As grand as it is to be a member of the cognoscenti, and to revel in the fact that I can get kicks out of all manner of esoteric referents; nothing compares with the simple pleasures. I just got to spend the better part of an hour playing in the dirt of a construction site, and I’ve got the mud stains on my pants to prove it. After all, what good is a jester if he doesn’t engage in the occasional, perhaps unintentional, pratfall?
I don’t want to give up a single shred of my sophistication, however, should I ever reach the point where the prospect of playing ‘collision’ with a two-year old and his toy cars, or taking a walk in spring rain simply to smell the earth seems beneath me; that’s the day I need to be put away. And since it’s the kind of day where I feel like ascending to the podium and pontificating; I’m going to - if you feel the need to bail now, that’s alright, no-one will think less of you.
I find it at least moderately humorous that I feel compelled to mount a defense of the easily amused by using terms like ‘pontificating’, but that’s just part of the general conundrum of the times we live in. If I could draw a cartoon and get the point across, I’d do that, as it is all I’ve got are words.
I think the point I’m driving at here is best summed up by Ursula K. LeGuin, from her wonderful story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” which I can’t even get started talking about, because I’d go on for days. At any rate, the quote is -
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting.”
The very image of the sophisticate has been presented to us as world-weary, seen it all - it seems that it’s mostly children and the dim who are willing to admit a sense of wonder. I think the over-saturation of our world with media has a tremendous role to play in this, which - should some wild quirk of fate prove me right - would be almost unbearably funny to me, since it is this same glut of media that I would claim is dumbing us all down. Maybe we’ll finally hit some new intellectual low and be able to watch the squirrels scampering around the trees again.
These last couple of days I’ve been somewhat obsessed with the idea of catching sight of people who are honestly happy, and willing to let that emotion be seen in public. I’ve been making certain that I’m wearing a big ol’ smile as I go about wandering the world, and what’s odd is that despite the currently crippling financial situation that I find myself in (familiarity with lentils is surely another sign of artistic integrity, but that’s another post entirely), I find myself honestly happy.
I’m pleased to report that if you pay enough attention, you can catch signs of people experiencing joy, but you’ve got to really have your eyes peeled. In general they tend to be people on foot; if you want to study the various ways that human beings can scowl, watch traffic for an hour or two, just take up a position near a street-light and watch these people piloting their automobiles. I don’t want to rush to judgement, but I think car commercials have greatly exaggerated the happiness to be derived from their product.
But that’s just it: driving should be a joy, walking in the rain, watching the way a tree bends in the wind, or even the mundane act of chopping carrots for another batch of lentil soup – all should be joyful. The fact that you listen to jazz and have read Proust shouldn’t negate your ability to laugh like a loon after you’ve slipped off a mountain of dirt and fallen in the mud, if anything, it should compliment it.
And at the risk of becoming overly didactic - only the ignorant think that happiness is something complicated, involving lots of little pieces of learning and acquisition; the cognoscenti know better.
- finite (easily amused) jester
April 13th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
tehe