I’ll Never Understand…

I’ve been trying to book a flying cow for years, but between the FAA, the FDA and the USDA I’ll be lucky to get a ticket by 2050.

I’ve wondered that same question almost nonstop, and I think I finally found an answer. Actually someone on SP may have posted it but I can’t remember who/when/where. In a nutshell: despair is as meaningless as happiness.

Why are people happy? Because certain events are associated with a feeling of comfort or security. There’s no such thing as a “happy” event in the cosmos. Happiness is just the way we are programmed to react.

Why are people miserable? The exact opposite – certain events are associated with a feeling of pain or fear. Over time these events build up in our memory, even if they’re not huge on their own, they add up to an unshakable sense of despair.

For years I’ve been trying to convince myself that my despair is due to some grand philosophical reason like the pointlessness of life in an uncaring universe, blah blah blah. But there’s really nothing philosophical about despair, it’s just an emotional state. So I guess I’m saying, at least in my case, I’m this way because I’ve had a string of bad luck. Very bad luck. And it seems damn hopeless for 23 hours of the day. But once in a while I think: if I was programmed to be miserable by all these crappy events in my life, couldn’t I [theoretically] be re-programmed to be happy if I actually had some good luck come my way?

Wouldn’t it [theoretically] change your life if, suppose, that flying cow came down and instead of squashing you on the head, she said Hey buddy you’ve had a sucky life but I’m going to give you gold milk for the rest of your life and let’s see if we can turn it around?