which caught the eye of advertisers, marketing firms and businesses. Suddenly there was a new technique to get people to buy your products, especially those products that were not a necessity: appeal to their emotional desires (which by now you've guessed includes the Jane Fonda Workout on Betamax, and a liberal dose of double penetrations).

By targeting how a product could make their clients feel, they opened up an entire new era in social economics by creating the first generation of consumers. Look how this shiny pocket watch makes you feel better about yourself, due to your inadequate genitals! Look at this new Model T automobile that will make you feel like a free, and successful person, despite your inadequate genitals! This new makeup, clothing, beverage will . . . . blah blah blah feel. . . . blah blah blah genitals. You get the idea (you're inadequate).

Fast forward to today's TeeVee ads, and you'll see the same notions, now on steroids (which I can sell you if you are feeling inadequate). Every commercial shows you how happy the people are now that they are using the product. Always smiling and laughing, it almost does not matter what the product does, as long as you can feel the way those actors are pretending to feel for money. Right?

I swear, people feel that they are literally entitled, nay, they deserve to be happy, as if it were a given. Happiness has permeated our culture and spread through each new generation as an expectation. Now we have a whole mess of young adults who think that every time they feel depressed or upset, something is wrong with them. This results in everyone taking medication, seeking psychotherapy or purchasing a sports car to cure their phantom non-happiness, which we need to continually have, if you have not picked that up yet.

Back to me (finally! I was getting pissed). Dealing with as much depression as I do, I've come to see that it's not a black and white situation. Though the feelings may not be fun to deal with in the interim, they can become a catalyst for positive long term change and growth. In fact, often it is only through the most awful experiences and feelings that I have been able to see something significant about myself that needed to improve or be destroyed by fudge (see the blog 2008: The Worst Year Of My Life).

By avoiding painful experiences, you are potentially avoiding crucial life lessons. . .about. . .life (duh). By being afraid of depression and pain you run the risk of being extremely dull and uninteresting. Yes, I am making the outright claim right here that pain makes people interesting.



This connects perfectly (it does, I said it, and it's my blog) to my recent post entitled "Leave Your Honesty At The Door", where I mentioned people's reactions to saying that I was mediocre. Mediocre is not bad, people. It is like luke warm, it just is. It consists of neither good nor bad, which really is a decent place to be, and in mind mind, is sort of the emotional default position.

Being depressed happens. Being angry is normal. You're never going to feel great all of the time, because that is an unrealistic, and unnatural state to be in constantly. Even if you did, you would never experience the balance that comes from living all aspects of human emotion, which in turn givs each emotion more value. I actually feel that I experience more of life by being so susceptible to strange emotions, and that therefore makes the 'happy' (that's a stretch for me) moment so much more memorable and worthwhile. Plus, if you really were always happy, and something positive happened, where would you go from there? Stupid-happy? Moronically-happy? Super-retard-idiot-happy?

I'm going to go sulk now.


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