happyness (:

tkwek sincerely apologizes for the unexplained hiatus! 

i remember two years ago, on a hunting-drive in South Africa, our guide pointed to a male lion lazing in the grass with two lionesses by his side, basking in the midday sun. We sat there, in the second row of the open-top four-wheel drive, just gazing at them. "Happiness", our guide proclaimed; and indeed it was.

What is happiness?

Recently i've been thinking about this sweet emotion again. After all, i tell people to be happy, to keep a happy outlook on life, to think of every day as a happy day. And i always tell others that my default-mood is happy :D it's a good thing to have a happy default.

But then of course one can't be happy all the time. Often one feels depressed, helpless, anxious, frustrated, indignant, bitter, and these all can't be classified as happy. At these times, we sometimes think that perhaps sophocles got it right in his tragedies after all:

"All the generations of mortal man add up to nothing! 
Show me the man whose happiness was anything more than illusion,
Followed by disillusion."

Because we can't always pretend to be happy. We can't always pretend that the world's fine and everything goes our way. Because it doesn't. And happiness, however much we want of it, seems to be an unpredictable supply. 

Maybe happiness is something that we can't find; 
maybe it's something that finds us when we aren't looking, something that 
taps us on the shoulder like the laughter of a friend, 
rings a bell of joy amidst the storm.

Maybe happiness is overrated, after all, and the only one who can truly be happy is the one who doesn't try to :D

"And none can be called happy until that day when he carries
His happiness down to the grave in peace."